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Politics

Shevrin Jones Files Bill to Repeal Stand Your Ground Law

January 16, 2018 - 3:45pm

Florida State Rep. Shevrin Jones says the time is now for Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law to be taken off of the books once and for all.

HB 6073, sponsored by Jones, D-West Park, would repeal Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which authorizes Floridians to protect themselves in the case of fear of death or bodily harm.

Similar measures filed in previous legislative sessions failed to gain traction and died in committee. The last time a bill was filed to repeal the law was in 2013. 

At its core, Florida’s Stand Your Ground law removes the duty to retreat and justifies the use of deadly force in self-defense. 

Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law has been on the books since 2005, but it garnered national attention in 2014 during the Trayvon Martin case, where defendant George Zimmerman claimed he was using self-defense when he shot the black teenager to death in Florida. 

Shevrin Jones
Shevrin Jones

Zimmerman was acquitted for the crime.

Jones said part of his inspiration to file the legislation came from what he saw as a serious disconnect between people invoking Stand Your Ground for the right reasons or simply as a cop-out for aggressive behavior.

“The stand your ground law has evolved into something no longer about self-defense, but has become a legalized way for bad actors to get away with aggression, mal intent, and fatal violence,” Jones claimed. 

Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law has seen some changes throughout the years, most notably last year when 

Gov. Rick Scott signed a measure into law flipping the responsibility onto prosecutors to prove defendants weren’t acting in self-defense during “Stand Your Ground” cases.
 
The new law gives defendants more protection from prosecution in “Stand Your Ground” cases by requiring prosecutors to prove whether a defendant is entitled to immunity at a pretrial hearing in order to disprove a claim of self-defense immunity.  

The legislation shifts the responsibility onto the prosecutor to prove why a defendant shouldn’t be allowed to use the Stand Your Ground defense in court. 

Jones said he didn’t believe the controversial law made Florida a safer place and said an increase in homicides resulted from Stand Your Ground.

Florida’s murder rate did increase during the first half of 2016, but part of the jump was attributed to the Pulse Nightclub shooting where 49 people died in June 2016.

Other studies have shown the state’s murder rate did increase since 2005, but it is unknown whether the legalization of Stand Your Ground is the real cause of the jump. 

Statistics for 2017’s murder rate were not available. 

Gun groups trashed the legislation, saying it would be a roadblock to public safety in the Sunshine State.

“Since self-defense rights were fully restored in 2005, a law-abiding person no longer has to try to run away or escape when under attack before fighting back,” National Rifle Association past president and lobbyist Marion Hammer told Sunshine State News Tuesday. “Fighting back to protect yourself from thugs who assault you is your right. Bad guys don’t like that.”

Hammer said it was “no surprise” that “anti-gun, anti-self defense” legislators kept trying to repeal the law. 

“This should be called the Home Invasion Criminal Protection Act of 2018,” Florida Carry president Sean Caranna told SSN. “It's not just bad public policy. If enacted, it will cost innocent lives while serving only to protect violent criminals.”

The bill will undoubtedly have a difficult time passing in the Republican-controlled legislature, which has routinely supported gun rights and passed pro-gun legislation in recent years. 

The bill has been referred to the House Criminal Justice, Justice Appropriations and Judiciary committees, but had no official hearing date at the time of this publication.

 

Reach reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen.

 

Comments

Can you imagine voting against your own best interested. Why am I not surprised this idiot is a Democrat.

Idiot...

"Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife. Therefore, in this Court at least, it is not a condition of immunity that one in that situation should pause to consider whether a reasonable man might not think it possible to fly with safety or to disable his assailant, rather than to kill him." Brown v. United States, 256 U.S. 335 (1921)

Shevrin Jones is a pandering, pettifogging, politician masquerading as a Black man who doesn't understand the HISTORY and ramifications of the "National Rifle Association", that was created to enable Black Men to defend themselves from aggression and death after passage of the "Emancipation Proclamation"... { Jones is in over his head, and not representing his constituents AS HE SHOULD ! }

Sounds to me like State Rep. Shevrin Jones is rooting for the bad guys who need no license to carry and use a gun, leave the good guys with no protection.

Sounds to me like Shervin is trying to protect his base.

Parents, like Trayvon's and Mike's, really let them down. Both received lawful justice. Start rearing children properly, and these problems will go away.

I'd be curious to have the facts of when the law was used and the outcome. I'd also be curious to know the race of the person on each side of the gun. Sounds like it may be a racist act to repeal the law.

LMAO...in your dreams Shevrin Jones......with Crime & Murders in your own Black Neighborhoods & You think you going to TAKE THE Citizens Protection away....you are NUTS....You want to do something STOP the DRug dealers & Murders of young people in Your Black Community .Cause it COLD day in H...before you Unarm us of Our rights of Protection from Political BS Bills......GET A LIFE

Citizens stand up we put up with your shit of putting in stand your ground, no open carry etc. You want to remove what we agreed to, now we stand up and stick the constitution in your face and the state's also 2nd Amendment shall not be infringed, we now want no law on guns, ownership, type etc. we want the states hands out of the right of citizens to own / used / weapons, and we have the supreme right to protect ourselves against any threat and that includes the government.

This is insanity. Why remove protections for law abiding citizens from criminals intent on breaking the law? Absolutely absurd.

FTN! And that's not short for F The Navy either!

We need to repeal these jackass senators or congressman that support this kind of insanity. I'm disabled & and couldn't run away from a mouse.

I suggest that Shervin go to Nigeria for a couple years and start making chopping off kids hands and arms off. illegal. Legislate it Sherv! After some success there cmon back and lets talk again. Get a grip Sherv.

Stand your ground and self defense are different. In the Zimmerman Trial SYG was not at issue. As usual, the lazy media does not know the difference.

We have every Right to defend and Protect ourselves and NO Law can destroy that fact. No one ever had a complaint about this Law, until Trayvon Martin tried to Beat-up a White man and LOST. That is the Fact,....plain and simple. This "Move" is inspired strictly because of RACE. Never is a word said about existing Laws until someone feels they can make the issue Racist. Make a Law,....a Real Law, that definitively declares that NO-ONE CAN CALL another a Racist, unless they can prove it. Otherwise they can and will be subject to Civil and Criminal actions.

Zimmerman was not a white man. He was Hispanic.

That is True, and I knew that, but if you recall he was called "A white man" before and even after they knew he was Portuguese. I was using the MSM Narrative.

Remove yourself from office

So it will be against the law to protect yourself and your family? I suspect that will win him a few votes from the criminals in his district. Oh .... Does he have a Concealed Carry Permit? Would be interesting to know.

Yea, Stand Your Ground Law is bad for the criminal. There should be stronger reinforcements to the existing Law. Not a de-rateing or elimination of it. Criminals have no respect for sheep. When seconds count, law enforcement is only minutes away. Long Live the Republic!

GET THIS IDIOT OUT OF AMARICA

I believe this law should remain on the book. We the people NEED and SHOULD be able to protect ourselves from the THUGS on the streets. This man is prejudiced and not basing this on the rights of We The People To Protect and Defend Ourselves.

Comments are now closed.

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