High Noon For Stand Your Ground

     Although the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman was a terrible tragedy, it has had one positive result: it has brought to the public’s attention the bizarre “Stand Your ground” laws that have been quietly slipped into law throughout the country. Despite your views on gun control and gun violence, you should think carefully about supporting this potentially catastrophic policy that brings back the days of the Wild West in our justice system.
     First of all, let me make it clear – I am not a gun owner and I have never supported the “right-to-carry” laws that many states have instituted. But this is America and I do support the rights of people to own firearms for their own protection and for recreational use. What I don’t support, however, is the right of gun owners to use their firearms on anyone they are frightened by with no accountability for their actions.

     Like many in my generation, I grew up watching Matt Dillon take down the bad guy in the streets of Dodge City. I cheered for John Wayne when he meted out frontier justice to some evil gunslinger. I, too, imagined myself standing up to a threatening criminal and protecting my family with some impressive gunplay. As a child, I owned toy guns and spent hours having my toy soldiers shoot each other in my recreated military campaigns. The gun, we were shown in endless movies and TV shows, was the “great equalizer,” a tool for ensuring justice in a time when there was no established law.

     But most of those westerns ended with the new sheriff coming to town and eventually, the lawman became the only one authorized to use deadly force to enforce the laws. Once the Marshall was appointed people settled their disputes in court rather than with showdowns in the street. The so-called “stand your ground” laws currently on the books today reverse this process and put gun fighting back as the method of choice for settling today’s disputes.

     How did this happen? Why have our state legislatures thrown caution out the window and allowed the gun lobby to take us back to a time when everyone is carrying and allowed to use their weapons on anyone they are afraid of? The story is, as you might expect, a tale of hardball lobbying, wishy-washy legislators and the efforts of the National Rifle Association to push gun ownership to its ludicrous  limits.

     The efforts of the NRA to get state laws changed to allow people to carry firearms in schools, church, bars and pretty much everywhere else has been going on for some time and has been amazingly successful. Playing on the image of the private individual using his gun to protect his family or prevent a crime, the NRA fed the fantasies of gun owners who saw themselves as heroes who were actually helping the police by augmenting their efforts. One by one, state legislatures caved into this dangerous idea: that people are safer when they, and everyone else they encounter, are carrying a firearm.

     Although fighting back with a gun seems like a no-brainer to gun owners, the idea that it makes you safer is definitely still under debate. Statistics have long shown that, if your firearm is ever used to shoot someone, it is far more likely to be a friend or family member than an actual criminal. Even for home protection, using your gun has far more hazards than benefits. Most gun owners fantasize about whipping out their firearm and bringing down the bad guy with a well-placed shot but using a firearm for home invasions has been far more problematic.

     The college where I work is also the home of a Police Academy and for years, their firearm training facility was located next to my office. They had a computer simulation device that placed an officer in a darkened room. Video was projected on a big screen and the officer had to determine whether various scenarios called for shooting or not. The officer’s gun was connected to a computer that measured whether the decision was correct, the response time and the accuracy of the shooting. It was a humbling experience and even well-trained police officers were often unable to make the right call, were slow to respond to the situation and often were wildly inaccurate when shooting under pressure situations. An untrained civilian who wakes up in the middle of the night hearing someone in their home is not likely to do any better. Wild gunshots can go through walls and ceilings and can place your family in greater danger than the intruder does. More children and teens died from gunfire in 2008 and 2009 — 5,750 — than the number of U.S. military personnel killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Your handgun could be more dangerous to you and your family than a criminal.....

     But home invasions are one area where the courts have granted wide latitude in gun use and the “home is a castle” doctrine has allowed defendants to use deadly force without consequence in a number of high-profile cases. But using your firearm in your own home is a whole different situation than in the streets and this where the “Stand Your Ground” laws go totally off the track.

     Backed by the National Rifle Association, first in Florida and then around the country, state legislators have quietly pushed for expanding the right to use deadly force.  NRA leaders convinced their friends in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to take up the cause. This shady organization is known as a filter for business-backed legislation that is preapproved by corporate lobbyists. Their model legislation was so successful that twenty-one states now have laws giving citizens wide latitude to use deadly force no matter where they are. If not for the Martin case, most Americans would be blissfully unaware of this subversion of the legal process. This is a dangerously misguided policy change that opens up the door for a shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to settling your disputes. It only takes a little common sense to see the problem.

