[“Stand Your Ground laws threaten public safety, encourage armed
vigilantism, and promote a culture of ‘shoot first, ask questions
later.”]
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ALEC’S STAND YOUR GROUND LAWS HAVE CREATED A DEADLY CULTURE OF
SHOOT-FIRST VIGILANTISM  
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Juliana Broad and Alice Herman
October 26, 2023
Center for Media and Democracy
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_ “Stand Your Ground laws threaten public safety, encourage armed
vigilantism, and promote a culture of ‘shoot first, ask questions
later.” _

Amend Stand Your Ground demonstration, Giffords/YouTube

 

In early October, a Florida state senator introduced legislation
[[link removed]] to repeal the
state’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law allowing
individuals to use deadly force in self-defense outside their homes.
Florida was the first state to enact such a measure, and in the 18
years since its passage, studies have shown that more Floridians are
dying because of it.

“The data is clear: homicide rates and gun deaths are higher where
these discriminatory, dangerous policies are on the books,” Sen.
Shevrin Jones (D-34), the bill’s sponsor, told the Center for Media
and Democracy (CMD). 

What’s less widely known is the pivotal role the American
Legislative Exchange Council [[link removed]] (ALEC)
has played in ensuring the widespread adoption of such laws.

Since its founding 50 years ago, ALEC has brought together Republican
state legislators and corporate donors to draft model
legislation repealing
[[link removed]] labor
protections, rolling back
[[link removed]] environmental
regulations, and encouraging
[[link removed]] the
privatization of education. Yet one of ALEC’s ugliest efforts has
been its collaboration with the National Rifle Association (NRA) to
legalize an individual’s right to shoot to kill in public — the
bloody legacy of its Stand Your Ground model legislation.

FROM CASTLE DOCTRINE TO STAND YOUR GROUND

Stand Your Ground laws are an expansion of what’s known as the
“Castle Doctrine,” the common law principle that people are
entitled to defend their own homes, even with lethal force. While the
Castle Doctrine is legally upheld in most jurisdictions, applying that
same principle to public spaces is more controversial. Individuals in
states that have not passed Stand Your Ground laws are generally
obligated to retreat from a public danger or threat — real or
perceived — as long as they’re able to do so, whereas in states
with these laws people are allowed to use force to meet the threat.

“A person who uses or threatens to use deadly force,” the
2005 Florida statute
[[link removed]] reads,
“does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or
her ground” as long as that person is in a public place and is not
engaged in any criminal activity.

Applauded by the NRA and ALEC, the law has proven to be a game
changer, enabling people to use deadly force in public with impunity.

Former NRA president and lobbyist Marion Hammer conceived
[[link removed]] of that first
bill and worked with two Florida legislators who were members of ALEC
at the time, State Sen. Durell Peaden
[[link removed]] and
Rep. Dennis Baxley
[[link removed]],
to get it passed. Baxley, a far-right legislator who is a member of a
neo-Confederate organization
[[link removed]],
had won the NRA’s Defender of Freedom award
[[link removed]] the
year before. “Disorder and chaos are always held in check by the
law-abiding citizen,” he said
[[link removed]] when
the bill passed. 

The NRA considered the legislation as the “first step of a
multi-state strategy,” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne
LaPierre told
[[link removed]] a
reporter for _The_ _Washington Post_. And ALEC was the perfect
front group to execute that strategy. 

Shortly after Stand Your Ground was signed into law in Florida,
Hammer proposed [[link removed]] that
ALEC’s Criminal Justice Task Force adopt it as a model bill. A month
later, ALEC’s board approved it. Since then, the language of
ALEC’s model legislation — misleadingly dubbed the “Castle
Doctrine Act
[[link removed]]”
— has been incorporated into law in 29 more states, with some
adopting especially broad versions of the legislation.

Stand Your Ground proponents like the NRA and Rep. Baxley claimed that
these bills would reduce violent crime and make citizens feel safer.
Yet countless lives have been lost due to the lethal force they
permit. A study published last year
[[link removed]] in _JAMA,
the Journal of the American Medical Association _found a significant
increase in homicides in states with Stand Your Ground laws.
An earlier study
[[link removed]] found
that in Florida alone, the rates of homicide increased 24% and
gun-related homicide increased 32% between 2005 and 2014. A meta
review of 16 previous studies on the impact of Stand Your Ground
also concluded
[[link removed]] that
these laws lead to increased rates of homicide, especially due to
deadly gun violence. 

The American Bar Association called for the repeal of Stand Your
Ground laws in a 2015 report
[[link removed]],
noting that they are racially biased and provide “a low-cost license
to kill.”

THE TWO FACES OF ALEC

In the wake of George Zimmerman’s murder of Black teenager Trayvon
Martin in 2012, the tides appeared to turn against ALEC and its
legislation supporting gun violence. Given the state’s Stand Your
Ground law, Florida police had refused to make an arrest, spurring
national outrage. At the time, research
[[link removed]] by CMD traced
the bills back to ALEC and the NRA. When the civil rights group Color
of Change called
[[link removed]] for
a corporate boycott of ALEC, multiple corporations — including Kraft
Foods, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo — pulled out from the organization. In
a statement, ALEC called Martin’s death a “tragedy,” and
attempted to distance itself from the Florida legislation. 

