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More on the Stand Your Ground Bill and on House proceedings on Tuesday, with my full opinion on Stand Your Ground and how it creates, rather than ameliorates, ambiguity.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1608163/7391998
Gist below:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1608163/7391998
Gist below:
Sen. Bob Ballinger said that the existing law needed to be amended because it was ambiguous, despite the fact that it’s never been deemed so by courts in the 74 years of this law’s existence.
But this bill makes the language of the law ambiguous.
This bill states that even if you know that you can safely remove yourself from the situation, you don't have to. You can choose not to leave. You can choose, instead, to kill someone.
This bill states that even if you know that you can safely remove yourself from the situation, you don't have to. You can choose not to leave. You can choose, instead, to kill someone.
If you can walk away, you’re inherently not in imminent danger. Your ability to leave the situation removes the danger. It’s like if there is a cloud of bees swarming around my house and all I have to do is shut the door to keep them out, I’m not in imminent danger.
So this bill makes the code contradictory. It creates a Catch 22. Stand Your Ground only applies if there’s an imminent threat. But there’s only an imminent threat if you can’t knowingly extricate yourself from that situation.
The SYG bill tries to make both things true - that there is an imminent threat and that you can safely walk away. But they can’t both exist at the same time.
The retreat law was clear. It recognized that the ability to retreat removes the threat of imminent danger. No Catch 22.
The retreat law was clear. It recognized that the ability to retreat removes the threat of imminent danger. No Catch 22.
What this bill does is allow someone to make a choice - and if they can leave, it is a choice - to kill someone. That’s no longer self-defense.
I was struck by Sen. Trent Garner’s story on the Senate floor yesterday where he spoke about being attacked by two black men.
I was struck by Sen. Trent Garner’s story on the Senate floor yesterday where he spoke about being attacked by two black men.
He said that if he could have, he would have picked up a gun and shot the black man in the back as he was running away. As he was running away.
If someone’s running away from you, that’s not an imminent threat. That’s not danger.
If someone’s running away from you, that’s not an imminent threat. That’s not danger.
What Sen. Trent Garner described isn’t even covered under the bill that Garner voted for. What he described is killing someone, not because they were a threat to him. What he described was killing someone because he was angry, because of his lust for vengeance.
That’s not self-defense, and that’s not Standing Your Ground - even under Sen. Ballinger’s bill. But it gives insight into why some people are voting for this bill.
There are two things that strike me about this bill. One celebrates a lack of self-discipline. It allows people to kill others, not because they’re in danger, but because they want to. Because they’re afraid. Because they’re angry.
It takes self-discipline to walk away, to listen to your ‘better angels’ if you will and choose not to kill. But this bill absolves Arkansans of using self-discipline and allows them to give in to vengeance, to anger, to fear at the cost of someone else’s life.
The second thing that keeps popping in my head is “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” It’s a concept that exists in so many religions because of its simplicity and its core resonance within our souls as being right.
There’s a peace in doing right by others, in loving our neighbors as ourselves. This bill casts aside that Biblical tenet. If you love your neighbor, you don’t kill them. You don’t let your fear and your anger at them drive you to murder.
I grew up in an Arkansas where self-discipline and loving your neighbor were central to who we were. I want my kids to grow up in that Arkansas. I can only hope the House Judiciary Committee wants that too.
