THIS WEEKWEAK IN POLITICS
no florida tourist should leave home without one
1. Florida passes "Stand Your Ground Bill" which allows people to shoot people, in public, on the grounds of self-defense (source: Miami Herald). First of all, I didn't realize it wasn't ok to defend yourself if someone's trying to kill you - whether publically or privately. However, the more you read into this law and its origins, you seriously wonder how paranoid Floridians must be.
For one thing, as the state's own statistics bureau shows, violent crime with firearms has dropped dramatically over the last eight years. One wonders who Floridians have to start packing to defend themselves against (unless it's one another). Has there been a rash of people getting attacked in broad daylight and people failing to defend themselves out of fear for breaking the law?
The idea that this bill is meant to deter crime seems rather naive but then again, if the state starts creating hundreds of Bernard Goetzes, maybe muggers will hightail it to Georgia or something. The problem is that you have to expect that there's going to be a lot of accidental deaths arising from this - if the only justification you need to put a hollow tip through someone's skull is that you feel threatened, I have visions of many black and brown bodies starting to litter Florida's streets.
Why not just legalize preemptive shootings? If you think someone might intend you harm, just shoot 'em first. Works for President Bush, right? Why not Jeb Bush's state too?
2. I'm not crying out "conservative media conspiracy" or anything, but how is it that a prominent GOP leader ODs on a cocaine/oxytocin speedball at Carrie Fisher's crib and barely anyone makes a peep about it? More to the point, I know Fisher's had a history of substance abuse but who knew her parties were so raging? Can she invite Karl Rove over next time? Or even just Rush Limbaugh - we already know how he's got a taste for oxy.
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