There are 34 states that have some form of stand your ground laws. With the recent shooting and killing of Trayvon Martin and Renisha McBride (both unarmed teenage Black/African Americans people), it becomes even more cause for concern among our communities. Some of these laws state that if a person FEELS threatened or PERCEIVES that there is a threat, they have a right to use deadly force to apprehend/stop the person they FEEL threatened by. I capitalized the letters of the words “feel(s)” and “perceives” because it’s important to understand that if someone already has a bias/prejudice or discriminates against a specific group of people, they can claim they FELT threatened and be within their rights to act on their EMOTIONS. A lot of stand your ground laws will protect someone, as illogical as that sounds, THIS is our justice system. It cannot get any clearer that it is STILL not safe to appear/be Black/African American.
Here is a list of the states, in case anyone wants to research the statutes/limitations in their area:
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- California
- Florida
- Georgia
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- New Hampshire
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- West Virginia
- Washington
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
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