Repeal Stand your Ground

It is Black History Month and I have found a number of African Americans whose accomplishments I didn’t know about. All the accomplishments which African Americans have made to the betterment of all people everywhere, do not undo the damage that a bad law has done. Stand Your Ground came from a place of wanting to protect people. More precisely, to enable them to protect themselves if they find themselves in a dangerous situation.

America has gradually become more and more violent. The last fourteen years have seen a horrific increase in death due to guns. Now, the people who use guns will tell you that they are necessary. To be transparent, I hate guns. To those who would say here that guns don’t kill people, people kill people;  that is factual to a point:  the point being that studies have shown that the person with a gun feels more removed from the victim and therefore, not as responsible for the death of this hypothetical person. It is easier to kill someone with a gun because you don’t have to be within their personal space. However, a knife, or something like that take more involvement from the killer. It is a much more active form of killing. The knife, garrotte, even smothering with a pillow, require the killer to participate more in the death of the victim.

We are at the anniversary of the murder of Trayvon Martin. I can’t get his face out of my mind. The thought that he was shot down in the beginning of his life just upsets me a lot. My oldest grandson is going to be twenty years old this year and I know he goes around in hoodies. He is a musician in a band and they travel around several states to share their music. Some knucklehead could take him as a danger. He is a much bigger person than Trayvon. If someone were to shoot and kill him or his bandmates, they could say he was so big that he frightened them so they had the right to shoot him. I am crying just writing this. I think about Trayvon’s family and the raw wound that I know is still there. Right after this murder, a woman in Florida shot a warning shot above the head of her abuser. She was terrified for her life, but she didn’t shoot him. That woman is in jail, but the man who actually did kill Trayvon Martin is not. This is not justice, this is not what the Founding Fathers’ concept when they wrote the second amendment.

When the second amendment was written America was not the country we live in now. Transportation was by horse and buggy or just horse. There were no telephones, let alone cell phones, no television.There was a fraction of the number of people who lived here then in comparison to those who live here now. The citizens of America were much less educated and ethics were seldom a subject in the one room school houses. Everyone went to school together and there was one teacher for all the grades.

The Native American Indians were not happy we were taking their land away. Unethical colonists sold them guns and whiskey and so they were angry and wanted revenge. Innocents of both sides were “collateral damage.” What the colonists wanted was land and the Indians had the land, until we took it all and stuck the Native Americans onto reservations. Grocery stores were few and far apart, and were actually general goods stores. Wild animals, such as bears and wolves, roamed freely.  In that time and place, so guns had an actual purpose. The were no firefighters or policemen.  Cowboys and their guns have been a huge part of American history, but a history that doesn’t exist anymore.

Now, in 2014, we have changed the face of America, though I feel that we really are no more civilized than before. Do we need guns…NO! Do we need laws that make hunting humans legal? NO! America and Americans need to grow up. The Wild, Wild West is gone, never to return. Countries that prohibit guns being owned by citizens have much lower felony crimes. We do not need laws to make it possible to legally kill a person. Loud music will always erupt from teens and it isn’t a reason to commit murder. In the summer, when the windows are open, I have my classic rock n roll and it can be heard outside. Should that give someone the right to shoot and kill me? I think not. It is time to repeal the Stand Your Ground Law, because it is unfair, it is used racially, and it is not needed with 911 on everyone’s cell phones.

Black History Month