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The Deadly Legacy Of Jeb Bush’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law

By Igor Volsky and Victoria Fleischer

Remember when George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin back in 2013? Well, that murder was deemed lawful under Florida’s expansive self-defense laws and the nation’s first Stand Your Ground statute, signed into law by then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on April 26, 2005. Here is how that forever changed the nation’s self-defense laws.

Transcript:

IGOR VOLKSY, ThinkProgress: Remember when George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin back in 2013?

Well, that’s because back in 2005, then-Gov. Jeb Bush signed the nation’s first Stand Your Ground statute and forever changed Florida’s self-defense laws.

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Stand Your Ground says that a person who believes they are facing an imminent physical threat can use lethal force and face legal immunity from prosecution. So how has this legislation impacted the state?

In the 5 years after Bush signed Stand Your Ground into law, justifiable homicides in Florida tripled, from an average of 12 killings per year to 36 killings per year.

Since Bush took the plunge, 23 other states have following suite with similar legislation and numerous studies have found that they too experienced increases in homicides after enacting Stand Your Ground.

Gun violence disproportionately affects people of color — both in the community and in the courthouse. While white perpetrators who fatally shot a black victim in Stand Your Ground states were acquitted in 35.9% of cases, black perpetrators who fatally shot a white victim were only acquitted in 3.4% of cases.

Despite all this, 15 states have introduced bills to establish or expand Stand Your Ground laws in 2015. And that means that the troubling trend started by Jeb Bush will almost certainly continue.