Laws that allow people to use deadly force when threatened — without requiring them to first retreat — have been sweeping across the nation for over a decade. Today, depending on your definition, “stand your ground” is law in well over half of American states.[1]
Florida passed its so-called “stand your ground” law in 2005. In the years since, several high-profile shootings, including the 2012 killing of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin in Florida, have put “stand your ground” laws in the spotlight.
All the while, gun rights groups continue to pressure lawmakers in states across the country to enact new “stand your ground” laws and to strengthen laws already on the books. In many states, “stand your ground” has proven to be such a controversial political issue that it has pit far-right gun rights groups against conservative, gun-friendly politicians seen as insufficiently pro-gun by their rivals.
And so far-right gun groups have adopted an effective strategy to advance their cause: using targeted campaigning to knock out state politicians who don’t pass their strict gun rights purity tests, even those who get plaudits from the National Rifle Association.
‘A God-Given Right’
Tom Loertscher has represented his ruby-red corner of Eastern Idaho in the state Legislature for nearly 30 years. But the conservative Republican and his A+ NRA rating won’t be back in the Idaho Capitol next session: the price of standing his ground on “stand your ground.”
Loertscher lost his primary after a state gun rights group, the Idaho Second Amendment Alliance, backed his opponent and painted Loertscher as a “gun grabber.” This, after Loertscher killed an expansive self-defense bill[2], Idaho House Bill 444, that would have greatly extended the definition of acceptable use of deadly force.
