Repeal stand-your-ground laws
The law is supposed to solve problems, not create them. Laws should provide as much clarity as possible, not expand the realms of ambiguity and subjectivity. Laws ought to bring about the practical results their promoters claim they’ll achieve. And at its best, the law can help us to live together more harmoniously.
By all these measures, “stand your ground” laws are a failure. These statutes make the already difficult task of jurors even harder. They aggravate mistrust across racial lines. They appear to increase, rather than decrease, crime.
We should not have had to go through another racially charged trial in Florida to learn all this. Writing online for The Post, Mark Berman offered a succinct account of the facts of the Michael Dunn case that has aroused so much legitimate passion.
“In November 2012, Michael Dunn shot 17-year-old Jordan Davis in a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station parking lot. Dunn had approached a Dodge Durango holding Davis and three other teenagers and asked them to turn down their music. . . . An argument developed, and Dunn fired 10 times at the vehicle, including multiple shots fired as it pulled away.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-repeal-stand-your-ground-laws/2014/02/19/38fd3d64-999f-11e3-80ac-63a8ba7f7942_story.html