Okay here is another question. What was the REAL motive behind ALEC pushing Stand Your Ground laws

[diabeticman]

in so many states.


Is it a way to make murder legal?

Has anyone bother to look at the economic background? How many of the "victims"/shooters who use this defense of upper middle class or come from money?

The real victims/the "aggressors" come from not only a different race but perhaps a poor or lesser means?

Is that what Alec had in mind? Or is it wrong of me to ask?

I don't mean to cause trouble I just want to wrap my head around/understand all of this.

[arthritisR_US]

1. Gun sales, Increase hunting without consequences. nt

[rufus dog]

3. This. ^^^^^^^

Sales increase, liability does not.

[salin]

10. bingo!

Who are the real constituents of the NRA (make the money... and pay the bills) - gun manufacturers and ancillary companies. Call me a cynic, but I would guess that there is a statistical relationship between contributions to ALEC and the number of states in which ALEC lobbied for these laws to be passed.

[arthritisR_US]

12. When the signing of SYG happened the hog from ALEC was right there

behind him and all subsequent pictures (at the Florida signing).

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I've asked myself that same question, along with why they care about fundamentalism.

The best answer I can come up with is that these issues help them maintain a subculture of loonies, "useful paranoids," to slightly rephrase Lenin.

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

4. It allows state level Republicans to play to their base. n/t

[CK_John]

5. They are testing their control and penetration of the legal system. Much like 1933

in Europe.

[socialist_n_TN]

7. You and Jackpine have the best handle on it IMO......

Basically it is a way to increase and make legally immune eventual fascist "extra judicial remedies". They are a proto-fascist organization after all.

I just hope that if the shit comes down the left of all stripes in this country doesn't do like the left in Germany and allow the fascist free hand because of internal divisions.

[Lurks Often]

6. Viewed in the abstract, SYG isn't an especially bad law.

SYG simply means if a person has a right to be where they are, they are under no duty to retreat from an attacker. Additionally some states add a part that says essentially if the state chooses not to charge you or if you are found not guilty in a court of law, then you are immune from a civil suit.

It does NOT give a person a right to instigate or escalate a verbal disagreement and the requirements for there to be "a reasonable fear of death or grave bodily harm" remain.

While the media and many online forums throw out SYG every time there is a shooting, the defense lawyers for Zimmerman and Dunn, the two most well publicized trials in recent history, did NOT use SYG as a defense, but the simpler self defense.

[okaawhatever]

15. One of the jurors specifically mentioned stand your ground in an interview after the trial. That is

one of the things that really pushed people over the edge.

Also, IIRC Florida's stand your ground has different elements than even the one passed in Arizona. I don't remember all the differences, but I do remember that even Arizona couldn't keep all the original language.

[Lurks Often]

19. Two simple questions for you

Do you feel you should be required by law to retreat from an attacker if you are somewhere you are entitled to be?

Do you feel you should be subject to the costs of defending yourself against a civil suit when the District Attorney chose not to feel charges or if you are found not guilty in a criminal trial?

Again, the defense attorneys and their clients did NOT use SYG as a defense in the Zimmerman or Dunn trials.

[DanTex]

20. Of course, and of course.

As to your first question, obviously (to me at least), lethal force should only be a last resort. If your only option for survival is lethal force, everyone agrees that lethal force should be legal. The only question is what happens when lethal force is unnecessary. In this situation SYG makes it legal to kill people even if it is not necessary, simply you prefer killing. In other words, it is a law designed for sociopaths.

And, yes, even if you are not guilty in a criminal trial, you should still be able to face civil charges (see OJ Simpson). Same as for any other crime. The fact that you chose to voluntarily kill someone unnecessarily shouldn't absolve you from facing civil charges.

Oh, and yes SYG absolutely played a role in both the Zimmerman and Dunn trials. In fact, SYG is part of any self-defense trial in Florida. It is the way the law is worded, and part of the jury instructions. In the Z trial, jurors specifically cited SYG as part of a rationale for their decision.

[bravenak]

8. SYG is a horrible law designed to sell guns and more guns.

The more people get away with murder the more other people will buy guns. They don't care whether the guns are bought legally or not, just as long as they sell more. If black kids are scared of getting shot at gas stations, they will buy guns. If black kids buy guns because they're scared of being murdered, white people will get scared, and buy even more guns, and so on and so forth. The black kids will probably be too young to have permits rendering them felons and unable to vote, which helps the candidates ALEC supports, since most black people are democrats. Putting those kids and young adults in jail for carrying without permits helps funds the prison industrial complex, which I believe helps fund ALEC through companies like the GEO group.

[onehandle]

9. To give gun nuts a raging hard on to vote GOP. nt

[Chorophyll]

17. Yep. nt

[applegrove]

11. To keep race wars alive in the heads of the GOP base?

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

13. Can't have enough ways to intimidate blacks

[notemason]

14. My guess

Sets legal precedence so when you march against the 1% at their gated mansions they can mow you down.

[procon]

16. Anarchy.

Everything ALEC does is intended to be divisive and undermine our judicial system and the normal functions of legitimate governance. This creates public suspicion and the increasing social and economic distress we already see in our society. In turn, this leads to even more unjust and draconian ALEC formulated laws that restrict individual rights as a necessary deterrent in order to protect the "enhanced" rights of the 1%.

The resulting inequality and chaos inflicted on the vanishing middle class, paves the way for the oligarchs and their tame politicians to weaken the functions of government and remake America according to the whims of our new corporate overlords who gain a desperate population of serfs ripe for exploitation.

[okaawhatever]

18. I do know the gun laws, much like the abortion laws are about getting scotus rulings

under the current court. Every neo-con group out there has been waiting for this court. they've talked about it for years. Why do you think most of the right side of the bench are all Federalist Society types?

They want scotus to recognize the stand your ground laws as constitutional.