Thursday, July 26, 2012

Wild West Returns : "Stand Your Ground" Pro-Gun "No Retreat " Laws Promoted By NRA ,GOP, Tea Party ,Mitt Romney And Other Pro-Gun Lobbyists


America's murder rate is among the highest in the world and the NRA, ALEC and the GOP and Mitt Romney want even more lax gun laws giving all American citizens the right to bare arms including assault weapons with armour piercing bullets .
So one can easily imagine an America where everybody has a hand gun at least while in public places while many others would have an assault rifle slung over their shoulder or even an UZI or other small machine gun.

Once these pro-gun laws are passed each state that has such laws should be required to post these laws at the border crossings of each of these states.
They further should be required to inform all potential travellers including tourists that these states do not have regulate fire-arms laws but rather a pro-anarchist style laws regarding fire-arms.
Since over 25 states have these pro-gun laws travellers coming from outside the USA should be in no uncertain terms be fore warned about such laws long before they leave their country of origin.

Travel agencies in America and in other nations should be required to let their potential customers know about such laws . This information should not be merely presented to potential travellers in a bit of fine prints but written in large print on brochures , guide books , or other media commercials aimed at tourists from outside the USA.

So their solution as said previously is to arm all Citizens of America and allow them to use assault weapons and wear full body armour in any public place or what have you where it is legal for a person to be so this includes movie theaters , malls, bars, Casinos, schools, universities, libraries , the local coffe shop or diner, churches, Synagogues, Mosques, on subways and public buses , trains , on public beaches and parks and so forth.

"No duty to retreat" aka " Stand Your Ground Laws "
If an individuals feels threatened even in a public place they have the right to not retreat and to stand their ground and use deadly force if they feel threatened.
A return to the romantacized wild west years in America

In Florida and other parts of the American Southern states the pro-gun organization is that of the "Unified sportsmen of America" organization which is equivalent to the NRA National Riflemen Association and other pro-gun organizations and lobbyists.

For some reason the logic of the NRA and pro-gun fanatics they somehow believe that those who carry these weapons will act responsibly. But the way these "Stand Your Ground" laws are written the person who feels threatened is given the benefit of the doubt if they shoot and wound or even kill someone because "they had a feeling".
No more proof or legal justification is necessary.

So if the individual feels threatened whenever people of a different colour come close to them they are in their right to blast away and not worry about killing other innocent citizens who happened to be in the way of the bullets being sprayed around by the person supposedly defending themselves with an assault weapon shooting a hundred rounds a minute.

25 States Use Identical Language in "Stand Your Ground" Laws

Published on 12 Jul 2012 by PRWatch
PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton, June 11, 2012: Rev. Al Sharpton points out that the language "no duty to retreat" is used in 25 different "Stand Your Ground" laws, and that this is not a coincidence. ALEC and NRA have used Florida's bill as a template across the country. Adam Weinstein of Mother Jones, and Lisa Graves of the Center for Media and Democracy discuss the relationship between ALEC and the NRA.




Studies Show More People Shot to Death with ALEC/NRA “Stand Your Ground” Laws by Harriet Rowan at The Center For Media and Democracy's PRWatch,July 10, 2012

Two recent studies have found that so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws lead to more deaths. These findings contradict some claims made by right-wing politicians that have pushed these bills into law, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the National Rifle Association (NRA). These laws have come under increased scrutiny since Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law was initially cited to protect Trayvon Martin's killer, George Zimmerman.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private non-profit and the largest economics research organization in the United States, recently released a working paper that examines the claims of those who say "Stand Your Ground" laws make our streets safer, and concludes that states that pass Stand Your Ground laws see a combined increase of between 4 and 8 additional deaths each month. Researchers from Texas A&M University also released a study last month finding states that passed the laws saw an increase in homicides between 7 and 9 percent annually, which amounts to between 500 and 700 homicides cumulatively, with no drop in violent crime rates.

As the Center for Media and Democracy has reported, Florida passed a "Stand Your Ground" law in 2005 at the behest of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its lobbyist Marion Hammer. Hammer promptly brought the law to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where it was adopted unanimously as a "model" bill. ALEC and the NRA then helped promote its passage in statehouses around the country.

The laws alter the common law "Castle Doctrine" that for decades has recognized a right of self-defense in one's home. The ALEC/NRA model bill changes state law from recognizing a right to assert self-defense in front of a jury, to one that grants legal immunity in criminal or civil cases for people who claim they believed the use of deadly force was necessary to prevent death or grave harm to themselves or others. The laws make it harder to prosecute killings and make it more difficult for a victim's family to pursue a civil case.

Florida State Rep. Dennis Baxley (R-Ocala), an ALEC member and a sponsor of the 2005 "Stand Your Ground" bill, said in an interview shortly after the passage of the law that by passing the law, "I hope to minimize the number of victims, that's what I'm after." Earlier this year, speaking on the Lehrer News Hour, Rep. Baxley claimed that the law has "saved thousands of people's lives."

"Stand Your Ground" Laws Equal More Deaths

Chandler B. McClellan and Erdal Tekin, the authors of the NBER working paper, found that the law's provision that extends the doctrine "to any place a person has a legal right to be ... causes the increase in homicides." They looked at the 18 states that closely followed the ALEC/NRA "model" bill and extended immunity to people who use force anywhere they have a "right to be," and compared them to states that passed versions of the law without such provisions.

McClellan and Tekin claim their analysis ruled out other explanations for their findings, such as national homicide rates. "Trends in homicide rates are fairly similar across states that passed SYG laws and those that did not prior to passage of these laws," they wrote.

In the wake of Trayvon Martin's killing, issues of race surrounded the controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws (Martin was African-American and his killer George Zimmerman is a white Hispanic). However, McClellan and Tekin found that Stand Your Ground laws primarily result in an increase in firearm-related deaths among whites, particularly white males. "We find no evidence these laws cause an increase in homicides among blacks," the authors wrote.

Another Study Finds Similar Increase in Homicide and No Drop in Other Crimes

Researchers Cheng Cheng and Mark Hoekstra of Texas A&M's Department of Economics conducted a similar analysis, and considered whether the laws reduce annual homicides and crime rates based on FBI Uniform Crime Reports (McClellan and Tekin used monthly data from the U.S. Vital Statistics).

Cheng and Hoekstra stated: "We find the [Stand Your Ground] laws increase murder and manslaughter by a statistically significant 7 to 9 percent, which translates into an additional 500 to 700 homicides per year nationally across the states that adopted [the laws]." Additionally, the authors said they found "no evidence of deterrence effects on burglary, robbery, or aggravated assault."

The laws "do not appear to offer any hidden spillover benefit to society at large," the report says.

Florida has created a special commission to review the state's Stand Your Ground law, but according to statements made by politicians defending the law so far, it appears that the NRA's rhetoric about the law continues to be deployed without regard to the empirical evidence about the actual effects of the laws. Not surprisingly, Florida's commission is stacked with ALEC members.


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