In his Washington Post column, Eugene Robinson says the Trayvon Martin killing demonstrates that “Stand your ground” laws are nothing but a license to kill and should all be repealed:
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Zimmerman claimed self-defense, was given the benefit of the doubt required by law and released.
This was a shocking travesty, as we now know. The “person who [was] not engaged in an unlawful activity and who [was] attacked” was Martin. Under the Florida law, as I read it, he had every right to feel he was in “imminent peril of death or great bodily harm” from the stranger who was following him. He had every right to confront Zimmerman — to stand his ground — and even to use deadly force, if necessary, to defend himself.
Imagine that Martin, not Zimmerman, had been carrying a legal handgun — and that it was Zimmerman who ended up dead. The law should have compelled police to release Martin, a young African American in a hoodie, without charges.
Somehow, I doubt that would have happened.
Read Eugene Robinson’s entire column at the Washington Post.
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