Pros And Cons Of Stand Your Ground Laws
Whether or not the “stand your ground” laws should be kept has been a topic of debate for many years. “Stand your ground” is a given right for people to protect themselves in prevention of injury or death if they feel threatened. The “stand your ground” laws have been said to create a safer environment. If this is so, then why is there an increase in violence, and why do people feel even more threatened than before? The “stand your ground” laws should be challenged because the laws hard the community in the way that they bring hostility and paranoia; crime rates and injustice in the court rooms have also risen up. The “stand your ground” laws create a hostile environment that leads people to be too wary of their personal safety. In the article,
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Through the years, “Researchers found no decrease in crimes like robbery, burglary and aggravated assault, but they did find an 8 percent spike in reported murderers and non-negligent manslaughter” (Jealous 2013). The set of laws created to protect people ironically raised the crime rates. This matters because the safety of the people is at stake. As it stated in the article, The Law of the Wild West, there is no decrease in crime rates, so why are the laws made to protect us not protecting us? Additionally, “Yet while ‘stand your ground’ laws have allowed hundreds of admitted killers to walk free, the race of the victim plays a major factor in who is acquitted. Another study, published last year found that when white shooters kill black victims, nearly 36 percent of the resulting homicides are deemed justifiable, yet when black shooters kill white victims, only 3 percent were ruled justifiable” (Jealous 2013). This means that not only do the “stand your ground” laws make people uncomfortable, African Americans are indirectly targeted. This creates a racist barrier between the white people and the black people, as shown by the statistics form the article by Jealous, there seems to be a bias. Along with the increase in manslaughter, racism against African Americans rose once again. These laws are creating a stereotype among those African Americans accused of crime. It generalizes that white people have the upper hand against blacks in “stand your ground”
Through the years, “Researchers found no decrease in crimes like robbery, burglary and aggravated assault, but they did find an 8 percent spike in reported murderers and non-negligent manslaughter” (Jealous 2013). The set of laws created to protect people ironically raised the crime rates. This matters because the safety of the people is at stake. As it stated in the article, The Law of the Wild West, there is no decrease in crime rates, so why are the laws made to protect us not protecting us? Additionally, “Yet while ‘stand your ground’ laws have allowed hundreds of admitted killers to walk free, the race of the victim plays a major factor in who is acquitted. Another study, published last year found that when white shooters kill black victims, nearly 36 percent of the resulting homicides are deemed justifiable, yet when black shooters kill white victims, only 3 percent were ruled justifiable” (Jealous 2013). This means that not only do the “stand your ground” laws make people uncomfortable, African Americans are indirectly targeted. This creates a racist barrier between the white people and the black people, as shown by the statistics form the article by Jealous, there seems to be a bias. Along with the increase in manslaughter, racism against African Americans rose once again. These laws are creating a stereotype among those African Americans accused of crime. It generalizes that white people have the upper hand against blacks in “stand your ground”