26 thoughts on ““Stand Your Ground Laws””

  1. You’re assuming that it isn’t intentional. “Never let a crisis go to waste”, remember? What you’re seeing is the first step towards an attack on SYG from the federal level, as a ‘violation of civil rights’.

  3. I think the Zimmerman/Martin aftermath is providing a perfect opportunity to discuss Stand Your Ground laws.

    Brietbart has been keeping a running list of incidents of pro-Trayvon lawlessness and violence, and this incident illustrates why we need such laws.

    A man who says he was jogging alongside of a road when three black men abducted and beat him claims the alleged attack was in retaliation for George Zimmerman’s acquittal, police in Senatobia, Miss. told Fox News.

    Police Chief Steve Holts told Fox News the alleged victim, who is white, was jogging Sunday night along Highway 51 when, he said, the suspects pulled over and ordered him to get inside their car.

    “One of them asked, ‘Do you know who Trayvon Martin was?’” Holts quoted the man as saying. At that point, the men in the vehicle allegedly attacked him. The man, who the chief described as a young resident of the area, was treated at a local hospital.

    Memphis television station WREG reported the assailants allegedly told the victim, “This is for Trayvon.” The television station and The Democrat newspaper reported the jogger was badly beaten and later dropped off on a road between Senatobia and Coldwater, Miss.

    Holts declined to release any other information but said officers are searching for three black males in a white, four-door vehicle.

    “We want to find out why this happened,” the chief said, while also cautioning local residents to “be safe.”

    An already tired jogger is probably not going to be able to outrun three rested, angry black males, and they’d probably just run him down in their white four-door vehicle anyway. But with a gun he can stand them down, back them off, or shoot them, saving himself a severe beating along with a potentially fatal abduction.

    It was for situations somewhat like these that we passed such laws (and frankly, requiring a nurse to run away just means she gets tackled from behind). Perhaps the best response in this situation would’ve been “Why yes, I do know about Trayvon Martin. Do you know about my friends Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson?”

    Either way, all the race-baiters have managed is a severe escalation of both racial tensions and outright violence, and it will be a miracle if people don’t end up murdered because of it.

    1. Either way, all the race-baiters have managed is a severe escalation of both racial tensions and outright violence, and it will be a miracle if people don’t end up murdered because of it.

      That’s klnd of the point, isn’t it? First the left create a problem, then they turn up offering to ‘solve’ it.

      1. …but they NEVER explain how DISARMING us helps protect us from people like that.

        I am a daily carrier, with a CCH, I don’t go to my mailbox, WITHOUT my pistol on my belt. The only reason I started carrying, was that I got too old, disabled, and weak to fight for protection. I’ve never pulled it, but I have ‘uncovered’ it 3 times since I started carrying. I had to show it just two weeks ago, in broad daylight, on a Tuesday afternoon, in a grocery store parking lot, when I pushed my cat into the cart rack.

        3 AA ‘youts’, started talking a bunch of BS to me, started to surround me…so I pulled my shirt up over, then tucked behind my holster. Now here’s the bad part, THEY called the police on me, and I got stopped on the way home!

        I was ‘warned’ about brandishing, and I let the Deputy have his say, and I had decided to just agree, nod and go home to MY county, UNTIL he named two of the AA ‘youts’ by their first names, Thomas and Jamal.

        I let him hold it then about him believing these non-working, trouble making clowns, who had been asked to leave the grocery store, after they spent 30 minutes hanging out, causing trouble and [I’m certain] stealing 4 beers and a bag of chips.

        He let me go, after I dared him to arrest ME, based on the complaint from THEM. He told me to be ‘more careful’ in the future, so I told him THAT’S exactly why I carry a gun. So I can get home, carefully, and intact.

        Now I have zero idea if they had the dreaded ‘Trayvon Mental Disorder’, this was before the verdict came out. But they must have been given the idea that they’d be exonerated along the way to court, IF I got arrested. So Trayvon aside, it’s the general attitude, that a guy with even a legal gun is ‘the bad guy’.

        As I said before, this is NOT what the Founding Fathers envisioned, nor is it the country I took an oath to defend.