Yet when ALEC announced
[[link removed]] that
it would disband its Public Safety and Elections Task Force in 2012
(formerly the Criminal Justice Task Force) — which had shaped
Florida’s law into a cookie-cutter Stand Your Ground model bill —
the chair of the task force made quiet assurances
[[link removed]] that
the work would continue through other channels. “ALEC’s decision
won’t impact the important issues we’ve worked on,” former Texas
State Rep. Jerry Madden told _The Christian Post_
[[link removed]]_._ Since
2012, Stand Your Ground laws have continued to surface
[[link removed]] across
the country.

ALEC has never repudiated its support for Stand Your Ground laws or
pushed to undo any of the legislation. And as recently as 2021, ALEC
CEO Lisa Nelson assured
[[link removed]] concerned members that
although the organization no longer explicitly pursues social
policies, it’s able to push its agenda through other means.

JUSTICE DELAYED, JUSTICE DENIED

Just 80 miles north of the luxury hotel in Orlando where ALEC held its
50th annual meeting, Florida’s Stand Your Ground law came into
national focus again in June when Susan Lorincz, a 58-year-old white
woman, shot and killed
[[link removed]] her
35-year-old Black neighbor, A.J. Owens, through Lorincz’s closed
front door. She later admitted to having used racial slurs in verbally
harassing Owens’ four children. 

Although Lorincz was inside her home when she killed Owens, the local
sheriff cited the state’s Stand Your Ground law as a reason to
hesitate making an immediate arrest. “We have to rule out…whether
this deadly force was justified or not before we can even make the
arrest,” Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods told
[[link removed]] the
press on June 5.

What makes Stand Your Ground laws especially insidious is that they
flip the burden of proof. “Now police and prosecutors must prove a
negative — that a shooter was not in fear for their life — to even
bring a case,” _Reveal_ reported
[[link removed].].
“According to legal experts, that’s an almost impossible standard
to meet, meaning that many shooters won’t face charges for crimes as
serious as murder.”

“‘Stand Your Ground’ laws threaten public safety, encourage
armed vigilantism, and promote a culture of ‘shoot first, ask
questions later,’” Sen. Jones told CMD.

“The National Rifle Association and the American Legislative
Exchange Council have a stranglehold on Republican lawmakers here in
Florida and across the country,” he continued. “These entities
have traded campaign checks in exchange for fealty from legislators,
and as a result, our communities are less safe.”

_Lisa Graves and Arn Pearson contributed to this article._

_Juliana Broad is a writer and researcher who works on issues related
to labor, science, and democracy. With the Center for Media and
Democracy, she focuses on the corporate interest groups coordinating
attacks on workers’ rights, campaign finance transparency, and
access to reproductive healthcare, among other issues. She has also
worked with unions as a labor organizer and strategic researcher in a
variety of sectors, including higher education, healthcare, and
property services. She earned a master’s degree in the history and
philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge as a Gates
Scholar. Her scholarship has been published in or is forthcoming from
the peer-reviewed journals History of the Human Sciences, Medical
History, and History of Science._

_All articles by Juliana Broad
[[link removed]]_

_Alice Herman is a contributor with The Center for Media and Democracy
and The Guardian. Previously, she reported on labor and the workplace
as a Leonard C. Goodman investigative reporting fellow with In These
Times. Hailing from Madison, Wisconsin, Herman has covered Wisconsin
politics for local and national political outlets including The
Progressive. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Grinnell
College._

_All articles by Alice Herman
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_THE CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY
[[link removed]] (CMD) IS A NATIONALLY
RECOGNIZED WATCHDOG THAT LEADS IN-DEPTH, AWARD-WINNING INVESTIGATIONS
INTO THE CORRUPTION THAT UNDERMINES OUR DEMOCRACY, ENVIRONMENT, AND
ECONOMIC PROSPERITY._

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with a reach and resources that exceed those of political parties and
they are using that power to erode the integrity of our elections and
sap taxpayer dollars away from investments in public infrastructure,
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have ignited national conversations on money in politics and the
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and in every region of the country. We believe in the public’s right
to know how government operates and how corporations influence our
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necessary, CMD litigates to defend that right and ensure those in
power follow the law._

_Since CMD first exposed ALEC in 2011, more than 100 corporations have
dropped ALEC, including Verizon, Ford, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, General
Electric, and Google. As a result of that ongoing investigation and
other reporting, CMD is often contacted by whistleblowers wanting to
make a difference. CMD has also researched the array of groups that
are part of ALEC, including numerous Koch-funded entities and national
and state “think tanks” that are affiliated with the State Policy
Network._

* Stand Your Ground
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* ALEC
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* vigilantism
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