Harpgirl, I direct your attention to an excerpt from the article:

The bill says the person 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.''

Note that the operative phrase is "if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary". The armed citizen operates on his/her belief, but it will be the prosecutor, the judge, and the jury who will decide, later, whether it was a reasonable belief or not. This law (if one trusts the article) does not give unfettered carte blanche to an armed citizen who, for whatever reason, may feel threatened in some manner.

Now, what the rule of law may be with respect to injury to third persons will have to be worked out, unless it's specified in the law, which I don't expect is the case. And that is a real fly in the ointment.

I should expect that, if one assumes that an actual threat is deemed (by the justice system) to have occurred, and if the degree of force applied by the armed citizen is deemed appropriate to the threat, then injuries (even including death) to bystanders would fall under the rules for civil claims by the third, injured party against (potentially) both the initial threatener and the reacting armed citizen.

Dave Oesterreich