I'd Rather Sit!: The Broader Interpretation of America's Peculiar Stand Your Ground Concepts

The tragedy of Trayvon Martin's murder made many Americans aware of stand your ground laws. Yet, these laws are common throughout the nation. Some 36 states have some aspect of these "line in the sand" defining actions.  There are two varieties of these laws: the more recent "Stand Your Ground" law and the older "Castle Doctrine" law.  Both allow you to use deadly force as a means of self-defense when you feel that your life or the life of a family member is threatened.

However, the history behind these laws is not what most Americans consider associated with 2nd Amendment Rights. The Castle Doctrine comes from medieval English law stressing that only the King had the right to take someone's life. As a result, when people felt threatened they should retreat beyond the walls of the castle for self defense. Only if the castle wall was breached and the castle was invaded could deadly force be used. The Castle Doctrine was a concept designed to repel hostile forces. In contrast Americans see the line in the sand as a legitimate reason to kill.  America's stand your ground concepts date back to the 17th century but become important in the 19th. In this case, property gave one the right to defend their property as a matter of self defense. 

Historically, the 2nd Amendment is designed to allow citizens to bear arms in case the British returned as they were dissatisfied with the outcome of the revolution and sought to dishonor the Treaty of Paris. This actually happened and became a reality leading to the War of 1812. The American versions of the Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground laws, were not designed to confront a foreign power.  Instead, they were created to settle conflicts between aggressive neighbors and then modified to assist in the acquisition of land.  Texas' famous Alamo battle can be seen as an application of a stand your ground mentality. Extensions of stand your ground concepts were used in seizing and keeping Native American lands and then territory in Hawaii and the Philippines (as Americans drew lines in the sand claiming property and territory without legal claims). 

Let me explain how we equate these laws with the definition of property and property-ownership. Only a person owning property could use self defense, as there is a connotation that a person needs a base/home/property to retreat to defend.  For instance, self-defense in a street altercation is not a stand your ground argument. Standing your ground can be used against someone on your lawn, entering your house, or threatening your or your family on your property. Therefore, if you examine this laws closely, "Stand Your Ground" laws give authority to white men of property.  While not specifically written with exclusions, these laws deny the same rights to women, children, people of color, non-landowners and non-citizens. (This unequal application of the law is an illustration of Critical Race Theory) The broader application of "Stand Your Ground" and property rights can be found in the use of the Fugitive Slave Act during the Antebellum era, and "Vagrancy Laws" during and after Reconstruction and throughout the Jim Crow era. In these cases white property owners were given extra-legal rights to use force to apprehend runaway slaves and make citizen's arrests of blacks lacking labor contracts and violating Jim Crow laws.

"Stand Your Ground", Harvard historian Carol Light's 2017 monograph, identifies how the legacy of these laws continued from the 19th century well into the 20th and now into the 21st centuries. She and her co-authors posit that these laws led to proposals for armed guards at schools after the Sandy Hook elementary school shootings. They also examined the negativity associated with the laws following the uproar concerning the death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. Yet, I argue, that any discussion of "Stand Your Ground" must consider the different interpretation of these laws at different time periods and different states. These loosely defined laws have simply given license to kill. Many of the nation's 4,000 plus lynchings, from 1890 to 1960 were described by the attackers as "Stand Your Ground" defenses. 

Recently, "Stand Your Ground" has received political support from the right and has received blanket endorsement from the NRA. But there are outstanding events associated with the legislation and legal decisions. For example, the acquittal of the murder of lost exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori (16) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana reveals the worst application of the law. Bernard Goetz's subway shooting case illuminates distinctions between his and Kyle Rittenhouse's actions and the legal findings in New York and Wisconsin.  Similarly prominent are the contrasts and similarities with the shooting of Trayvon Martin and the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in Florida and Georgia where people with legal/law enforcement associations believed they were acting in the public interest.

Our "stand your ground" ideologies have evolved into American myths. We are a nation of gunslingers, pistol toting mommas, weekend warriors, and rugged frontiersmen. These fables enable people to have shootouts on the streets, attack trespassers on one's property, and even kill a relative in an act of self-defense.  They have come to represent manhood and toughness in ways that laws could never define gender, and they have encouraged Americans to seek protection that can only be achieved in purchasing firearms.  

Americans own more firearms than citizens in any other nation on earth.  Statistically a third of all Americans claim to own firearms, and about 40% of all households have guns. Most gun owners have more than one weapon. There are more than 393 million firearms in the United States. That degree of firepower ensures that there will always be someone ready for a confrontation. 

We should not be surprised that 75% of the homicides committed between 2015 and 2019 were by firearms. We should not be surprised about the number of accidental deaths. We should not be surprised that when people are afraid they often reach for a gun before trying to reasonably seeking another solution. Stand your ground has created a nation where people are fearful of others and the best defense is to make sure that you are armed!