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GOP Platform Includes ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws
September 5, 2012
Controversial “stand your ground” laws that have come into the spotlight since the shooting of Trayvon Martin have found their way into the Republican Party’s national platform.
Nestled in the massive document, which outlines in minute detail the national party’s agenda for the next four years, is a provision that expands earlier support for Second Amendment rights to specifically include self-defense outside the home.
“We support the fundamental right to self-defense wherever a law-abiding citizen has a legal right to be…” the plank reads.
Marion Hammer, executive director of United Sportsmen of Florida and past president of the National Rifle Association, said the language more clearly articulates the party’s long-standing support of gun owners’ right to protect themselves without fear that their self-defensive actions would come back to haunt them.
“It does what it is intended to do,” Hammer said of Florida’s 2005 version of the law, which has since passed in a couple other jurisdictions. “It protects law-abiding people who are defending themselves and their families in a lawful manner from the criminal element.”
Recently enacted stand your ground laws are logical extensions of the “Castle Doctrine,” Hammer said, which provides some immunity for residents to defend themselves in their homes against an intruder.
Florida’s law was changed in 2005 to remove a duty to first try to avoid killing an attacker and expanding the protections beyond their homes and into public spaces.
“The ‘Castle Doctrine’ allows law abiding people to protect themselves without being hassled by the criminal justice system,” Hammer said. “That is what the Castle Doctrine, or the stand your ground law, is all about.”
Though law in Florida for several years now, it wasn’t widely discussed until it gained new attention after the February fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford.
George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, faces second degree murder charges in Martin’s death, which has sparked national debate over racial profiling and ’stand your ground’ protections. Martin, who is black, was unarmed.
Zimmerman’s lawyers, have said they would likely use ’stand your ground’ as a defense, though it’s not certain. But they say Zimmerman feared for his life after a scuffle with Martin.
A Quinnipiac University poll taken in May showed registered voters in Florida by a 56-35 percent margin support the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law. The support is strongest among Republicans, who back the current law 78-15, though independent voters also support the law, by a 58-35 percent margin.
Democrats more often oppose it, by a 59-32 percent margin, the poll found.
By The News Service of Florida
Comments
9 Responses to “GOP Platform Includes ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws”
you liberal think that because They think the world is so nice and there opinion is the only right one we all need to follow it , but the truth is we not, but we not we need this law to help defend our family ’s. We don’t try to ban a Dodge if some one runs over another then what. Keep the law .
Nick better check your facts, Most liberal democrats are anti-gun, and that is the path the party has taken, Why don’t you check out who wants gun control? ( Blue dogs , or the one’s of us who are leaving the party) know because we track these things, No one will ever take my fire arm in the pursuit of (common sense gun control laws) Now I really like Mrs. Kathy Gifford , blue dog democrat that walks the talk. God bless her. I strongly suggest you look at who wants to take your gun rights away. NRA member . Inform your self son , and quit drinking the liberal kool-aid. Stand your ground law is a great law, and long over due.
Hey Rufus, what does Florida’s “stand your ground” law have to do with Zimmerman? But more to the point, seems your alternative is to run and hide. That’s not what I’m going to do. And it seems the men and most women in this nation won’t run and hide either.
It sure will be nice when the election is over and we no longer have to listen to Hudson’s nonsense,
Quite frankly, I don’t care what state I’m in, if you come at me or my family threatening me/us, you will suffer the consequences. I will protect my family and myself regardless of what some law says. I have a right to life, which means you can’t take that away. It also means that I have the right to protect my life as well as my family. I can’t believe there are idiots out there who’d rather die than fight for their life.
Oh and Rufus, stand your ground laws are meant for you to protect yourself from getting beat up. A baseball bat is a weapon just like a gun. Not many people are coming at you with their fists anymore, thus the language in the law.
It’s kind of funny (and sad at the same time) that the GOP is running their national campaign for POTUS using issues they would normally claim were state’s rights issues?
Stand your ground laws were NEVER intended to allow you to kill someone to avoid getting beat up, nor are they intended to allow you to chase someone down and instigate a confrontation, as happened in the George Zimmerman case. The minute you become the pursuer, instead of the pursued, is the minute that stand your ground laws no longer apply.
Great news, you will not see the Dem’s doing that.
I read this as inviting the criminal element to focus their preying on Democrats. I guarantee the Dem’s would have a change of opinion to Stand Your Ground if they were at risk as opposed to simply replying to a standardized poll.