     If you logically extend the carry-anywhere, stand your ground concept into the future, you can begin to see the problems. First, people are afraid of all kinds of things and groups. Being afraid that someone is going to attack you should not give you the right to unilaterally shoot them. What if both people are armed and angry at each other (which happens all the time)? Both people would be legally justified in shooting the other under this doctrine. Each one can argue that they feared for their life and were therefore allowed to use deadly force. If Trayvon Martin had had a firearm, he would have been legally justified in killing Robert Zimmerman, who was definitely a threat to his safety.

     Such incidents tie the hands of police. The amazing thing is that Zimmerman was never even arrested for his actions. Once Zimmerman claimed he was acting in self-defense, Police had no recourse but to let him go. As the survivor, his explanation was the only valid one and he was not even initially charged with a crime.

     Since passage of Florida’s law — the nation’s first — the rate of justifiable homicide has tripled, according to a 2010 report by the St. Petersburg Times. Their study showed that the law had been invoked at least 130 times statewide since 2005.  Law enforcement and prosecutors across Florida opposed the law for fear they couldn’t prosecute criminals. Indeed, in 93 cases involving 65 deaths in which the new law was a factor, 57 of them resulted in no charges or charges being dropped, the paper found in a review of cases. Seven other defendants were acquitted. Florida’s liberal gun laws, which allow most people except felons to buy guns, further set the stage for armed conflict. The results have not been encouraging….

     On June 5, 2006, not long after Florida enacted the first “Stand Your Ground” law in the US, unarmed Jason Rosenbloom was shot in the stomach and chest by his next-door neighbor after a shouting match over trash.
     Exactly what happened that day in Clearwater, Florida, is still open to dispute. Kenneth Allen, a retired police officer, said he shot Rosenbloom because he was trying to storm into his house.  Rosenbloom told Reuters in a telephone interview he never tried to enter the house and was in Allen’s yard, about 10 feet (3 meters) from his front door, when he was shot moments after he put his hands up.

     In 2007, Norman Borden became the first Palm Beach County defendant to beat murder charges under the law. In that case, Borden fired 14 shots at three men, killing two, who he said shouted threats at him and tried to run him over in a Jeep as he walked his four dogs.

     In 2010, a jury acquitted Timothy McTigue of murder charges in the 2007 shooting of Michael Palmer, who was unarmed. The strangers exchanged words and fought briefly before McTigue shot him in the head.

     Last year, a judge dismissed two first-degree murder charges against Michael Monahan, who shot Raymond Mohlman and Matthew Vittum to death during a dispute aboard a sailboat.

     Recently, a Florida judge threw out the second-degree murder case against a man who chased a burglar more than a block and stabbed him to death. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom cited "stand your ground," the Miami Herald reported.

     Thomas Baker, who in November 2010 went jogging shortly after midnight with his loaded pistol. He ran into unarmed, 18-year-old Carlos Mustelier on a jogging trail and ended up pumping several bullets into the man, who he said attacked him. The killing was ruled a justifiable homicide.

     Two months after Mustelier died, Barbara Standard's son, Scott Standard, was shot to death during an altercation with a neighbor even though he was not armed. The "stand your ground" defense applied, though, because the neighbor said he felt Standard -- who had thrown a rock at his truck and with whom he had a long rivalry -- was a threat.

     Two men argue whether a teenager should be allowed to skateboard in a Tampa park. The fight ends with one man shooting the other dead in front of his 8-year-old daughter.

     A 15-year-old died after two gangs brawled in Tallahassee, leaving no one accountable for his death.

     All of these incidents highlight the dangers of this dangerous legislation that has been slipped into state law under the radar of the public. The Stand Your Ground laws have resulted in vigilante-ism, with untrained and unqualified people using deadly force where we do not allow our law enforcement to do so, for crimes we do not punish. As Alcee Hastings, a Democratic congressman from Florida put it: "This misguided law does not make our streets safer, rather it turns our streets into a showdown at the OK Corral. But this is not the Wild West. We are supposed to be a civilized society. Let Trayvon's death not be for naught. Let us honor his life by righting this wrong."