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A mentally disabled man killed at Taco Bell, a stabbing death over car radios, and more aftermath from the radical gun law now in 25 states.
| Mon Jun. 11, 2012 3:00 AM PDT
This story first appeared on the ProPublica website. For related coverage, see MoJo reporter Adam Weinstein's piece on how the NRA and ALEC pushed Stand Your Ground nationwide, and use this interactive map to track the gun law's rapid spread since 2005.
The Stand Your Ground law is most widely associated with the February 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old killed in Florida by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who claimed he was acting in self-defense.
But as a recent Tampa Bay Times investigation indicates, the Martin incident is far from the only example of the law's reach in Florida. The paper identified nearly 200 instances since 2005 where the state's Stand Your Ground law has played a factor in prosecutors' decisions, jury acquittals, or a judge's call to throw out the charges. (Not all the cases involved killings. Some involved assaults where the person didn't die.)
The Stand Your Ground law is most widely associated with the February 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old killed in Florida by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who claimed he was acting in self-defense.
But as a recent Tampa Bay Times investigation indicates, the Martin incident is far from the only example of the law's reach in Florida. The paper identified nearly 200 instances since 2005 where the state's Stand Your Ground law has played a factor in prosecutors' decisions, jury acquittals, or a judge's call to throw out the charges. (Not all the cases involved killings. Some involved assaults where the person didn't die.)
The law
removes a person's duty to retreat before using deadly force against
another in any place he has the legal right to be—so long as he
reasonably believed he or someone else faced imminent death or great
bodily harm. Among the Stand Your Ground cases identified by the paper,
defendants went free nearly 70 percent of the time. READ MORE
See How Quickly "Stand Your Ground" Spread Nationwide
2011 New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin join the list. Nationwide, between 2005 and 2010, justifiable homicides by civilians using firearms doubled in states with the laws, while falling or remaining about the same in states lacking them. READ MORE
See How Quickly "Stand Your Ground" Spread Nationwide
2011 New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin join the list. Nationwide, between 2005 and 2010, justifiable homicides by civilians using firearms doubled in states with the laws, while falling or remaining about the same in states lacking them. READ MORE
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