The Stand Your Ground Laws are becoming a hot topic in today’s news. Headlines are flooded with stories about cases around the country. These laws surround everyone from your everyday citizens to prominent sports figures and entertainers. The Stand Your Ground laws provide individuals with certain rights to protect themselves in events where they may feel threatened. It is also known as the Castle Rule, most of the United States have adopted some form of this law to protect its’ residents who may feel the need to use self-defense in situations where they may feel threatened. These laws spread quickly around the country since Florida passed the first laws in 2005. The law in most states would suggest that a person attempt to retreat rather than stand their ground. If there is no way to retreat then the law gives you the right to stand your ground, or does it?
The views across the country vary amongst Americans. Depending upon whom you ask you are liable to get a very different answer. In the case of Michael Zimmerman, a Hispanic and white male in South Florida who shot and killed a seven-teen year old black male who was walking home one night from hanging out with friends. The confrontation took place in an upscale community where Mr. Zimmerman lived. Reports state that 911 was called and Mr. Zimmerman was asked not to follow the teen. Over a period of four minutes the two individuals had the opportunity to retreat. The teen could have continued his journey home and Mr. Zimmerman could have returned to his home as well. Neither of the two chose to retreat and during the encounter a fight had commenced. In fear of his life Mr. Zimmerman shot and killed seventeen year old Treyvon Martin. Mr. Zimmerman was later found...
... middle of paper ...
...an however keep myself educated on the usage of weapons as well as the laws that regulate the usage in hopes that if ever put into a situation where I had to use a weapon to stand my ground that I would not have to not use it out of fear of the outcome.
Works Cited
Florida Times Union http://members.jacksonville.com/news/crime/2014-03-
01/story/marissa-alexander-sentence-could-triple-warning-shot-case L. Hannan
Web 2 March 2014
Jealous, Benjamin. “Should “Stand Your Ground” Laws Be Repealed?.” US News Digital Weekly May 30, 2013: 16.
Web 9 March 2014
Scanlan, Dan. “Baptist pastors demand governor ’repeal or repair’ Florida’s Stand Your Ground self-defense law.” Florida Times Union, The (Jacksonville, Florida) 5 March 2014
Web 9 March 2014
Jonsson Patrik. “Race and ‘stand your ground.” Christian Science Monitor 12 August 2013
Web 9 March 2014
On the night of February 26, 2012 “George Zimmerman who was the coordinator for his Sanford neighborhood watch association is charged with second-degree murder in the death of a young boy. Trayvon Martin, an unarmed high school student from Miami, Florida. (Alvarez) The case began in a small city of Sanford as a routine homicide but soon evolved into a civil rights case, examining racial profiling. On the night of the attack Zimmerman was told not to get out of his car when he was following Trayvon. He described Trayvon as a “guy who looks up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something” Trayvon had his back to Zimmerman the whole time he was on the phone with the Dispatcher, from what the conversation was saying. When the dispatcher asked Zimmerman “is the guy white, black, or Hispanic? “Zimmerman says that he “looks” black, Zimmerman still has yet to see if Trayvon was black, white, or even Hispanic because Trayvon was walking the other direction. Later on in the conversation is when Zimmerman said “now he’s just staring at me”. That would have been the right time to mention the race of Trayvon. As the dispatcher was asking mo...
... Till, Evers, King and Martin all seem to be cases of stereotyping and racial profiling. These cases make it seem as if justice was not served and that the wrong verdict was rendered initially. That is the same situation with the Zimmerman vs. Martin case. . Hopefully justice will prevail, in time, just as in the cases cited and George Zimmerman will be placed behind bars for a long time; the place where he belongs. If history repeats itself, a wrong verdict will be overturned.
Individuals’ right to keep and bear arms in self-defense should be further restricted. For example, George Zimmermann – neighborhood watch citizen responsible for the teenager Treyvon Martin’s death
My mother had always maintained that he was initially arrested due to racial profiling, as there was no sufficient evidence to warrant the police to search his car. Despite this information being told to me as a child, I remained blind to the effects that such a system of injustice could have on your economic status, mental health, etc. However, I believe that the outcome of the Zimmerman trial opened my eyes to this effect. I believe that Trayvon Martin's family most likely received the same financial and emotional stress due to the racial injustice associated with their experience. However, they had lost their son.
Richman, Sheldon. "The Seen and Unseen in Gun Control." The Freeman 1 Oct 1998: 610-611
Doeden, Matt. Gun Control: Preventing Violence or Crushing Constitutional Rights? Minneapolis: Lerner, 2012. 7- 61-63. Print.
Zimmerman was asked by a dispatcher to stop pursuing Treyvon Martin. The “Stand Your Ground”
Missouri and Florida’s New Laws Constitutional? Missouri Law Review, Spring2012, Vol. 77 Issue 2, p567-589. 23p. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=aef9f6f7-734d-4a6c-adae-2b97736ecc93%40sessionmgr111&vid=2&hid=127
Missouri and Florida’s New Laws Constitutional? Missouri Law Review, Spring2012, Vol. 77 Issue 2, p567-589. 23p. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=aef9f6f7-734d-4a6c-adae-2b97736ecc93%40sessionmgr111&vid=2&hid=127
The “Stand Your Ground” law was first adopted in the state of florida in 2005. This law did not gain national attention until the shooting death of unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, florida, where the shooter, George Zimmerman used the “Stand Your Ground” law as his basis for defending himself against Trayvon Martin to the Sanford Police Department. However, George Zimmerman’s legal defense team did not utilize the law to argue his innocence during his trial. But the damage had been done because soon after other cases in florida began to sprout up with “Stand Your Ground” as the driving force.
Kleck , G, and M Gertz . "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun." Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86 (1995): 150-187. National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
Fields, Gary. "New Washington Gun Rules Shift Constitutional Debate." Wall Street Journal. 17 May. 2010: A. 1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Was justice really served in the “State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman” case? Is our justice system fair to all races? This case is about a 16 year old kid from Miami named Trayvon Martin. On the night of February 26th, Trayvon walked from his father's house in a gated community to a nearby store. When walking back he was spotted by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer. There had been a number of break-ins in the neighborhood over the last few weeks and Zimmerman though that a young black man walking in the rain and wearing a hooded sweatshirt looked suspicious. Zimmerman then called 911 to report this person who "might be on drugs." He then got out of his car and...
Professional champions of civil rights and civil liberties have been unwilling to defend the underlying principle of the right to arms. Even the conservative defense has been timid and often inept, tied less, one suspects, to abiding principle and more to the dynamics of contemporary Republican politics. Thus a right older than the Republic, one that the drafters of two constitutional amendments the Second and the Fourteenth intended to protect, and a right whose critical importance has been painfully revealed by twentieth-century history, is left undefended by the lawyers, writers, and scholars we routinely expect to defend other constitutional rights. Instead, the Second Amendment’s intellectual as well as political defense has been left in the unlikely hands of the National Rifle Association (NRA). And although the NRA deserves considerably better than the demonized reputation it has acquired, it should not be the sole or even principal voice in defense of a major constitutional provision.
Skolnick, J., Fyfe, J. (1993) Above the law: Police and the Excessive use of force. United States: The Free Press