Editorial

Stand Your Ground

David A. Lombardo

Settlers in America may have broken away from England, but they were, after all, Englishmen. As a consequence many of our laws were imported English common law. In short, when threatened, commoners were required to retreat and resolve the issue by civil means.

It was a tactic which did not play well in an expanding, often tumultuous, American environment. It didn't take long for the staid British gentleman to morph into the self-reliant American frontiersman, and laws began to revert back to a pre-thirteenth century doctrine allowing whatever force necessary for self-defense.

In 1877 an Indiana court stated in Runyon v. State: "The weight of modern authority establishes the doctrine that when a person, being without fault and in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel force by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self-defense, his assailant is killed, he is justifiable." Thus began what would eventually be known as Stand Your Ground and the center of an ongoing debate.

Florida has lately come under fire in the stand your ground fray, although-despite the media's attempt to make it about stand your ground-it was not a factor in the Martin case. Florida law says, "A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he has a right to be, has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his ground and meet force with force including deadly force if he reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

A new agency researched the effect of the law on the Central Florida region since its inception in 2005 and made some interesting discoveries. There have been 31cases in central Florida in which the immunity clause has come into play, and in a majority of those cases, the defendant has avoided prison time. Of the 31 cases, nine suspects have been black, 18 white, three Hispanic and one of Asian descent. Their report states, "Convictions have not trended along racial lines."

University of Central Florida criminal justice professor Dr. Kareem Jordan wrote, "It seems that race didn't have anything to do with it, that gender didn't have anything to do with it. It boiled down to the person really did feel their life was in danger."

Here's what actually stands out across America: defending one's self, family and home, carrying a concealed firearm or standing up to some scumbag has not resulted anywhere in the liberal prediction of racism or blood running in the streets.

We are at a crossroads in the history of our country. One road, the ever-increasing gun restriction highway, is traveled by this president, U.S. Congress and the executives and legislatures of many of the states.

It intersects with a second road-that of an increasingly violent, entitlement society whose membership believes that hard-working Americans of any race, creed or color are responsible for their own pathetic, drug-addled, on-the-dole lifestyle.

The liberal left proclaims that law-abiding citizens don't need firearms to protect themselves, that the government will protect them. As far as I can tell, the government eavesdrops on its citizens, harasses them with the IRS, persecutes them with ATF and sells weapons through the Justice Department to use against U.S. citizens. About the only activity our government doesn't do is protecting its citizens.

Concealed carry, the stand your ground law and the Castle Doctrine aren't things whose times have come; that time came and went a long time ago. They are absolute requirements for the safety and security of all law-abiding citizens, as this government does its best to fragment society and pit one group against another for its own political gain. And on that notion, I stand my ground. 

Obama to sign UN gun treaty while Congress on vacation

The word is out; Jay Carney said Obama will sign the UN Arms Trade Treaty "before the end of August....We believe it's in the interest of the United States." This is very strategic timing, considering Congress is on a five week vacation lasting through the month of August! "These back door tactics are nothing new for the Obama Administration, which is why we are using tactics of our own to stop his anti-gun agenda," Alan M. Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, said. "We can stop this international treaty from reaching American soil by killing it in the United States Senate. The U.S Senate must ratify an international treaty for it to be effective. They would need 67 votes to ratify the treaty. Reach every U.S. Senator at their home office and tell them you do not want this treaty in our United States! Everything Obama tackles in office is strategically timed and politically motivated. He only looks out for himself, his fellow liberals and his anti-gun agenda. After mass shootings the Administration would launch all-out attacks on our gun rights since the country would be more susceptible to change after a traumatic event." 

Colorado recall about representing constituents

Like members of Congress, state legislators are elected to represent their constituents and vote on the laws that affect them. When legislators fail to represent the will and beliefs of their constituents and become beholden to outside influences, it is up to their constituents to fire them. This is exactly what's happening in Colorado with State Senate Majority Leader John Morse facing a recall election starting August 20th. Sen. Morse forgot about his constituents who elected him when he started taking his legislative orders from Mayor Bloomberg and the Brady Campaign, hastily ushering through a series of anti-gun laws in the wake of the tragedies in Aurora and Newtown. Morse was instrumental in passing harsh new restrictions on his constituents' Second Amendment rights including magazine limits-which has prompted manufacturer Magpul to move its facilities out of state-in opposition to the will of gun owners in his district. John Morse deserves to be recalled, not just because he led the passage of anti-gun legislation affecting legal gun owners and infringing on the Second Amendment rights of Coloradoans, but because he acted against the wishes of the constituents he was elected to represent. [Source: National Shooting Sports Foundation]

NRA Basic Pistol Course (8 hours)

Saturday, August 17th - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Illinois State Rifle Association Range - Bonfield, IL

When 11 million illegals become legal

they become 11 million potential new gun owners

In his Page Nine segment of The Uninvited Ombudsman, Alan Korwin of Gunrights.com notes there are unexpected consequences about to hit the gun-rights fan in America. "Democrats-and republicans too-have failed to recognize the fact that when 11 million undocumented migrants eventually gain citizenship through so-called comprehensive immigration reform, they simultaneously lose their status as prohibited gun possessors under federal law. They become an 11-million-person demographic base for new gun ownership-and membership in the NRA. When Minutemen brought the illegal-alien problem to our attention on Arizona's border in 2004, we were led to believe their numbers exceeded 20 million. The 20 million somehow became 11 million. Whatever the actual number, they were members of a class, one of nine groups of federally prohibited possessors, banned by that law from owning or using firearms. Illegal aliens are the largest single class of people banned from exercising the Second Amendment right to arms, with mental cases and convicted felons in second and third place." 

 Like elections, legislation has consequences

 
 In a New York Times Business Day August 5th article, Nelson Schwartz points out that governors and other politicians from states eager to embrace the industry have begun actively recruiting firearm-related businesses from anti-gun states such as Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Colorado. They're offering incentives to relocate such as tax breaks and outright cash grants, and some companies have taken the bait. "I sensed an opportunity," said Alan Clemmons, a South Carolina state representative, who traveled to Connecticut in the spring as part of a successful effort to lure PTR, a maker of assault rifles. "They are not feeling loved right now in Connecticut. We're delighted to have them." In June Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and South Dakota's governor, Dennis Daugaard, toured Connecticut within days of one another, visiting sites like the Colt factory in Hartford, which the famed gun maker has called home for more than 150 years. "Shooting and hunting and the outdoors are more of a culture and a way of life in South Dakota than in some larger metropolitan areas," said Pat Costello, the commissioner of the governor's Office of Economic Development in South Dakota. "It's a target industry for us."