‘Stand Your Ground’ laws on shaky turf
The Trayvon Martin murder case will boil down to one claim known by mothers everywhere. “He started it!” Every parent with more than one child has heard that cry. When their little one points his or her finger accusingly at a sibling, claiming to have been provoked into the tussle or name-calling, a wise parent responds with, “Well, why did you react?”
George Zimmerman will be asked if he instigated the altercation that led to him car.better understood for their shooting to death thePunimplications for a civil sorior to the spread of armed Trayvon, for which ciety. Since Florida became these new laws, people Zimmerman now faces the the first state to pass the were expected to back charge of second-degree Stand Your Ground law in down, to retreat, if posmurder. 2005, about 30 other states sible. Shoot First, Stand
The basis of Zimmerhave followed suit with Your Ground, Make My man’s defense is that, fearsome form of these laws. Day laws can make it legal ing for his life, he believed Most states have the Casto refuse to walk away. he was justified to shoot tle Doctrine, which allows More research is needand kill. people to use deadly force, ed into the effects of these
Zimmerman waived his without the expectation to laws. However, the eviright for a hearing to exculretreat, when threatened in dence available now should pate himself under Floritheir own home. trouble anyone who thinks da’s so-called “Stand Your What the Stand Your laws should make society Ground” law, although his Ground laws do is broadsafer, rather than promotlawyer has suggested that en the right to kill without ing violence. he may attempt to invoke retreating, even when it is One point is made rethe law if he is found guilty. possible, to other places, peatedly by David Hem
These laws need to be such as a workplace or a enway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center: “Firearms are used far more often to frighten and intimidate than they are used in selfdefense.”
People are confused about what constitutes self-defense. What many people term self-defense is really just the last act in an argument gone out of control, a situation that escalates until one or both parties reach for a gun.
In one study, verbatim accounts of people who claimed self-defense were
sent to criminal court judges for review. The majority of time, the judges felt the shootings, as described by the shooter, were not legal uses of self-defense. Most often, the cases were simply arguments that ended violently when one person used a gun. Many were avoidable.
The Harvard Center has ripped apart other studies that overestimate the number of instances in which people have justifiably used a gun in self-defense. Given a chance to paint themselves a victim/hero, shooters often do, no matter what the facts of their cases were. So when researchers try to estimate what proportion of shootings are cases of self-defense, it’s problematic, to say the least, to base their figures on the shooters’ self-reported motives.
Hemenway has also noted that in interviews, about half of convicted felons who used a gun in their crimes claim they did so in self-defense.
Many of these instances probably aren’t all that different from the type of knuck- leheaded justifications for murder that we regularly hear on the evening news: the endless stories of one teenager claiming someone “disrespected” them with a sneer, an ugly comment. So they just had to shoot the person dead.
People readily recognize the ludicrous nature of the claim that violence was necessary, that someone “had it coming to them.” Yet Stand Your Ground laws by definition turn this lack of self-control and inability to manage disagreement into a legal right to use lethal force. It’s sanctioned murder.
Depending on how one of these laws is crafted, it can even take away the ability of police to file charges, and prosecutors can face higher burdens of proof.
The question that needs to be answered is whether the proliferation of Stand Your Ground laws is influencing public behavior to the point of making us less safe.
If he was alive to answer, it would be good to get Trayvon Martin’s opinion. Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Contact her at msanchez@kcstar. com.