The Trayvon Martin gun control laws are apparently losing the political battle as the Stand Your Ground law may be expanded.
In a related report by The Inquisitr , a police officer lost his job when he made a Facebook comment claiming Trayvon Martin was a thug . When NBA star Kobe Bryant made some comments that seemed to support George Zimmerman some people called for Bryant to be boycotted.
The Stand Your Ground law continues to be controversial after all this time. This past fall the NAACP listed what they would like to see in a list of Trayvon Martin gun control laws:
- Ending racial profiling;
- Repealing stand your ground type laws;
- Creating law enforcement accountability through effective police oversight;
- Improving training and best practices for community watch groups; and
- Mandating law enforcement data collection on homicide cases involving people of color.
In support of this cause, lawyer Benjamin Crump has been promoting Trayvon Martin gun control laws for quite a while now and has been trying to connect the Stand Your Ground law to recent cases:
“When you think about these verdicts, when you kill an unarmed black child, you don’t go to jail. But when you shoot and you miss — attempted murder on the other occupants on the car — you get held accountable. Marissa Alexander, a black female in Jacksonville, Florida, she shot a warning shot on the ceiling. She says ‘Stand Your Ground,’ and she was convicted for 20 years. What message are we sending someone? Don’t miss? Is that what the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law means? Don’t miss? If you miss, you get off. If you kill a young black man, you go home. That’s just troubling.”
But Alexander’s case had nothing to do with Stand Your Ground. The “10-20-Life” law in Florida required anyone showing a gun while committing a felony to face a minimum of 10 years in prison. But this law was not intended to be used in self defense cases and because of this the Florida legislature recently passed a so-called warning shot bill that attempts to fix the problem with the law. Alexander has also been freed from jail and is awaiting a new trial.
Republican Senator Greg Evers sponsored the bill. He does not like the phrasing “warning shot” and instead emphasizes the self defense aspect of the law:
“This bill, if you read it, does not say anything about a warning shot. What this bill does, it says, if you are threatened you can use equal or threatened use of force to protect yourself. This is about self-defense. This is about the right thing to do.”
Because of this characterization, some are saying the Stand Your Ground law in Florida has effectively been expanded. But over in South Carolina their version of the Stand Your Ground laws may also expand in order to protect unborn children. The “ Pregnant Women’s Protection Act ” permits pregnant women to use deadly force in defense of an unborn child, beginning at conception. This is is seen by Democrats as a double whammy since they also support pro-abortion laws in addition to gun control.