You'll find FL is a far friendlier gun state than OR. As to you getting hassled by cops, that happens all over, I deplore it, wish it had not happened to you, and is completely irrelevant to the gun play you propose.

Your local cops might be very sympathetic to an event of theft and trespass and totally back you up in the circumstances you describe. But they might not. Again, it just is not worth risking your freedom and possibly life in this case.

You don't know if someone in that crowd is carrying as well. They might think they are picking from wild trees on abandoned land or public land. In my area, where the Feds, State, and local water mgmt. boards have bought up land, it is nt unheard of to see citrus on public lands. So in their mind, here comes some nut with a gun, and what are they going to do? Draw their gun in self defense?

Again, you'll have created a violent situation where none existed before you decided to be Dirty Harry.

Stand your ground does not apply in this case because no one has made a threat against you. It might apply if one of the trespassers you confronted started to come at you in a threatening manner. But if you've drawn a gun first, the jury may decide you started the confrontation so stand your ground doesn't apply.

But again, you are risking the loss of your freedom and life for what? If you shoot a trespasser in that situation and are absolutely justified in every way because one of them came at you with a believable threat, unless you kill all of them, people will remain who are not friendly to your side of the story. The jury will hear 5 or 10 people say one thing and you say another. You want to take the risk the law is going to save you from years in jail?

Ask George Zimmerman how that goes. Not to debate that case here, but for the sake of argument, say he did everything right. He still lost his freedom for a couple of years, lost his wife, lost his job, and he was the "winner" in that case. A few more wins like that, and he will live the rest of his life in jail and dead broke. Even if you don't give a rat's rear for the lives and families of those you shoot, look what you are risking for some apples and trespass.

BTW - in no way am I apologizing for the trespass and theft. I hope those people pay dearly. And if one of those people had threatened the family of the OP, then it is totally time to fire for effect. I'm pro gun, pro carry, pro shooting bad guys when legally justified. But anti creating big problems out of small problems.

I always thought Common Tator was the one who found 8 coffee cans full of gold under a tree. That was about the time she stopped posting, the gold was found around Saddle Ridge", she had posted a couple times about something "over the ridge"

Common Tator did email me back when this was all happening. I had thought that maybe I could offer some help with the situation from the other side of it having "distant" associations with those who run the camp. (And "distant" IS the operative word.) But I figured, hey, I know someone who knows someone who may know someone... I'll see...

I haven't heard from her since. If she's under some kind of court order not to talk about it, so be it. I was kinda surprised I didn't hear at least that if it's the case. Or maybe she sold the place and they moved on? I certainly hope that nothing has happened to her. She seemed like a nice enough lady, though pretty stressed out. (I would be, too.) Would still be good to hear she's ok if she is...

Back to the topic of OP (CT) and concern about her status. Back a year ago, I exchanged a few pms with her, mostly discussing general possibilities of buying forest service leased land as a BO/ prepping location. I'm 100% sure I've spotted her pick-ur-own apple operation on its Facebook page. It has current entries as of a couple of days ago. (An entry a year ago there discusses the theft that this thread originated with.) Why she isn't participating here at this point, I have no idea and see no reason to idly speculate about, but also don't see any reason to be concerned about her health and such, either.