Idiots like Michael Dunn give responsible gun owners a bad name and America’s Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex plenty of grist for their mills of misinformation. It would have been easy to exploit Dunn’s conviction in the shooting death of Jordan Davis on the merits. But no, Shannon’s gang decided to take the tragedy to another place – Florida’s stand your ground laws. As even ABC News has made abundantly clear, Florida’s stand your ground law played no role at all in the Dunn trial, let alone George Zimmerman’s. You’d think that with all of Michael Bloomberg’s money and minions at her disposal now, she’d be able to keep her facts straight and hone her message more effectively. You’d be wrong. MDA’s press release after the jump . . .
(Indianapolis, IN) Feb. 15, 2014 – We are saddened and disappointed that the jury in the trial of Jordan Davis’s killer was unable to reach a full verdict. Our hearts are with Jordan’s family as they learn that they will have to bear another trial and more waiting for justice. Jordan and his family deserve closure in the killing of their son, and we will continue to shine a spotlight on our country’s broken Stand Your Ground laws.
Stand Your Ground laws put our children, families, and communities at risk because they give everyday, untrained citizens more leeway to shoot than the United States military gives soldiers in war zones. Children – like Jordan Davis – who may simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time are now more likely to die at the hands of the armed and angry. This is unacceptable.
Jordan’s fate is not an isolated one: He is one of at least 26 children and teens killed in Florida Stand Your Ground cases since 2005. Stand Your Ground laws – also called “shoot first” laws because they empower armed vigilantism – are associated with a clear increase in homicides, resulting in up to 700 more homicides nationwide each year, according to a 2012 study by Texas A&M researchers.
Research indicates that Stand Your Ground laws embolden people to shoot when they could have resolved conflicts by using a lesser degree of force or simply walking away. After Florida passed its Stand Your Ground law, its justifiable homicide rate tripled. Over the same time period, the justifiable homicide rate decreased in states that did not pass Stand Your Ground laws.
This increase in homicides due to Stand Your Ground laws disproportionately affects communities of color. The Urban Institute found that when white shooters kill black victims, the resulting homicides are 11 times more likely to be deemed justifiable than when the shooter is black and the victim is white.
And despite the assertions of Stand Your Ground supporters, the Texas A&M researchers found no evidence that Stand Your Ground laws deter crime.
Now that the research on Stand Your Ground laws is clear, states are listening. Though at least seven states had Stand Your Ground legislation pending at the time of Trayvon Martin’s shooting death in February 2012, not one of those bills became law. Trayvon’s death served a national wake-up call: No additional states have become Stand Your Ground states since. And legislators in at least 11 states have introduced bills to scale back or repeal their laws, and one such reform bill passed in Louisiana.
During a recent legislative hearing to repeal Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, Davis’s mother Lucia McBath, a national spokesperson for Moms Demand Action, said, “My grief is unbearable at times. I’m here as a face of the countless victims of gun violence.” Lucia has funneled her grief into activism and moms will continue to fight along side her, committed to undoing the damage these ill-conceived laws have created.
American mothers have had enough and we are prepared to go toe-to-toe with our country’s insidious gun lobby. We will stand our ground for children like Jordan Davis and we will not stop until Stand Your Ground laws are rolled back.
By the time I can verify his trust, I could be dead.
I find her comment about ROE laughable. I feel dumber for having read her words. I’ve been awarded no points.
If the justifiable homicide rate tripled doesn’t that mean three times as many guns stopping crime?
Lies, damn lies and then they lie about the statistics.
Not to be a jerk, but the only play these people have is to mislead. They are a one trick pony. Lie until you get what you want. Repeat.
What else can you do when facts just don’t back your case?
You miss the point. They don’t care about getting the facts straight. The facts don’t help their cause. They are about winning over the hearts & minds of the average American who is, by definition, uninterested in anything that doesn’t have something to do with the Kardasheians or who’s on American Idol tonight.
That average American believes whatever message comes through their TV set from the nightly news and whatever quick n dirty news outlet they use to “keep in touch” with what is happening on the planet.
The left, and by association Shannon’s group,want people to think that the Stand your Ground law was the problem here and so they will make it the problem.
Lucky for them the mainstream media are all also on the left and no reporters ask tough questions of anyone who bats for their team and so that is what goes out on the news: The Stand Your Ground Law is a problem – something must be done. Innocent lives are being lost.
The next several weeks will be all about making sure those lives looked as innocent as they possibly can ala Trayvvon Martin.
The guy was a total asshole and an idiot. He should’ve gotten much worse, but if you watched any of the news, you can see why they couldn’t convicted- nobody gets a fair trial anymore.
I don’t remember where I saw the quote, but I remember after the Zimmerman case hearing a comment about how infuriating it was, to a black man, that a black kid’s life is only worth something if I white guy shoots him. When black kids kill each other, nobody cares.
That’s stuck with me ever since.
“If you want to disobey the law, you should be prepared to face the consequences.”
How much do you want to wager that the paper is pro no questions asked amnesty for illegal immigrants?
If McKinney possessed true leadership skills he would have lead the five RINOs to bring the debate to reason and garner the only one vote they would have needed to block the legislation. The idea that they “did not have the votes” is a stretch. They were VERY close and John buckled at the knees.
I think this verdict should also say a lot about our drug laws. Why not, the degree of relevancy is the same.
