Brian Austin on ALEC in Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground

"The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away."
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Our neighbor from down the street had a dog that loved to run wild through the neighbors' yards, right as the kids are getting ready for school and the parents are getting ready for work.

It is no great surprise that the young man running with his younger brother to corral the dog often ended up in the backyards of neighbors. I told the kid to feel free to use our fenced-in yard, the next time his dog did what dogs do: Run.

Prior to that, what were our understanding neighbors and we to do? Shoot the young man for trespassing into our "castles?" Our neighbors watch out for each other.

We don't presume our neighbors are hostile until we know otherwise; its called a neighborhood, even a community.

Brian Austin of Cops for Labor has a superb piece on the idiocy of the Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground Laws, "promoted with such enthusiasm by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)."

Austin's piece is the best I've read on the topic so far.