Stand your Ground Argumentative

Recent survey relating to Stand Your Ground cases conducted by the Tampa Bay Times found that more than half of the defendants won the cases. Many people believe that Stand Your Ground laws help lower crime rates since everyday citizens are empowered to serve their own justice. Other people believe that Stand Your Ground Laws are dangerous because they promote more violence since the statute allows for excessive and even deadly force. Although Stand Your ground laws can save lives, Stand Your Ground laws are more harmful than helpful because they can be used as a loophole for criminals to kill people and wrongly prosecute defendants. To the Stand Your ground supporters’ credit, one cannot doubt that Stand Your Ground Laws can help save lives. During an argument at a 2009 party in For Mayers, Omar Banilla fired his gun into the ground and beat Demarro Battle, then went inside and gave the gun to a friend. Battle then went to his car and returned to shoot Bonilla three times. Battle eliminated the threat altogether by finishing off his attacker to put an end to any further bodily harm to himself.

This case does support the self defense and protection of others, because Battle had the opportunity to flee from his attacker, but instead went back to the scene and finished the job himself. Stand Your Ground laws are supposed to be enacted when the defendant believes it’s necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm. The case doesn’t add up when Battle could have prevented his death or bodily harm by simply diving away from his attacker who was un aware of Battle’s location. Despite the fact that Stand Your ground is supposed to be used for self defense, it is often used an escape to commit a criminal offense along the lines of murder. Many advocates, including the N.R.A, push Stand Your ground as a women’s protection law.

However, a Tampa Bay Times article on who invoked Stand Your ground from 2005-2013 with 235 cases in Florida shows that “only 33 of them were domestic disputes or arguments, and that in most cases men invoked the law, not women” (Blow 2). This implies that Stand Your Ground laws are not being used by their target audience and that men are using it as a means to justify their actions of battering their wives. In cases where Stand Your Ground is enacted as the statute depicts, the ruling could still be I favorof the victim. Even in cases where the law makes the most sense to be used, the Stand Your ground motion is sometimes still denied. For example, in the case of Marissa Alexander.