U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Investigation of ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws = Waste of Time

In photo George Zimmerman being escorted to jail by police nearly three months after killing black teen Trayvon Martin. From [HERE] The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced it will launch an inquiry into so-called “Stand Your Ground” legislation for racial bias. The laws, which gained notoriety after the shooting of Trayvon Martin, eliminated the duty to retreat from a confrontation that has existed as part of the common law for hundreds of years. The committee plans to hold hearings and release the findings of their study within one year.

In the last 7 years, 23 states have adopted “Stand Your Ground” legislation at the urging of the right wing American Legislative Exchange Council. Florida Governor Rick Scott has also convened a committee to study Stand Your Ground but has stacked the group with supporters of the law.

According to the Commission, there are “some indicators of racial bias” in how the laws have been implemented. From the release:

Data compiled by the Wall Street Journal shows a near-doubling of justifiable homicides from 2005-2011 in states where SYG [Stand Your Ground] has passed. Moreover, their data shows that while white killers of black victims comprises only 3.1% of all homicides, such cross-racial killing constitute 15.6% of justifiable homicides. A separate study by the FBI found “34% of cases involving a white shooter killing a black person were deemed as a justifiable homicide. Meanwhile, in similar situations, when the shooter was black and the victim was white, the homicide was ruled justifiable only 3.3% of the time.”

Not Racist? 

Stand your ground laws are not inherently racist. They are about as racist as the law enabling the Florida Voter purge. That is, any law applied by racist judges, prosecutors, jurors and judges will lead to injustice for non-whites. In a system of white supremacy there is no justice. The bottom line is that in such a system, whites can more easily get away with killing non-whites.  

Stand your ground is simply a self-defense defense that allows for the use of deadly force when it is reasonable to do so. In states which have this law a person does not have a legal duty to retreat before using self defense to defend themselves under life threatening conditions that are reasonably apparent to the victim. Consider the Stand Your Ground law in Washington, DC. The D.C. Jury Instruction states,

"The law does not require a person to retreat or consider retreating when s/he actually and reasonably believes that s/he is in danger of death or serious bodily harm and that deadly force is necessary to repel that danger. But the law does say that a person should take reasonable steps, such as stepping back or walking away, to avoid the necessity of taking a human life, so long as those steps are consistent with the person's own safety. In deciding whether [name of defendant] acted reasonably, you should therefore consider whether s/he could have taken those steps, consistent with his/her own safety."

The comment states, this instruction represents the "middle ground" between "the right to stand and kill, and the duty to retreat to the wall before killing," Gillis v. U.S., 400 A.2d 311, 313 (D.C. 1979), and may be given "when there is a truly relevant question as to whether a defendant could have safely retreated." Broadie v. U.S., 925 A.2d 605, 621 (D.C. 2007).

There is nothing racial about the above. To a racist, the application of Stand Your Ground to kill non-whites is about justifying psychopathic behavior that enables white genetic survival in a world in which the vast majority is non-white. Just as the voter purge is about the political survival of white Republicans in Florida, a state in which whites are the quickly vanishing majority.  As Dr. Welsing states, "people who classify themselves as white, who wish to be taken seriously, and who are righteous and responsible, will only talk about ending White Supremacy (racism) and replacing it with Justice."

 The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights efforts will be a waste of time. The real cuplrit is white supremacy.  - bw