Gun-Grabbers Have No Shame

The Wall Street Journal recently attacked stand-your-ground laws, blaming them for a rise in justifiable homicides in recent years. Entitled “Six Words Every Killer Should Know: ‘I Feared for My Life, Officer’”, the article claims the increase in justified shootings is due to dubious claims of self-defense.

Stand-Your-Ground-Laws grabbed the national spotlight following the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. Boiled down to the basics, the arguments were very much the same as those in the WSJ article and were based on the same assumption: Police and prosecutors are morons incapable of properly investigating crimes.

FYI: This is a really, really stupid assumption to make.

Every state has laws governing the use of any force and every state has its own standards specifying when it’s legal to escalate to use of deadly force in self-defense. While relatively few states have specific stand-your-ground statutes, the majority of states do not impose a duty to retreat before force can be used. Since exhausting all possible avenues of escape means increased peril for potential victims, most state lawmakers have enough sense to avoid such demands.

It will come as no surprise to anyone, other than gun control zealots and their fellow travelers in the mainstream media, the trend in justifiable homicides can be more accurately attributed to the explosive growth in handgun carry.

In 2010, just about 2.9% of American adults lived in permitless carry states. Just 15 years later, that figure jumped to 46 percent. There were an estimated six to seven million active concealed carry permits in 2010; there are about 22 million today.

These increases mean more Americans had a gun at hand in their hour of greatest need. They were victors, not victims. Those justifiable homicides were actually justified.

Mark Maremount and Paul Overberg should be ashamed, as should the publishers and other editors of the Wall Street Journal. They should leave shoddy, yellow journalism to the New York Times and Washington Post.

The day after the Journal article appeared, Giffords posted on X.

Stand your ground laws encourage people to shoot first and ask questions later. It’s a license to kill that makes all of us less safe.

These legally sanctioned killings are on the rise and must be stopped.”

I am not sure why the concept is so foreign. The “legally sanctioned killings” are legal for a very good reason: they were the result of victims refusing to be victims and lawfully using enough force to prevent death or grievous bodily injury at the hands of an assailant.

The late Antonin Scalia said protection of the natural right of self-defense is the core reason for the Second Amendment.

The irony of the Giffords’ comment is equalled only by its hypocrisy: Gabrielle Giffords, herself, could have been one of those defenders.

1. At the time of the attack, Giffords owned a Glock 19, the same brand and model used by the killer. She received it as a gift from her husband, Mark Kelly, now a U.S. Senator.
2. Arizona was the third state, after Alaska and Vermont, to adopt constitutional carry. Governor Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1108 on Friday, April 16, 2010. The new law went into effect on Thursday, July 29 that same year. The Tuscon shooting occurred 164 days later, on Saturday, January 8, 2011.
3. Arizona does not have a specific stand-your-ground law. However, Arizona Revised Statutes §13-405 and §13-411, the state’s use of force laws, do not impose a duty to retreat.

There was nothing to prevent Gabrielle Giffords from doing what millions of Americans do every day: legally carrying a concealed handgun.

Life is all about choices. There were too many wild cards involved to say what would have happened had Giffords made different choices, but perhaps Christina Taylor Green, a 9/11 baby, would have gone to college, begun a career, or started a family. Perhaps John Roll, a conservative, pro-2A judge, would have capped a distinguished career as the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. But Giffords didn’t choose that path and those lives, plus four more, ended in a Safeway parking lot in La Costana Mall while Giffords’ own life was changed forever with a shot to her forehead.

To be absolutely clear, Gabrielle Giffords is in no way responsible for the tragedy in Tucson. However, disparaging one of the most fundamental rights of living organisms as a “license to kill” is not just hypocritical, it’s shameful.

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About Bill Cawthon

Bill Cawthon first became a gun owner 55 years ago. He has been an active advocate for Americans’ civil liberties for more than a decade. He is the information director for the Second Amendment Society of Texas.