Solution…
Ask manufactures to produces a few firearm models the size of an SUV. Throw on a few rail attachable cup holders and xm radio… Even MDA won’t be able to resist! :p
I sure hope her kids make it out the nest with the ability to think for themselves.
A 65 yo was shot twice and then returned fire. And the guy that shot him, who was much younger, was found crying in the toilet waiting to be rescued by the cops.
E.C Robinson is Latin for Brass Balls? Somebody with a better education than me step in and correct me if I’m wrong.
“THINK OF THE CHILDREN!”
http://www.odmp.org/officer/21942-correctional-officer-amanda-baker
^ Recently strangled by a 15 year old ‘child’ who ambushed her and made sure she would never come home to HER child.
18 is not a magical number. Now, I’m not defending this guy… just tired of groups like MDA trying to sacrifice rights and reason over the alter of minor-worshipping.
Dear Rahm:
Keep your Illinois-ing thug voters on your side of the fence, unless you want fewer voters.
Dunn was found guilty of everything but the Murder 1 charge, right?
I agree with the poster above who questioned why the prosecution didn’t go for Murder 2, which Dunn probably would have been found guilty of. But that’s got nothing to do with “stand your ground” laws or the “gun lobby” or anyone else. That has to do with a prosecutor who tried to reach too far and couldn’t pull it off. As it is, Dunn is still probably going to die in prison while serving a 60 year sentence, so not getting a Murder 1 conviction doesn’t really make a difference.
FWIW, we have a lot that we can learn from the Dunn case. Like… if you are involved in a DGU, get the police on the phone as soon as you’re out of danger. By not involving the authorities after firing several rounds into an SUV, Dunn set himself up to be found guilty whether the occupants of the SUV had a shotgun or not (I don’t think they did, but I wasn’t there).
So I don’t get what action “Moms Demand Action” are demanding. The guy was found guilty of all but one crime and he’s going to prison for the rest of his life.
What more is there to demand?
“subjectively with an objective standard.”
No really, this guy is worse than stupid.. Someone get him a middle school vocabulary workbook, he doesn’t understand that these two words are opposites.
Another Wayne LaPierre “told you so” moment.
I grew up in Venezuela. It’s a shame what has happened to it.
Here in my South Florida city a number of officers were questioned for having accessed her information in the database when the harassment began, and they all gave lame excuses like “I wanted to know where she lived so I could respond faster if she was in trouble by anyone harassing her.”, and they all still have their jobs and were not reprimanded for abusing the system. No one questioned that the accessing of her information occurred before the stories of the harassment were made common knowledge.
Not only does Lego sell guns, but they sell guns with the Lego equivalent of Picatinny rails!!!!!!
Have you seen how much money she stands to get from these officers if the suit she filed stands?
It’s something like 3 grand per offense….
I call the opponents of Stand Your Ground laws what they really are, criminal apologists and supporters of criminal activity. They dont deny these statements, in fact they wear it as a badge of pride. If STG laws are repealed, they will go after the Castle Doctrine and ultimately the right to defend self family or property.
This just came up:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26222578
Anyone has any detailed data etc on this? Unfortunately the report itself is not published yet so it’s not possible to go through it with a fine comb, but the statistics that they claim to have used should be public.
I hope he’s not in charge of security there.
By putting his ID badge out on the internet, with the barcode visible to the world, he just made a major oops. Anybody with a decent printer and laminating machine can now have access to whatever that barcode grants access to.
I always teach newbies the Four Rules, in order.
That being said, I insist on one thing, and never admit to another thing.
The one thing I insist on is, keep each rule SHORT! When you want them to recite, have them recite SHORT rules! No “unless” or “except”.
1) The gun is always loaded.
2) Always point it in a safe direction.
3) Keep your finger off the trigger.
4) Be sure of the target and what’s behind it.
No addenda, codicils, exceptions, what have you. Discuss them, but the newbies don’t “recite” the extras. When I make a newbie “recite,” it has to be word-for-word, on the nose. Not out of order and not with bizarre phrasing, like what fxhummel1 allows in the video.
The one thing I never admit to a newbie (any newbies out there, STOP READING!) is this:
The least important rule is rule one.
<<>> HERESY!!!
The reason it’s the least important rule is, ironically, that it’s the MOST important rule. The reason you follow rules two through four is BECAUSE of rule one; but rule one, by itself, doesn’t tell you how to act. Rules two through four tell you how to act. Rule one is a preamble that has no practical effect on personal behavior.
Imagine only one rule: the gun is always loaded.
A. So what. What does that mean I should do?
B. Since it’s always loaded, does that mean I don’t need to buy ammunition? (You wish.)
Imagine only rules two through four.
Point in a safe direction. Got it.
Finger off trigger. Got it.
Be sure of the target and what’s behind it. Got it.
Rule one gives rise to the other three, but only rules two through four give any practical advice.
That being said, my own personal favorite Heinlein quote (from “Red Planet”, if I recall) is “If you took all the people that have been killed by ‘unloaded’ weapons and laid them end to end, it would make quite a spread.” I always use that line to explain rule one.
What a strange nonsensical little editorial. It almost reads like some wiseacre from a site like this one was playing mad libs with a gun control handbill or something. Of all the situations to be concerned with, of all the situations that you could be concerned about facing an ill-tended person who is armed, THIS is the one that kept the writer up all night before deadline?
I worry about an armed confrontation at my work. Since my work is a gun-free zone. That means no matter who comes to play, I lose. THAT’s worth losing sleep over.
Ensitue made my point!