Florida’s “stand your ground” law has come under wide controversy since the death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old black youth who was trailed and shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer who then claimed he fatally shot the teen in the chest in self-defense. The controversy is clearly just. The watch volunteer had been told by a 911 police dispatcher not to follow the youth. Had he heeded that directive, there would have been no encounter between the shooter and the victim he stalked.
Behind this needless, reckless shooting lies other, less obvious, factors that argue against both the “stand your ground law” and the way its been promoted by the National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council, more commonly known as ALEC.
The NRA’s aggressive gun-rights agenda meshes well with that of ALEC, a corporate-sponsored vehicle for extreme right-wing legislation. Because they appeal to the same legislative base, ALEC has apparently been happy to help the NRA promote passage of similar “stand your ground laws” in 23 other states, including Tennessee, since Florida adopted the law in 2005.
Their joint influence in passing these lethal laws in so many states is striking. It is further noteworthy because it is just one example of the broad and largely negative legislative agenda that ALEC and its corporate funders are successfully pushing through Republican-dominated state legislatures around the country against the broader public interest.
Tennessee’s 2007 “stand your ground” law is less extreme than Florida’s version in that it limits its shoot-to-kill right against unarmed people in a citizen’s residential property, dwelling and vehicle. Florida’s more wide-open law allows people who feel “threatened” to shoot-to-kill in most public spaces. Yet all these laws exclude a duty to retreat before using lethal force– the legal standard that had traditionally separated reasonable self-defense from outright murder.