So, `stand your ground` only kicks in when the purported assailant is shot dead? Words fail.
If you believe you're safe enough to have time for a 'warning shot,' then shooting at all is wrong. If you shoot in self-defense, you must shoot to stop a threat, and shooting must be a proportionate response to that threat.
The implementation seems a little weird, when you're sentencing guys for warning shots and not for questionable self-defense shootings in which the attacker dies, but it's grounded in sensible reasoning.
"Firing a gun constitutes lethal force. Even brandishing a gun might constitute lethal force. Lethal force is only acceptable to prevent death or grievous bodily harm. ... If you shoot in self-defense, you must shoot to stop a threat, and shooting must be a proportionate response to that threat."
Legally and practically (if you're an armed member of a foreign army, you're far more likely to encounter armed opposition than some random guy in Nowheresville, UT), things are very different in a war zone. This is why threats of deadly force are often acceptable in a war zone, but unacceptable in times of peace.
The other way of stating this is that you made a direct threat to kill them if they didn't do what you wanted.
Outside of a warzone, making such threats is usually illegal.
As a result, you should shoot to kill, not to warn, whatever the situation is. It's completely bonkers and it ignores that warning shots are a separate and higher-impact deterrent than many other options (especially for "lightweight" such as most women), but that's the general case law. IIRC there was some hubbub in FL about "fixing" this (aka making warning shots non-felonious in a self-defence situation) but I don't know if that passed. And that's just for FL anyway.
Also, if you mean to draw a comparison to the Trayvon Martin case, "stand your ground" wasn't relevant to that case.
She was released after an appeal granted her a new trial. The trial judge didn't instruct the jury correctly about her self defense argument.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-11-28/news/sns-rt-us...
There's the quality of the laws, but then also the quality of the judges and the quality of the defense attorneys... there are many points of failure for a justice system.
An alternative way of looking at it: there are many safeguards.
EDIT:
Which is to say, the bar is usually something like reasonable belief that your life or the life of someone present is in imminent danger.
There's also the infamous case of the FL woman who initially received a 20 year sentence for firing warning shots at her estranged husband. She won a new trial on appeal, so we'll see how that turns out.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/10/22255312-florida-...
It's definitely unfortunate that it works out like that, but using a firearm in any sort of aggressive manner is deadly force legally, and you better be well and sure you're justified in doing so or you're going to be in a world of hurt with your local prosecutor.
I'm losing any desire to go to USA. Not just working, even visiting. Even if the chances of events such as this happening are relatively low (?), why risk it? I do not like idea of being raped by police and doctors and getting the bill [1].
I'm just wondering how can this be real. Where's the punchline?
[1]: http://www.conservativeactionalerts.com/2013/11/police-abuse...