WaPo | A useful moment in President Obama’s thoughtful
and thought-provoking remarks Friday on crime, race and Trayvon Martin —
one of several such useful moments — came when Mr. Obama questioned the
thinking behind “stand your ground” laws:
“If we’re sending a message as a society in our communities
that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those
firearms even if there’s a way for them to exit from a situation, is
that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security
and order that we’d like to see?”
The president’s question resonated with the words of Eric H. Holder Jr., his attorney general, who addressed the NAACP early last week. These laws “senselessly expand the concept of self defense,” Mr. Holder argued.
“By allowing — and perhaps encouraging — violent situations to escalate
in public,” he continued, “such laws undermine public safety.”
Critics
slammed both men for their remarks. But Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder were
right to address the issue, and they are right on its substance.
Florida was the first
to adopt a stand-your-ground statute, in 2005; about half the states
have followed. Instead of requiring potential victims of crime to
retreat if they have a safe escape route, these laws allow people to use
deadly force without attempting to avoid a potentially lethal
confrontation. They also often contain other generous protections for
killers claiming self-defense.
George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon
Martin, didn’t invoke Florida’s stand-your-ground statute in an attempt
to avoid trial. But the law could have contributed to the police
decision not to charge him for more than a month after he killed Mr.
Martin. At trial, the judge informed the Zimmerman jury explicitly of
the stand-your-ground law, and the statute came up in closing arguments.
There is a reason that the duty to retreat is a concept
respected by centuries of legal application. Setting a laxer standard
encourages tragic mistakes, poor judgment and perhaps even vigilantism. A
recent study from two Texas A&M University researchers
found that “lowering the expected cost of lethal force causes there to
be more of it.” Stand-your-ground states saw more homicides than their
peers — about 600 more a year over the period they studied. One possible
explanation is that stand-your-ground laws encourage people to escalate
conflicts rather than withdraw.
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