        1. It’s funny that I’ve never had any gang banger troubles here in AZ where no permit is required. In NY it was a daily problem just to go shopping or get home from work. I hope you never have to use your weapon and certainly never have to go through what Zimmerman and family still has to.

          Why isn’t what the dear reverend Sharpton doing a hate crime? Or incitement to violence?

          1. Ken,
            I have prayed, that I never have to even pull my gun, but I made the decision before I took the class and applied for my CCH, that I WOULD defend myself, and anyone around me.

            Here in NC, the Republican Legislature just reaffirmed and strengthened our ‘SYG’ Law. We also moved OUT of a county full of ‘yankee liberal newcomers’, to a rural county. The difference in the attitude of the populace and the LEO’s is mind boggling. The old county and the new, share a border, but they’re light years apart, politically and for people being friendly, helpful and NOT pushy.

            Unlike when we lived in the ‘student ghetto’ near NCSU, I’ve never been ‘REQUIRED’ to explain to a 20something, WHY I feel the need for guns.

  4. I think this is intentional conflation to convince LIV to give up their right to self defense. Once we give that up, we will be more than willing to accept the police state that’s already being built.

  5. Bringing up racist white people that want to return to the days of slavery is also a non sequitur, same with profiling, and how cops hate black people but those are things Holder and company have been talking about in relation to Zimmerman.

    1. how cops hate black people but those are things Holder and company have been talking about

      I noticed that too in his opening remarks. He talked about being pulled over for speeding when he knew he wasn’t speeding only to have his car searched. I’ve been pulled over for speeding when I wasn’t, but the cop was really mad because I nearly rear ended him when he pulled out into traffic with emergency lights and without looking. I ended up with a ticket for failure to signal lane change when I avoided his stupidity.

      We all have stories because even police are human and make mistakes. When its egregious, such as being held in contempt of Congress, officers of the law should face a judge and explain their actions in court. But I don’t see Eric Holder really wanting to uphold standards and the law.

      1. Sounds like you could have used a dashboard camera.

        “Officer, would you like to see the video of the incident?”

      2. Ya, the part were he said he wished he was the last generation that would have to explain to his kids how to act when interacting with cops, well, everyone needs to teach their kids that.

        A negative interaction with the police doesn’t have to have anything to do with race and a world without racism would still see cops behaving badly.

  6. …and y’all thought the zombie Apocalypse wasn’t real. I don’t own a weapon other than my Jimmy and hope I never have to. But I will keep tab on society so I don’t get caught short.

    1. Uh, Ken, if you don’t already own ‘A’ or ‘some’ projectile spitting weapons, it’s almost too late today. Actually, you can STILL buy a gun, but ammo, now that’s a WHOLE differn’t am-you-nal.

  7. Hasn’t the Zimmerman-is-guilty crowd been defending Trayvon’s resort to fisticuffs on “stand your ground” principles? I’m not joking. Force in self-defense doesn’t have to involve weapons. Trayvon could have run home before Z had even re-spotted him – he did have a big head start.

    1. Yes, I’ve seen that (even here!)

      What a bunch of liberals don’t seem to understand is that just because one person can rightly claim self-defense doesn’t mean the other person’s actions must’ve been criminal. In fact, sometimes both parties can rightly claim self-defense. The law even allows for accidental homicide, aka homicide through misadventure, such as when two people try to surround an imaginary burglar in the dark and end up shooting at each other.

  8. I do wonder if we will here Gerrib explain to us how Eric Holder is wrong to go after “Stand your ground” laws? If such laws were repealed, then you may not get away with “rush[ing] a gun”.

  9. The reality is that so-called “stand your ground” laws disproportionately benefit African-Americans, but that doesn’t matter — only the Cathedral’s dialectic matters. Amen.

    1. “The reality is that so-called “stand your ground” laws disproportionately benefit African-Americans,…”

      In what ways?

      2. “In what ways?”

        He’s probably talking about this article:

        http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/16/blacks-benefit-from-florida-stand-your-ground-law-at-disproportionate-rate/

        which says

        “African Americans used “Stand Your Ground” defenses at nearly twice the rate of their presence in the Florida population, which was listed at 16.6 percent in 2012.”

        And that defense was successful in a higher percentage of cases than with white defendants, even when the victim was white.

