ezkl2230
May 9, 2012, 10:59 AM
House Democrats said Tuesday they will offer an amendment to push to overturn stand-your-ground self-defense laws in states like Florida.
The amendment, which would withhold some grants from states that have such laws, will come as part of the House's debate on the Commerce Department spending bill.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/may/8/house-vote-trayvon-amendment/
First, the two representatives quoted in the article state that deaths due to self-defense have tripled since the law was enacted in Florida; they failed to specify how many of these shootings turned out to be mis-identified innocents. I'm betting that number is a fraction of total self-defense shootings.
Second, a Newsweek article (which is typically virulently anti-gun) stated that law-abiding American citizens using guns in self-defense during 2003 shot and killed two and one-half times as many criminals as police did, and with fewer than one-fifth as many incidents as police where an innocent person was mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%). So police - the guys that have supposedly been trained to avoid such things - are more than five times more likely to shoot and kill an innocent person than a civilian.
The funding bill that this would amend is being debated now - there is no time to lose.
Call your representative NOW and urge them to vote against the Trayvon Amendment. If you don't have your representative's contact information, you can find it here: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
The amendment, which would withhold some grants from states that have such laws, will come as part of the House's debate on the Commerce Department spending bill.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/may/8/house-vote-trayvon-amendment/
First, the two representatives quoted in the article state that deaths due to self-defense have tripled since the law was enacted in Florida; they failed to specify how many of these shootings turned out to be mis-identified innocents. I'm betting that number is a fraction of total self-defense shootings.
Second, a Newsweek article (which is typically virulently anti-gun) stated that law-abiding American citizens using guns in self-defense during 2003 shot and killed two and one-half times as many criminals as police did, and with fewer than one-fifth as many incidents as police where an innocent person was mistakenly identified as a criminal (2% versus 11%). So police - the guys that have supposedly been trained to avoid such things - are more than five times more likely to shoot and kill an innocent person than a civilian.
The funding bill that this would amend is being debated now - there is no time to lose.
Call your representative NOW and urge them to vote against the Trayvon Amendment. If you don't have your representative's contact information, you can find it here: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
