Trayvon Martin’s Mother Urges Senates to Push States To Clarify ‘Stand Your Ground’
Sybrina Fulton, the mother of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin who was shot to death by George Zimmerman in 2012, spoke before a Senate panel calling for states to clarify their “stand your ground” self defense laws.
According to the Associated Press, Fulton said in a prepared testimony for the Senate Judiciary Committee that, “By being unclear in when and how it is applied, stand your ground in its current form is far to open to abuse.”
Currently, 22 states have laws stating, “there is no duty to retreat from an attacker in any place in which one is lawfully present.” Nine of those states have laws using the phrase “stand his or her ground”.
Fulton’s testimony was joined by Lucia Holman McBath, the mother of 17-year-old Jordan Russell Davis who was killed over a year ago when 46-year-old Michael David Dunn allegedly opened fire on a car full of teenagers after complaining about their loud music and stating that he saw a gun.
Despite holding the hearing, no congressional action is expected to take place forcing states to revamp their laws. Nor are any of the states likely to change their stand your ground laws any time soon even with the negative attention drawn by the killings of Martin and Davis, public outrage over Zimmerman’s acquittal, and encouragement from the Obama Administration.
(Photo by Joe Burbank-Pool/Getty Images)
