'Stand your ground' laws: Do they put teens in greater danger?

Ron Davis, the father of Jordan Davis, is embraced as he arrives at the funeral home for the visitation and a memorial service for his son Jordan on Wednesday in Jacksonville, Fla.

Bob Self/The Florida Times-Union/AP

Ron Davis, the father of Jordan Davis, is embraced
as he arrives at the funeral home for the visitation and
a memorial service for his son Jordan on Wednesday
in Jacksonville, Fla.

Bob Self/The Florida Times-Union/AP

Three shooting deaths in the past week raise questions about whether prank-prone and reckless teens are particularly vulnerable under states' 'castle doctrine' and 'stand your ground' laws.

By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / November 29, 2012 

Atlanta

Recent events are raising questions about whether "stand your ground" and "castle doctrine" laws – which offer legal protection to people who hurt or kill someone in self-defense – could disproportionately harm teenagers.

During the past week, three teenagers in states with such laws were shot to death for doing things that, critics of the laws say, teenagers regularly get caught doing.

In Florida, unarmed 17-year-old Jordan Davis was allegedly shot and killed by 40-something Michael Dunn after an argument about a loud car stereo outside a convenience store.

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And in Minnesota, retired State Department employee Byron David Smith allegedly wounded and then killed two teenagers, Haile Kifer and Nicholas Brady, who broke into his house on Thanksgiving, apparently on a hunt for prescription drugs.

This week also saw three teen boys charged with murder in Alabama after their friend, Summer Moody, was shot in April. When a man caught the four breaking into fishing cottages in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, he allegedly fired a warning shot that killed Summer in what a district attorney called a "tragic accident." On Wednesday, a grand jury indicted the three boys, not the man who shot Summer.

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SYG laws will eventually,  if left to their own devises,  make us effectively our own jailers,  afraid to even walk the streets for fear of one another.  This intolerable situation will lead us to beg our authorities to take absolute power,  to remove guns from our society,  as the only way we can survive as a nation.  How ironic is it that the 2nd Amendment is leading us back into dictatorship?

Sign the anti SYG petition here;   and spread the word so that others can do so as well.  Sure it's not going to overturn the laws that many states have already passed,  but it will make the showing needed to empower others to move on this important matter.  Thanks for all that you do.

White house petition to overturn Stand Your Ground Laws