Florida's "Stand Your Ground" Law Irrelevant to Trayvon Martin Case

This is one of the points made by Mona Charen in her excellent column, If Obama Had a Son:

We are now engaged in another fruitless shouting match about whether young black men are being hunted on the streets of America and whether "stand your ground" laws are dangerous. But as the estimable Ann Coulter has pointed out, Florida's "stand your ground" law was irrelevant to the Martin case. Whichever version of events that night you believe: A) that Zimmerman followed and shot Martin in cold blood; or B) that Zimmerman shot Martin in the midst of a fight; the law, which does not require a person who fears for his life to retreat before using deadly force, is not implicated.

Here is what the laws says:

It establishes that law-abiding residents and visitors may legally presume the threat of bodily harm or death from anyone who breaks into a residence or occupied vehicle and may use defensive force, including deadly force, against the intruder.

In any other place where a person “has a right to be,” that person has “no duty to retreat” if attacked and may “meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”

In either case, a person using any force permitted by the law is immune from criminal prosecution or civil action and cannot be arrested unless a law enforcement agency determines there is probable cause that the force used was unlawful.

If a civil action is brought and the court finds the defendant to be immune based on the parameters of the law, the defendant will be awarded all costs of defense.

On scenario (A), the law does not apply because Zimmerman on that scenario is not defending himself.  On scenario (B), the law does not apply because Zimmerman is not able to retreat.  (Charen does not make this clear, but this was basically Coulter's point.)  If someone is on top of you pounding you then you don't have the option to either retreat or not retreat.

But of course much depends on what exactly happened.  In any case, the law is eminently reasonable whether or not it applies to the Trayvon Martin case.

And note the law is not a gun law despite what lying liberals will tell you.  You can stand your ground with your fists, a baseball bat, a knife, a can of Easy-Off oven cleaner . . . .