On Stand Your Ground, President Obama Acts StupidlyInvestors.comPosted 07/23/2013 06:40 PM ET
Law And Order: While urging the re-examination of state self-defense laws, then-state Sen. Barack Obama co-sponsored a bill nine years ago that stiffened Illinois' 1961 "stand your ground" law. So, he had it right the first time.
'Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago," the president said in his first on-camera response to the verdict exonerating neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman of the second-degree murder of Florida teen Trayvon Martin.
"There are very few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping at a department store, and that includes me."
Except very few of these men turn around and pummel the security guard or whoever is following them to the point that the individual fears death or severe bodily harm, as Florida's stand-your-ground law requires for the use of deadly force in self-defense.
President Obama omitted the salient fact brought out at trial that Martin could have simply proceeded home. He was the one who turned around to confront and assault Zimmerman.
"We might want to examine those kinds of laws" in the aftermath of this tragedy, the president said, asking us "to consider if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk, and do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened?"
Again, Mr. President, Trayvon Martin could have simply continued home and not confronted Zimmerman, who in 2010 spent his spare time circulating fliers in Sanford, Fla.'s black neighborhoods demanding justice for Sherman Ware, an African-American who was beaten in a bar fight with the son of a Sanford police lieutenant.
As the Illinois Review reports, state Sen. Obama co-sponsored a bill (SB 2386) in 2004 that enlarged Illinois' 1961 law by shielding the person who was attacked from being sued in civil court by perpetrators or their estates when a stand-your-ground defense is used in protecting his or her person, dwelling or other property.
The bill passed, and it was one of those rare times Obama did not vote "present."
The Florida version was not invoked by Zimmerman's defense team but was included in instructions to the jury.
It's worth noting that Florida's violent crime rate, which fell by 12% in the five years before the stand-your-ground law was enacted in 2005, fell by 23% in the five years afterward.
Critics cite a rise in "justifiable homicides," the operative word being "justifiable," which is the case when victims dispatch their assailants.
About a third of Florida stand-your-ground claims in fatal cases have been made by black defendants, twice the black presence in the Florida population, which was listed at 16.6% in 2012.
Florida blacks have used the defense successfully 55% of the time, same as the population at large and better than white defendants, according to a Daily Caller analysis of a database maintained by the Tampa Bay Times.
We wonder if Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder is familiar with the case of Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville, a black woman who received a 20-year prison sentence in May 2012 for firing warning shots against her allegedly abusive husband. The judge rejected a defense under Florida's stand-your-ground law.
Alexander told police it was to escape a brutal beating by her husband, against whom she'd already taken out a protective order. For defending herself, she went to jail � as some still wish for George Zimmerman.
But by standing her ground with a firearm, she may have saved her life, just like Zimmerman.
