Protecting Your Rights, Yourself, And Your Community

The Stand Your Ground Laws are becoming a hot topic in today’s news. Headlines are flooded with stories about cases around the country. These laws surround everyone from your everyday citizens to prominent sports figures and entertainers. The Stand Your Ground laws provide individuals with certain rights to protect themselves in events where they may feel threatened. It is also known as the Castle Rule, most of the United States have adopted some form of this law to protect its’ residents who may feel the need to use self-defense in situations where they may feel threatened. These laws spread quickly around the country since Florida passed the first laws in 2005. The law in most states would suggest that a person attempt to retreat

Though each state that has enacted this law has its own interpretations and specifications, the Stand Your Ground Law generally permits the use of deadly force when a person feels a threat of death, serious bodily harm, rape, kidnapping, and robbery in most states, even if there is an option of retreat. The current Stand Your Ground Law, passed by legislation in 2005, applies to public settings; the Castle Doctrine is basically a Stand Your Ground Law that applies to the defense of oneself in a private abode or home. States currently enacting this law include Florida, Alabama, Michigan, Indiana, Nevada, Utah, and 17 others. Stand your ground law provides legal protection for protecting oneself and property at all costs and prevents civil lawsuits.

Firstly, what exactly is The Stand You Ground Law? The Stand Your Ground law is a law that expands the Castle Doctrine. For you who are not quite sure what the Castle Doctrine is I will explain. The Castle Doctrine which can also be identified as the make my day or castle law is a doctrine which allows individuals permission to use force, even deadly force to protect themselves against an invader within their home. Previously, as I stated, the Stand Your Ground Law is a law which expands off of the Castle Doctrine. For example, the Stand Your Ground Law provides a person the opportunity to protect themselves if they feel their life is in danger, however unlike the Castle Doctrine, a person can even protect themselves outside of their homes. The Stand Your

This is the main reason why the government should not take away our guns, we have the right to have guns to prevent us from getting hurt by people with weapons. The government made this a law back in 1791, so almost 230 years ago this law was here in our great country of the United States of America. This is our right and it should be here to stay.

The second amendment has protected and shown that it is being used in cases of self-defense. In Measuring Civilian Defensive Firearm Use revealed that United States civilians used guns in self-defense from crime at least 980,000 times per year. This survey shows how many citizens are using guns to defend themselves which would otherwise have been seriously harmed if the individuals did not have the firearm to defend themselves. A gun was used in 980,000 cases for self-protection. In Armed Resistance to Crime, a 1993 a nationwide survey conducted in about 5,000 homes found that over five years, at least 3.5% of households had members who had used a gun “for self-protection or the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere.” This amounted to around 1,000,000 incidents per year. This excludes all “military service, police work, or work as a security guard." Citizens who had possession of a gun were able to defend themselves in such cases. This brings up the point that many people are exercising their second amendment right accordingly and using it in cases of self-defense. It has also been shown that criminals have avoided or retreated from civilians believed to have a

Considering the stable condition of the US military and the homeland security systems, the country has the most advanced security system that assures citizens of their safety. Regardless, there exists no need for such extreme measures such as civilians being in possession of assault rifles as a strategy to self-defense. If necessary, cases of self-defense on the part of civilians are well handled by ownership of merely concealed pistols that from records are efficient in subduing any intruder while waiting for law enforcement back up. From self-defense and securing property, civilians’ reluctance to support the gun laws on such high caliber weapons has been underwhelming. Their standpoint has been in possession of such assault weapons. The same standpoints have been the cause for such raging debates on the support or disregard of the government proposition to have the assault guns banned from civilians possession (Miller 533).

In America, the average amount of people shot per year is 100,000; over ten thousand defenseless people are murdered. The Second Amendment’s proclamation that “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” has been an extensive topic of debate. Moreover, the amendment has been one of many debates over the several years throughout America. The discussion of gun control is often debated as to whether or not it is morally right to legally bypass the Second Amendment to avoid unlawful uses of arms. The Second Amendment allows citizens to carry firearms specifically for protection, gun control hinders that right and places civilians’ lives in danger. In short, the U.S. government’s intrusive restrictions on gun laws prevent law-abiding citizens from defending themselves with firearms.

Community relation issues across the nation have been increasing and causing many conflicts between law enforcement and communities. There has been so much disorder between communities and law enforcements not agreeing on how situation have been handled. Both the community and law enforcements having different perspectives on making decisions without ever looking at the others side and acknowledging each other’s reasoning behind their actions. Racism, responsibility and morals are some of many terms that are yet to be sorted out within all these communities that have on going conflicts. The relationships between a community and its law enforcement is important, although it is the police job to enforce, it is also the communities job to enforce all day and everyday (Russell).

The "Stand Your Ground" statute states that “a person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony” (Sherman). Many people will say that the “Stand your Ground” law is a great law that has diminished the crime rate, made people feel safer in their neighborhood and has given the people back the power to protect themselves and their loved ones from fatal danger. I would have to

To begin, what is the “Stand Your Ground Law”? Well many states such as: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia have stand your ground laws which state that individuals do not have to retreat before using force in a self- defense situation or many states have laws that are remarkably similar to stand your ground laws. Stand Your Ground laws started in 2005 when Florida was the first state that passed the stand your ground law which basically allowed individuals to stand their ground instead of fleeing or retreating if they believed

Imagine you're sleeping at night and then suddenly, you wake up. You walk in into your kitchen and grab a glass of water and hear a noise, you realize there is someone in your house. What's your first action, what are you going to do? Our second amendment protects us in this situation. The problem solver to this situation is to get a gun and maybe use it in defense for your safety and others. Our Second Amendment gives us a right to guns and to use them for defense in order for our safety. The Second Amendment has been around for a very long time. “It seems a throwback to those earlier days of the Wild West, when many men, far from the law and order provided by the town sheriff and circuit judge, had to protect their

Self-defense is described in the dictionary as; “the act of defending one 's person when physically attacked, as by countering blows or overcoming an assailant” (“self-defense,” n.d.). The concept of self-defense appears well-defined; however, the tactics allowed to protect oneself have evolved just as America has. As technology and weaponry advance, the need for clearer laws pertaining to the actions allowed by an individual need to be reevaluated and clearly communicated. Starting in early colonial times and moving through history, there is a great deal of differences between the self-defense that was once permitted and what is acceptable and tolerated today.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” said Wayne LaPierre, a top executive at the National Rifle Association (NRA).

“Our legal system does not permit vigilante justice” (Grisham 137). Self-defense, though, is the only type of vigilante justice that is legal because it is one of the rights written in the constitution. It is considered legal because self-defense is one of the rights given to American citizens in the Constitution.“Our legal system also cannot condone men who take the law into their own hands”. This means that the government cannot over look a case of vigilante justice because it will cause problems in our society. The legal system also cannot over look it because the society cannot have people just running around with guns shooting other people who did them wrong. The world would be chaos if that was allowed to happen because everyone would be taking justice into their own hands because they are unhappy with the outcome of the case.

2. It protects families and their property from intruders. You cannot defend your loved ones from an armed intruder if you are unarmed. Guns are used as self-defense and are needed whenever the police fail to provide the services of protection to the general public.