Stand Your Ground
A Memphis television station has caught on to a law that went into place in Tennessee on May 22nd of this year, dubbed “Stand Your Ground” legislation. It appears that this NRA sponsored bill was put into play last legislative session. To be honest, I just learned about it while I was at the range this week.
I’m uncertain of the exact bill number, but I believe it is SB2672 from the 104th TN Assembly. Unfortunately the television and print media around here is really bad at reporting the bill numbers, and I had to dig for this one.
In summary, the legislation states the following.
- Those with gun permits (not engaged in criminal activity) can kill in self-defense. (inside and outside their homes)
- Those without gun permits, carrying in public (criminals) do not have the right to self-defense.
- Those citizens without permits may only use them in self-defense in their homes. (not in the legislation,but for reference)
It appears that 16 other states adopted similar statutes last year.
In short, a private citizen could not be sued by an attacker or the attacker’s family if the attacker is hurt or killed by the citizen’s lawful act of self-defense.
This is great because it gives the power back to law abiding citizens. I am now free to defend myself and do not have to worry about lawsuits from the criminal or the criminal’s family.
Some have gone so far as to call this the “License to Murder.” I call it freedom.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Your rights end when I’m in your cross hairs.
on August 15th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
[...] Jesse writes about it so much more eloquently than I could. He needs some more readers to encourage him to write more frequently, anyway. [...]
on August 15th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
So let me make sure I understand this. You’re excited that you’re required to have state permission to defend yourself outside of your home?
on August 15th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Sounds like a mess to me…or half way there. I’d sure like to see the right to defend myself with a firearm uncoupled from having to have a license.
One thing is for sure: The state and Fed govs have botched up firearm laws and the Bill of Rights beyond belief.
on August 15th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I don’t know. We pretty much had the legal right to kill anywhere in self-defense prior to this bill. I do know that the Tennessee Firearms Association opposed this bill because it wasn’t really any better than current law (at least prior to May 22nd).
In FACT, you could use your weapon in self-defense outside of your home even if you DIDN’T have a permit. This was great in the fact that a person who used a firearm in self-defense didn’t have to have the permit. Which…in essence equals more freedom to me. Take for example, when an elderly man in Memphis used his gun to defend himself from a couple of robbers who had made him drive to the bank to try to steal his money. He killed one of the guys in self-defense, and he was completely in the right in the eyes of the law even though he didn’t have a permit.
Does the law change that now? I need to research it myself, but this law really didn’t make any difference to how self-defense legality was handled in Tennessee. In fact, from the sound of it, it might be worse.
I recommend getting in touch with the TFA group in Shelby County, by the way. They are pretty active there.
http://www.tfaonline.org/
on August 16th, 2007 at 10:29 am
[...] There’s a lot of assumptions going on, so I’m going to post up the summary (found here, thanks to Jesse.) [...]