The Importance Of Stand Your Ground

In 2005, Florida passed the Stand Your Ground law in response to the surge of violence following the natural disasters plaguing the state (Lawson, 2012). The new law abolished a victim’s “duty to retreat,” allowed for retaliation in life-threatening situations, and protected the victims from legal recourse if they acted in self-defense (Wallace, 2006). Before this law, people were legally obliged to run away if it was possible before defending themselves. In situations when a person was attacked in their home, the “castle doctrine” protected them from legal recourse in defending themselves (Fair, 2014). A person’s home is where they should be safest, thus protecting their own in home allows for the use of legal force if they did not start the altercation. There have been a couple of national cases that have brought the issues of Stand your ground to light. The George Zimmerman trial, while he did not cite Stand Your Ground as his defense to killing Travyon Martin, still led to national outcry. Marissa Alexander cited Stand Your Ground when she fired a warning shot at her husband whom she claimed was going to kill her. As the country reaches its 10th year of the law’s enactment, as many as 33 states have Stand Your Ground laws but most still question whether the laws do more harm then good …show more content…
One exception that has been adopted by nearly every state is the “Castle Doctrine.” The idea behind it is that if attacked in one’s own home, there are no legal consequences for using lethal force without first trying to run away. When Stand Your Ground first became enacted in 2005, it aimed to expand the “Castle Doctrine” to what some call the “Super Castle Doctrine” (Holliday, 2012, p. 415). This new doctrine extended the reach of protection beyond the home someone else’s home, vehicles, or anywhere else that someone is legally allowed to be