Rep. Matt Gaetz is co-leading an effort to bring a Florida-style “Stand Your Ground” law to the rest of America.
Gaetz, a Fort Walton Beach Republican, is joined by Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin in this effort, according to a press release from Gaetz’s office.
Their bills, filed Wednesday in the House and Senate, respectively, would codify Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law at the federal level. This means the bill essentially abolishes a potential victim’s “duty” to retreat when attacked.
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“Every American has the right to defend themselves and their loved ones from an attacker,” Gaetz said in a statement.
“If someone tries to kill you, you should have the right to return fire and preserve your life. It’s time to reaffirm in law what exists in our Constitution and in the hearts of our fellow Americans. We must abolish the legal duty of retreat everywhere.”
In his own statement, Mullin added, “States like Oklahoma and Florida recognize that in some cases, the use of lethal force is justified to prevent imminent death or serious bodily harm. Every American should have the right to defend himself or herself against imminent threats to personal safety without the duty to retreat.”
“I’m proud to introduce the Stand Your Ground Act in the Senate to codify these commonsense self-defense protections for all law-abiding Americans.”
The key provision of the Republicans’ bills says: “A person is justified in using, threatening, or attempting to use deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using, threatening, or attempting to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.”
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“A person who uses, threatens, or attempts to use deadly force in accordance with this paragraph,” the bill continues, “does not have a duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground if the person using, threatening, or attempts to use the deadly force is not engaged in a criminal activity and is in a place where he or she has a right to be.”
Gaetz on Wednesday told Fox News, “As I’ve gotten to Congress, I don’t believe that the legal duty to retreat as an American ought to be different in Florida and Connecticut and Massachusetts and California. I think we ought to have a national reckoning on the duty to retreat, and we ought to extinguish it.”
America, he added, has “too many states that continue to maintain the duty to retreat if one is attacked outside their home.” Thus, it’s up to Congress to “supersede that state law because it leaves Americans vulnerable.”
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