Stay calm in Florida.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It's time for Florida to scrap its namby-pamby nickname and put criminal scum everywhere on notice: So long to the "Sunshine State." Welcome to the "Make My Day State."

Just to be safe, police probably also ought to post signs warning panhandlers, substance abusers and any mentally ill residents given to angry outbursts that a new state law gives Floridians the right to use deadly force against anyone when they fear for their lives outside their homes, in their cars or businesses, or on the street.

Back off, squeegee man. This ain't no foolin' around. The new Florida law, the first of its kind in the nation, expands the "castle doctrine" - one's home is one's castle - to include one's car and one's body. It extends the right to "stand your ground" and defend your castle to virtually any location where you might experience reasonable fear that a person's aggressive actions could lead to your injury or death.

Just to make sure armed citizens wouldn't hesitate before dispatching a threat, Florida legislators wrote into the law an automatic presumption that anyone who forcibly and illegally enters a home, a car or a boat is intent on threatening the lives of the people within. That presumption can't be countered with contrary evidence. Lawmakers also removed the earlier requirement that citizens first seek a safe retreat from the threatening situation before resorting to deadly force.

This law would allow an armed citizen to shoot to death an aggressive drunken student who yanked open the citizen's car door in the parking lot at a high school football game. If the citizen can prove that he feared imminent injury, the shooting is not only legal, it's protected from civil lawsuits, as well.

Naturally, the National Rifle Association's fingerprints are all over the Florida legislation. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told The Washington Post that the Florida law is the "first step of a multistate strategy" that he hopes can capitalize on a political climate dominated by conservative opponents of gun control at the state and national levels.

Florida lawmakers certainly gave their friends in the NRA an impressive jump start for a national campaign. The Florida law, which goes into effect Oct. 1, passed unanimously in the state Senate and 94 to 20 in the House. "It's common sense to allow people to defend themselves," Republican Gov. Jeb Bush said when he signed the law last week.

Common sense self-defense is one thing, but Florida's "stand your ground" law has the potential to dramatically change the legal and moral dynamics of self-defense.

The real tragedy with such bloodthirsty legislation is that it is based on the premise that human life is ultimately worth less than property or peace of mind. To create legal and moral absolution for killing, the law presumes the perpetrators "deserve what they get." But what they get is the death penalty for certain property crimes or aggressive behavior in which the actual threat to life and limb is known only by the executioner.