        1. That article just points out what I posited at the same time you posted it: black-on-black violence is more prevalent than white-on-black violence, thus a disproportionate number of blacks use SYG as a defense in court, because more blacks kill blacks than whites kill blacks. Pretty simple, really…

    2. SYG came up on the local news the other day. Their interviewee? A former State legislator who was helping organize protests (oops, I’m sorry, Civic Engagement) at the capital earlier in the day. That legislator was crediting himself with stopping the last push for SYG laws in Iowa because he introduced, and got passed, the nation’s first “Minority Impact Statement” legislation back in 2008. SYG legislation was introduced in 2012, but never made it out of committee, and thus no Minority Impact Statement exists for it.

      So, that said, I still have yet to get a satisfactory answer on how SYG creates more negative impacts on minorities than on non-minorites, or, as Thales claims, creates more benefits for minorities than non-minorities.

      If the negative impact to minorities is that a larger percentage of minorities end up dying during the commission of a felony, then, well, stop committing felonies! If the negative impact is that “minorities cannot afford weapons to defend themselves, therefore non-minorities should not be allowed to use weapons to defend themselves, either”, well, I shouldn’t have to point out how far the social-engineering rabbit-hole that one leads…

      So, what is the disproportionate impact, positive OR negative? I just don’t get it…

    3. OK, what I need to know is why are neo-conservative commentators (cough, Mr. Krauthammer, cough) laying so much disrespect on Mr. Zimmerman (“zealous” “agitated” “confused confrontation”), even though they “support” the jury verdict?

      The Defense theory and Mr. Zimmerman’s account is that he 1) observed Mr. Martin and then lost sight of him, 2) he did not “follow” Mr. Martin when a police dispatcher suggested, suggested that “you don’t need to do that”, 3) he was on the phone to the police, standing outside his vehicle, trying to read a street name in response to a query from the dispatcher, and 4) at that time, he was verbally challenged by Mr. Martin “Do you have some kind of problem” to which Mr. Zimmerman simplied replied “no”, and 5) Mr. Martin said “You do now” in the instant before punching Mr. Zimmerman square in the face, breaking his nose and knocking Mr. Zimmerman to the ground, at which time Mr. Martin stood or kneeled astride Mr. Zimmerman on his back and continued assaulting Mr. Zimmerman with his hands or fists.

      Furthermore Mr. Zimmerman’s account is that he yelled “help me, help me” to recruit help from bystanders that never came (such as to break Mr. Martin off him, for which I suppose a lecture will be delivered that a bystander should never do such a thing that would have left Mr. Martin alive), that Mr. Zimmerman withstood this battering until such time Mr. Martin saw Mr. Zimmerman’s gun, telling Mr. Zimmerman “you are going to die”, at which time Mr. Zimmerman reached for his gun and shot Mr. Martin, once at point-blank range.

      I am repeating something everyone here knows as factual — namely that is Mr. Zimmerman’s account. No, Mr. Zimmerman did not “take the stand”, but his videotaped statements to police were presented by the prosecution in court. This is the Defense theory, this is Mr. Zimmerman’s own account, this is the version of events that a Harvard STEM honors grad lectured me that I would “have egg on my face” for believing as I get all my news from “right wing” sites.

      The thing is, either Mr. Zimmerman is/was being truthful, and not only is he innocent, he is not meritorious of any of the “disrespect” because he never disobeyed any lawful police order or even disobeyed a mild suggestion from the police operator/dispatcher. Never.

      With respect to Mr. Zimmerman being “robo neighborhood watch” for being armed, remember that he was armed because a neighbor kept a dangerous dog. In response to break-ins in the complex. Where the police had counseled Mr. Zimmerman that a sidearm was the only protection if the dog got loose. Where Mr. Zimmerman fired his gun only once and only as a last resort when his assailant grabbed for it, where a police officer would have shot the assailant multiple times a long time prior in the same situation according to training.

      So either all of those things are true, and Mr. Zimmerman deserves none of the hand-wringing qualifiers from many of our supposed allies. Or Mr. Zimmerman is lying. And if he is lying, all bets are off with respect to what really happened, and his prosecution was amply justified.

      The thing is that a jury found no evidence that he was lying (reasonable doubt falling to him being truthful) and no evidence contradicting Mr. Zimmerman’s claims.

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