On Wednesday, members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted to overturn controversial Stand Your Ground legislation, in place since 2011. New Hampshire has one of the lowest murder rates of any state in the United States, but legislators in the Democratic-controlled House believe it has little effect on crime, and possibly increases violence in the Granite State.
The bill passed by a roll call vote of 189-184 after a heated debate among elected representatives. For advocates of gun reform, rolling back Stand Your Ground currently in place in 24 other states could lead to decreases in levels of gun violence, including the 14,000 gun related homicides across the United States each year.
Wednesday’s vote sends the issue to the Republican-controlled state Senate where it could be fail. If it does pass, New Hampshire Governor Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) is expected to sign it into law.
Florida became the first state to adopt Stand Your Ground in 2005. Because of sustained lobbying efforts by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and other conservative pro-gun groups, 24 more states had passed similar laws by 2011.
“It is an outrage because the fact is that our elected representatives are not representing us, they are representing these corporations and their agenda. Their agenda includes not just denying justice to victims like Trayvon, but denying justice to Americans injured or killed by corporate greed or neglect,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy at a March 2012 rally against ALEC.
Top funders for ALEC, the primary organization promoting Stand Your Ground laws, include Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola.
Previous to the proliferation of Stand Your Ground laws, citizens who felt threatened by an attacker were required to retreat to a safe location before employing the use of potentially deadly force. Under Stand Your Ground, citizens are empowered to fight back immediately after they sense a threat, creating situations where individuals could haphazardly use lethal force.
The killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American youth on Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford, Fla., sparked a national outcry to overturn Stand Your Ground. Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old was killed by a self-appointed community guard named George Zimmerman while walking home from a store.
After calling the police and reporting Martin’s “suspicious behavior” from the safety of his vehicle, Zimmerman approached Martin and shot him at point blank range following a brief altercation.
The case has yet to be litigated, but underscores recent studies showing that Stand Your Ground legislation leads to higher homicide rates and decreases public safety in states where the law is in place.
“Our study finds that, that homicides go up by 7 to 9 percent in states that pass the laws, relative to states that didn’t pass the laws over the same time period,” Mark Hoekstra, an economist at Texas A&M University
“We find that there are 500 to 700 more homicides per year across the 23 states as a result of the laws,” he said in January.