Florida passed the "Stand Your Ground Law" a few years back which in essence means you do not have to run or take flight when you or someone else is threatend with serious bodily harm or death and you have the right to protect youself or them.
The Florida law is a self-defense, self-protection law. It has four key components:
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.
I have seen it in action on several occasions locally and each and every time, the State Attorney's Office has followed the letter of the law and not charged the defending individual.
Too bad we, living in a "Free Country", even have to have such a law to fall back on when defending our own lives or our loved ones lives.
Just my 2 cents.......