The stand you ground law as good and bad sides to it. Do I think he should have been charged? Well, I'm biased because I knew the victim. So there is no way I can separate myself from knowing him. All I know is that the man who told me of his run-ins with the law before I hired him was working on getting his life back together. And I never believed the statement about what he said. The Dennis I knew didn't speak like that. But then, that was at work. The interesting part of this is that my next-door neighbor knew the shooter from skydiving. And he wasn't surprised the guy shot.
I think your next-door neighbor was right in his assessment of Santori. His military background made it more likely that he would pull out a gun and open fire like he did. It's something that all cops who are ex-combat military personnel have to deal with before they can transition to the role of protector instead of punisher. That's what I alluded to earlier as being part of "the perfect storm." There were so many things that happened here and in today's society, we've even seen combat vets being let off on murder charges because of PTSD and Santori had that diagnosis in his background.
To stop things like this, we need to crack down on who will be able to carry weapons and when. In fact, there are those who believe nobody should carry them except law enforcement personnel and that massive prison sentences should be added to even having one in your possession if there's any kind of an altercation.
Your assessment of the law itself is exactly right. There is good and bad within the law. Good because now people don't have to fear being assaulted and potentially killed without being able to protect themselves. Then comes a situation like this one that tests that law and you ask yourself if the law is protecting killers.
As I looked at the pattern, or should I say random points of impact from all those shots taken, I can see a shooter who had lost control of his ability to comprehend what he was doing. He didn't just shoot in self-defense; he emptied his weapon in what could be considered a state of panic. No thought whatsoever of where those bullets were flying, just firing in panic.
I can relate to an incident I was involved in as a cop. I received a radio call to back one of our officers who had found an open back door at a strip mall pharmacy while doing his building checks. When I got there, I joined him outside the entryway, and we discussed how we'd enter the building to do an inspection. Since he was first on the scene and a senior officer to me, I did more listening than suggesting. It was his call. He was a combat vet, having spent over two-years in combat during the Korean War. He hadn't been promoted to Sergeant because he had some quirks that sometimes made it difficult for him to work with others, let alone supervise them in any capacity. When a 3rd unit was arriving, then a 4th, he told them to cover the front entrance in case someone tried to escape through those doors. Then we went in, him taking point. What happened inside that pharmacy after we got in could only be described as chaos as he emptied his revolver into an upright blood pressure machine that he thought was someone lurking in the shadows intent on killing us. Of the five-shots, only one actually hit the machine while the other four struck locations up to 4 ft. away from his intended target. Adrenalin had kicked in and he gave in to it and just fired his gun at something he perceived as a threat.
Immediately after it happened, he gained control of himself and acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Because of his actions, he ended up going through a psychological examination and two psychiatrists came to the same conclusion, he had been suffering from PTSD for over 20 years. He was put on leave from the force and never returned to the street again, being assigned to desk duty until he retired. Santori acted like that. A total lack of control when he was unloading that clip then acting like what he did immediately afterwards as totally within normal limits.
Sorry! Didn't mean to make this a long post but it ended up that way.