"Stand your ground" absurdities

Florida's Stand Your Ground Law was not invoked in the defense case of George Zimmerman.   But it hung all over the courtroom, and indeed it really was part of the case in the sense that it is the ultimate codification of self-defense law.

And self-defense was what got Zimmerman acquitted of both second degree murder and manslaughter charges in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

Here's the crux of it.   Before SYG laws, which 30 states now have, self-defense could not be invoked as justification for killing if the person could have reasonably withdrawn from the threatening situation.   SYG laws essentially moved the goalpost to midfield.   If you feel your life threatened -- even in a public place where you could withdraw, i.e. get out of danger -- you have the right to use lethal force.

That's what George Zimmerman did.  Let's extend the letter of the law to its extreme to see it's absurdity.  Let's say a paranoid zealot who wants to rid society of black people decides to go into a black neighborhood at midnight, where he encounters a group of young black men hanging out on the street, drinking and raging against "whitey."   In walks our zealot, yelling about N--gers.   The guys turn on him menacingly, brandishing clubs and chains.  He pulls his gun and opens fire, killing three of them before he can be subdued.    Under the SYG laws, he could be acquitted.    Even though he deliberately went into a hostile situation in order to provoke a fight;  even though he was armed and they were not.   Is this any different, except in degree, from what happened in the Zimmerman case?

Ralph