ENCOURAGES FLORIDA TO ADOPT A “STAND YOUR ELEMENT LAW” THAT WILL AUTHORIZE LETHAL FORCE IN EARTH, WIND, OR FIRE

No more peninsula and panhandle but the grip and the barrel.

The editorial board at Blood And Gutstein hereby acknowledges that the “Stand Your Ground Law” provides a far too narrow zone of safety for neighborhood watch captains patrolling the mean streets of gated communities in Florida. We therefore lobby the state to adopt a greatly broadening Stand Your Element Law, which would enable these same captains to shoot unarmed teenagers in tunnels, when aloft, or amidst conflagrations. This protection would extend to fiery religious ceremonies.

More people are digging in the soil these days, leading to scenarios in which neighborhood watch captains might have to patrol deep, deep in the Earth, and if these community watchdogs encountered teenagers wearing suspicious tunneling garments, they should feel empowered to “Stand [Your] Underground.” Of course, if anyone encountered a figure underground, wearing a hood-up, it could always turn out to be the Grim Reaper. The law, however, should still empower a neighborhood watch captain to discharge his weapon into Death.

Similarly, more and more people are bungee jumping and skydiving and engaging in rhythmic trampoline encounters, necessitating armed neighborhood watch volunteers to patrol the Wind. These same watch captains must patrol, by necessity, the increasing number of recreational blazes, including jamboree Fire, hootenanny Fire, and hee haw Fire, not to mention the ritual biblical sacrifice of he-bullocks, she-nannygoats, and gender-neutral muttons. If troubled in these Elements by the presence of an unarmed teenager wearing a hairshirt, the community watchdog member should feel licensed to “Stand [Your] Airspace” or “Stand [Your] Smoke”—because where there’s Smoke, there should be (gun)Fire.

In all seriousness, the editorial board recalls the gist of a passage from Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member, in which the “Monster”, aka Cody Scott, narrates some of his time in prison. Many “gunslingers” had been incarcerated with him, yet these inmates, who had depended upon firearms for their street toughness, did not fare so well behind bars, where fistfights were more the norm. We have to wonder just what one community watch volunteer was even doing with a firearm (especially in the placid confines of a gated community) and whether this volunteer would have disembarked his automobile in the first place if his only option (in a confrontation) was a fistfight.

We are remiss, of course, in not including Water among these Elements. A Floridian community watch volunteer (think Everglades) might encounter a unarmed teenager dressed as a crocodile, an alligator, a manatee, a feral hog, or a python—you know, clad in that kind of hoodie. In which case, Blood And Gutstein fully supports the “Stand Your Swamp” defense. Oh yeah.