FORWARD Editorial: … Florida was the first state to enact Stand Your Ground, in 2005, and from the beginning, law enforcement officials have been among its staunchest critics. Miami’s chief of police said it was unnecessary and dangerous. The head of the association representing prosecuting attorneys has called for its repeal. For good reason: A study commission by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that in states with Stand Your Ground laws, the number of homicides had significantly increased from the years before the law was enacted. As many feared, the law encourages the use of deadly force when there is, in fact, either no danger or less dangerous alternatives…
The important thing to remember here is that Stand Your Ground laws aren’t the result of grassroots activism sparked by an expanded desire for citizen self-defense. They are a national product pushed by allies of the gun lobby. And they have been approved by so many state legislatures because that lobby has figured out how to wield enormous power in Tallahassee and Austin and Harrisburg and Helena while no one else cared.
So ordinary citizens have to try much harder to outflank this growing power. It’s not sexy stuff. Anyone who has spent time in a state capitol knows that. But it’s no coincidence that on this issue, and countless others, the lack of scrutiny — exacerbated, we might add, by the unconscionable decision by too many news outlets to scale back their coverage of state lawmakers — has allowed clever, well-funded national lobbies to shape, if not dictate, consequential laws. And the embarrassingly low turnout in elections for state legislatures allows that power to grow unchecked… (more)
This is a red herring. “Stand Your Ground” laws had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what happened between Martin & Zimmerman or the O.J. Simpson case.
This is a manufactured issue designed to allow the gun control lobby to interject itself to further its own political agenda.