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Before the killing of Trayvon Martin by neighborhood stalk-negroes-man George Zimmerman, most people had never even heard of “stand your ground” laws. Yet, they had been on the books in Florida for nearly seven years at the time Trayvon was killed for minding his own business while being Black.
Now, if you think that since that tragic day in 2012—when a Black teen was killed senselessly by the monster-slash-craven coward who got away with it—America grew a conscience, realized the harm these laws have the potential to create and decided a sweeping policy change was in order, then you just don’t know America.
STL laws didn’t decrease after Trayvon’s death, they increased to the point where they’re now the law in more than half the country.
From CBS 17:
Now, upwards of 30 states have some form of the law and recent research indicates they are associated with more deaths — as many as 700 additional firearm killings each year, according to a study published this week in the journal JAMA Network Open.
The study found a national increase of up to 11% in homicide rates per month between 1999 and 2017 in those states with stand your ground laws. The largest increases, between 16% and 33%, were in southern states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, the study found.
“These findings suggest that adoption of (stand your ground) laws across the U.S. was associated with increases in violent deaths, deaths that could potentially have been avoided,” the study’s authors concluded.
Of course, gun-humpers and MAGA mutts will argue that STG laws are crime deterrents and they’d probably attribute the extra 700 killings a year to thugs getting what’s coming to them, but Black people who have experienced the racial profiling and implicit bias of law enforcement and white people who are deathly allergic to minding their own business know these laws are set up to work only for the citizens cops are more likely to side with after a violent altercation. I mean, how do you think a young Black man would fare if he tried to claim “stand your ground” after he got into a scuffle with another Black man who he pulled a gun on and shot dead? If a Black person shot a white person and tried to invoke STG, how much harder do you expect they’d have to work to prove self-defense than if it were the reverse?
Also, while Florida is now just another state among more than two dozen that have adopted STG laws, it’s still one of few states that the “duty to retreat” part of the law that requires a person to avoid the use of deadly force by first evading the danger. So basically, a person, even one who was the clear aggressor in an altercation, can potentially get away with nearly any dispute that ended in a shooting so long as they claim it was self-defense. (Again, who would laws that allow that more likely benefit? Hint: It ain’t us, fam.)
“Laws like stand your ground, or shoot first laws, give people like Jordan’s killer, my son’s killer, the idea that you can shoot first and ask questions later,” said Rep. Lucy McBath, who got into politics after her son, Jordan Davis, was gunned down at a Jacksonville, Florida, gas station because deranged and racist AF white man Michael Dunn got upset over Davis’ loud music. (He tried to use STG in his defense but was convicted anyway because—ain’t no way, bro.)
“Stand your ground laws provide safe harbors for criminals and prevent prosecutors from bringing cases against those who claim self-defense after unnecessarily killing or injuring others,” said David LaBahn, president and CEO of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, said in his testimony to Congress in opposition of STG laws, according to CBS.
“Stand Your Ground” Laws Have Spread Over Most Of The Country After Killing Of Trayvon Martin was originally published on hiphopwired.com
