Dumb Gun Headline Of The Day: “Stand Your Ground Laws Complicate Matters For Black Gun Owners”
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 9 months ago
NPR:
“We don’t want to bother anyone,” Smith said, “but we’re not gonna let anyone come and break into our house at two in the morning and sit there and wait for the police to come, and get killed in the interim. We’re gonna protect ourselves.”
That belief seems to be gaining traction: According to a 2014 Pew Research study, the number of African Americans who believe gun ownership does more to protect people than endanger them nearly doubled in two years. And even as it urged its members to exercise their rights to keep “the thugs, gang bangers, illegal immigrants, the terrorists” at bay, the NRA broadened its outreach to ethnic communities. One of its spokesmen is lawyer and gun rights activist Colion Noir, who has become well-known for his appearances on NRATV.
Even if it’s legal to carry a gun, if you’re black, does having a gun actually make you safer? Stand Your Ground author Caroline Light isn’t so sure. “When you look at what really happens out in the world,” she said, “and the way that, especially, African-American men are treated when they’re armed, already the deck is stacked against people who are judged or perceived to be a threat. Particularly people of color,” she said. “Particularly men of color in the United States.”
After Trayvon Martin’s death in 2012, the Tampa Bay Times conducted an investigation in which it noted almost 200 stand-your-ground cases, and cited their outcomes. In addition to finding that such cases are on the rise “largely because defense attorneys are using ‘stand your ground’ in ways states never envisioned,” the paper noted that defendants claiming stand your ground “are more likely to prevail if the victim is black.” Blacks who use stand your ground are almost 15 percent more likely to face a penalty for doing so than their white peers.
Ah yes, I hadn’t thought about all of those white boys going into South and West Chicago tearing into defenseless black folks and raiding their homes, and not only there, but inner city Atlanta and Birmingham, where house robberies and home invasions against black folks are primarily perpetrated by white folks.
Oh, wait.
On March 1, 2017 at 7:55 am, Duke Norfolk said:
Yes. Our world is awash in Sophistry. This in itself is going to lead to violence as good people are continually stymied by the nonsense and unable to get their grievances addressed in a just way. It’s coming.
On March 1, 2017 at 1:19 pm, Archer said:
In addition to finding that such cases are on the rise “largely because
defense attorneys are using ‘stand your ground’ in ways states never
envisioned…”
False. Florida’s SYG law is very clear, and is being used exactly as the Legislature intended.
… the paper noted that defendants claiming stand your ground
“are more likely to prevail if the victim is black.” Blacks who use
stand your ground are almost 15 percent more likely to face a penalty
for doing so than their white peers.
Technically true, but the spirit in which it’s presented is false. I remember that study she’s supposedly citing. It found that overall, black defenders benefit from SYG more than white defenders. The race of the “victim” (in quotes because in these cases, the “victim” is the dead attacker, and not the victim of the original crime) is statistically significant — a black man who shoots a white man in self-defense is less likely to prevail with a SYG defense than a white man who shoots a black man in self-defense — but other studies show that black criminals overwhelmingly victimize other black people, and a black man who shoots another black man in self-defense is very likely to prevail, so overall SYG is a greater benefit to black defenders than white defenders.
In other words, she’s cherry-picking true data points, in order to paint a false picture.
On March 2, 2017 at 8:59 am, Haywood Jablome said:
NPR…there is nothing better than being forced to pay for propaganda.