Guest Author
They had the numbers: about 2,500 protesters marched to the State Capitol on a Monday morning.
They had the enthusiasm: “Change the law!” “Get rid of it, now!” they chanted.
They had the celebrities: The Rev. Al Sharpton, and Fly jock Tom Joyner, and Sabrina Fulwood, Trayvon Martin’s mother.
Sharpton was in full flight: “ I didn’t come to make trouble. I came to stop trouble,” he told the gathering.
But the timing was poor. Monday of Spring break isn’t the day for a protest rally in Tallahassee. Many of the Florida A&M, Florida State and Tallahassee Community College students who usually would have swollen the ranks of protesters were AWOL. Party wins over protest every time.
But more seriously, Monday’s protest march was very much a vanity gesture. This was a case of whistling in the wind. The protesters were trying to reach an audience that could not be any more indifferent to their demands. The problem is our legislators have no fear of the Sharpton brigade. Instead of paying to fly big shots into Tallahassee, protest organizers would have been better off investing in viable candidates who are going to fight against the unwarranted expansion of gun-toting privileges.
Last fall, Rep. Allan Williams’ bill to repeal Stand Your Ground went nowhere. It was roundly defeated in committee. Instead of curbing gun rights, the Legislature is bent on expanding them. Instead of losing ground, Stand Your Ground is marching on. Under the legislation, a person in public who feels threatened has no obligation to retreat. That provision is an expansion of the Castle doctrine that protects homeowners’ right to defend their property.
The Florida House and Senate are about to expand the legislation to protect people who fire warning shots. That provision is apparently in response to the case of Marisa Alexander, who could face major prison time for firing warning shots at her estranged husband.
Stand Your Ground got national attention in 2012 when Trayvon Martin was shot and killed during a scuffle with neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who was cleared of murder charges. Since then, Zimmerman has become a mini-celebrity signing autographs at gun shows.
The law came in for more criticism due to the case of Michael Dunn, who shot and killed Jordan Davis following an argument over loud music. A jury deadlocked on murder charges but convicted Dunn of attempted murder charges.
While neither Zimmerman nor Dunn used the Stand Your Ground defense, critics contend that the law emboldens gun owners to use unwarranted deadly force against young black men. And more young men, black and white, will needlessly die as long as our legislators put the rights and privileges of gun owners above everyone else’s.
Andrew J. Skerritt is author of Ashamed to Die: Silence, Denial and the AIDS Epidemic in the South. He lives in Tallahassee. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
