FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 14, 2013
MEDIA CONTACT:
Ladd Everitt, (202) 701-7171, [email protected]
CSGV STATEMENT ON VERDICT IN ZIMMERMAN TRIAL
Washington, DC—There can be no doubt after the Not Guilty verdict in
the trial of George Zimmerman that murder has now been legalized in half
of the 50 states.
The traditional presumption in the law—from the advent of the Hebrew
Bible through the creation of Roman law, English common law, and
American law—has been that if you could spare human life, it was
incumbent upon you to do so. With the “Stand Your Ground” law, the
National Rifle Association (NRA) and its partners in the American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have turned 3,000 years of
jurisprudence on its head. Now you can provoke a fight, and if losing
that fight, kill the person you attacked.
Turning the other cheek is supposed to be a sacred virtue. But by
removing the duty to retreat from a confrontation in public when one can
safely do so, the “Stand Your Ground” law allowed George Zimmerman to
stalk and kill an unarmed teenager and walk away a free man. That’s a
tragedy, because there can be no doubt that Zimmerman could have avoided a confrontation with Trayvon Martin on the evening of February 26, 2012.
The NRA’s law represents a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in
the use of force in the public space, allowing individuals to kill when
they merely fear “great bodily harm” (i.e., a fistfight, shoving match, etc.). The concept of responding with proportional
force has been obliterated. In this case, the “harm” done to Zimmerman,
by whatever source, was so minor that EMTs didn’t even offer him
treatment minutes after the shooting.
Americans should also question why Zimmerman was allowed to carry a
loaded gun in public in the first place. He has been previously arrested
for assaulting a police officer and placed under a restraining order
for a domestic battery involving a former fiancee. Again, Zimmerman had
the NRA to thank. Their “Shall Issue” law in Florida awards concealed
carry permits to individuals with minimal screening/training and removes
any discretion law enforcement might have in approving applicants.
The message to would-be killers is now clear. You need not fear
carrying your gun in public, or using it. If you do, just make sure you
are the only one remaining to testify about the nature of the
confrontation in question.
As much as the gruesome mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, the
acquittal of George Zimmerman is confirmation that the American promise
of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” will continue to be
squandered until the NRA’s pernicious stranglehold on our legislatures
is broken. Lawmakers in states with “Stand Your Ground” laws should
immediately repeal these cancerous blights on American values, law and
tradition.
