Man Who Set A Trap To Kill 17-Year-Old Intruder Invokes Stand Your Ground-Like Defense

Seventeen-year-old Diren Dede lost his life Sunday, while in Missoula, Montana on a high school exchange program from Germany. He was shot dead at the home of Markus Kaarma, after Kaarma set a trap for intruders by intentionally leaving the garage open and placing a purse in clear view.

After motion sensors detected someone in the garage, Kaarma shot Dede. And while he has since been charged with first degree murder, he is already invoking a Stand Your Ground-like defense.

South Carolina Panel Approves Expansion Of 'Stand Your Ground' Law To Include Unborn Children

The South Carolina Senate Judiciary Subcommittee voted 3-2 Thursday to approve the "Pregnant Women's Protection Act," a measure that would expand the state's "Stand Your Ground" law to permit pregnant women to use deadly force in defense of an unborn child, beginning at conception.

Opponents of the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Katrina Shealy (R), said the legislation is redundant under the state’s existing "Stand Your Ground" law, arguing that no situation exists in which an unborn child would be threatened when the mother was not.

At Least 26 Children Or Teens Died In Florida Stand Your Ground Cases

Michael Dunn stands trial this week for the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Jordan Davis after Dunn complained that Davis was playing loud music. Dunn is expected to raise the defense that gained notoriety after the death of Trayvon Martin, Stand Your Ground. (If Martin were still alive, he would turn 19 Wednesday.)

Martin and Dunn are two of at least 26 children and teens who have died in Florida Stand Your Ground cases. Stand Your Ground laws that have proliferated in at least 20 states are associated with vigilantism, authorizing violence by individuals who perceive a “reasonable” imminent threat to their life, without any duty to attempt retreat. But they have also taken the lives of a dramatic number of young victims. Out of 134 fatal Florida casesanalyzed by the Tampa Bay Times in which the Stand Your Ground defense was raised or played a role, 19 percent saw the deaths of children or teens. Another 14 involved victims were 20 or 21. And another 8 teens were injured in nonfatal cases. The Tampa Bay Times last updated its database last year, and there have likely been more such deaths since.

The NRA Is Directly Behind A Bill Loosening Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' Law

Lawmakers are aiming to expand Florida's "stand your ground" law with the help of a top NRA lobbyist.

Gawker's Adam Weinstein reported that S.B. 448, which would protect someone who fires warning shots or waves a weapon when they feel threatened, was written by Marion Hammer, a former NRA president.

The bill would amend the current law, which permits residents to use deadly force under certain circumstances, to allow the "threatened use of force." Gun owners couldn't be arrested for brandishing a gun or firing warning shots. The legislation also could lead to more permissive open-carry laws or lighter requirements for gun licensing.

Florida Man Who Shot Acquaintance For Threatening To Beat Him Won’t Face Charges, Judge Rules

A Florida judge dismissed murder charges under the state’s Stand Your Ground law for a man who shot dead a mentally ill acquaintance after he told him he was going to beat him up.

In a six-page order issued last week, Judge John K. Stargel said James Robert Wagner was immune from charges under the Stand Your Ground law that gained national notoriety after the death of Trayvon Martin. Under the law, Wagner had no duty to attempt retreat in any place he had a right to be before using deadly force anywhere he had a legal right to be.

Perceived Threats

For some years, the N.R.A.’s approach to gun-rights advocacy has amounted to a variant of the old Maoist dictum, to the effect that democracy flows from the barrel of a gun. In March, the group provided a novel twist on the theme of sidearm liberty when it débuted an ad featuring Colion Noir, a young African-American in a low-slung baseball cap, who offered a series of one-liners to explain why he supports gun rights. First among his arguments is the idea that it is absurd for African-Americans to oppose gun access, given the history of racial violence that characterized segregation. Around the time the ad was released, the N.R.A.’s president, David Keene, told an interviewer that African-Americans should recognize that gun-control policy dates back to the attempts to disarm blacks after the Civil War. There’s a neat logic to the N.R.A.’s marketing push: the gun is an essential implement of democracy, so gun rights should appeal to people whose history has been defined by the struggle to achieve civil rights.

New Hampshire Stand Your Ground Law Opponents Threatened With Arrest, Removal From Office

Tea party Republicans in New Hampshire want to press criminal charges against state legislators who voted to repeal the state's Stand Your Ground law and kick them out of office.

Two Republican members of the state House of Representatives and a former state GOP chairman have filed a petition to remove 189 members of the state House and file criminal charges against them for their March 27 vote to repeal the controversial gun law. The group claims that the vote violates the lawmakers' oath of office, unconstitutionally challenges the Second Amendment and fails to adhere to state constitutional protections on life.

How the NRA and Its Allies Helped Spread a Radical Gun Law Nationwide

The Florida law made infamous this spring by the killing of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin was conceived during the epic hurricane season of 2004. That November, 77-year-old James Workman moved his family into an RV outside Pensacola after Hurricane Ivan peeled back the roof of their house. One night a stranger tried to force his way into the trailer, and Workman killed him with two shots from a .38 revolver. The stranger turned out to be a disoriented temporary worker for the Federal Emergency Management Agency who was checking for looters and distressed homeowners. Workman was never arrested, but three months went by before authorities cleared him of wrongdoing.

Stand Your Ground Task Force, With Questions Of Bias, Urged To Amend Law

On Tuesday, during the first public meeting of the 19-member Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection, convened by Gov. Rick Scott to examine Florida's Stand Your Ground law, some on the panel did little to allay criticisms that it's biased in its viewpoints.

When the members of the panel were announced in April, critics blasted the group as inherently biased and unfairly weighted with supporters of Scott, a Republican, and of the law itself, which gives people wide discretion in the use of deadly force. Four of the lawmakers on the panel either authored or voted for the law.

5 "Stand Your Ground" Cases You Should Know About

The Stand Your Ground law is most widely associated with the February 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old killed in Florida by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who claimed he was acting in self-defense.

But as a recent Tampa Bay Times investigation indicates, the Martin incident is far from the only example of the law's reach in Florida. The paper identified nearly 200 instances since 2005 where the state's Stand Your Ground law has played a factor in prosecutors' decisions, jury acquittals, or a judge's call to throw out the charges. (Not all the cases involved killings. Some involved assaults where the person didn't die.)