As a mystery writer, I spend a lot of my time planning fictional murders, murders that my protagonist, Homicide Detective John Santana––and my readers––have to solve. Unlike a mystery writer, I’m sure you don’t spend your time planning the perfect crime, though I’ll bet that many of you––at least at some point in your life have thought about it.

But imagine for a moment that you wanted to murder someone. And imagine that you lived in a state such as Florida that has a Stand Your Ground law, considered one of the most sweeping in the nation. The law legalizes the use of deadly force by anyone “who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be. The law adds that a person “has no duty to retreat, and has the right to stand his or her ground and 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 or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”

So far so good, you think. But it gets even better, because the Florida statute immunizes the person who uses deadly force from civil or criminal liability. Under the law, you could acquire a handgun or use one you already own, wait for an opportunity when there are no witnesses, cold-bloodedly murder someone, and then claim self-defense. Sounds more like fiction, you say. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

One doesn’t have to be a mystery writer to imagine George Zimmerman’s thought process before he murdered Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, black, teenager. Martin was talking on his cell phone with his girlfriend, when he was followed and confronted by Zimmerman, then fatally shot in the chest. Zimmerman knew, as everyone in Florida who has contemplated murder knew, that he could use the law to try and escape prosecution. Given the outrage, the supposition that this was a hate crime, and the mounting evidence against him, George Zimmerman may have figured wrong. One hopes so.

Thirty-one states now have some variation of the Florida Stand Your Ground law. While it’s unlikely that few on either side of the highly charged debate will be swayed by the killing of Trayvon Martin, it is likely that more innocent lives will be lost under the guise of “self-defense.” And that isn’t fiction.