Boston City Council voted unanimously last week to urge the Massachusetts General Court to reject a Florida-style “Stand Your Ground” bill for Massachusetts.
In their petition to the council, City Councilors Tito Jackson and Felix Arroyo argued that the bill “An Act Relative to the Common Defense” would be unnecessary in Massachusetts, where state law already protects the use of deadly force as a last resort in self-defense situations.
The bill, proposed by state Sen. Stephen Brewer, calls for the state to refrain from arresting or prosecuting any person who uses deadly force out of the belief that an assailant “was about to inflict great bodily injury or death.”
“This is a bill that will provide criminal and civil protection for responsible citizens acting in self-defense or in the defense of another human being,” Brewer said in a statement sent via email to The Daily Free Press. “It is important to note that the bill does not provide any protection to an individual pursuing or chasing after another citizen.”
But Jackson said he deemed the expanded power the bill would grant Massachusetts residents dangerous and easily abused.
“Opposing the Common Defense Act is critical because the bill steps away from due process, and it is simply bad public policy,” he said in an email. “We do not live in a city or a state that condones seemingly vigilante-like behavior in the name of self-defense. I believe that claims of self-defense should be determined in the courts.”
The bill, which Brewer said he has filed for the past five years on behalf of the Gun Owner’s Action League, comes in light of the recent death of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager shot by a local crime watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, who police decided not to prosecute.
Martin’s death “is a true tragedy,” Brewer said, adding the bill he proposed for Massachusetts is different than Floida’s “Stand Your Ground” and would not have provided protection to George Zimmerman.
Instead, he said, the bill only seeks to make the definition of lawful defense clearer.
“It is a matter of protecting citizens who are acting legally, under a strictly outlined and rigidly defined circumstance,” he said.
The bill is currently before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. Brewer said the committee will give it “a thorough vetting” before it is passed.
An official from the Boston Gun and Rifle Association, who asked to remain anonymous, said in Massachusetts, “you have to take a [gun] safety class – and the state values safety,” adding that the club itself stands on the side of safety.
“If [the bill] were enacted, it is not clear that it would change very much about the law in Massachusetts,” said Boston University Professor Gerry Leonard, who specializes in American legal history, criminal law and sentencing. “We all already have the right to defend ourselves wherever we are and even to use deadly force in self-defense whenever faced with an imminent threat of deadly force from an attacker.”
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The city councilors are ignorant morons who portray their unsubstantiated childhood fears of a mythical boogeyman they cant show or prove to exist, yet are upset at any encroachment to reduce their power which is in fact granted by the citizens, growup and quit wasting time and tax payers moneys in useless attempts to defeat the inevitable.
“I believe that claims of self-defense should be determined in the courts.”
Only if the articulable facts support an arrest and indictment. If they do not, then no charges should be filed, AT ALL. That’s the purpose of this bill, and it is a strong reinforcement of the presumption of innocence required by the police and prosecutors absent probable cause. Without it, the mindset displayed in the above quote is pro forma: “Arrest ’em all and let a jury sort it out.” No, thank you. The proponents of this mindset are obviously not concerned with the ruination caused by such practice, believing that a “not guilty” verdict is good enough to serve justice. It is not. Arresting and prosecuting a person without facts in place to support a criminal act is a heinous abuse of the awesome power of the state, and requiring a person to retreat from a lethal threat he did not invite or be prosecuted for using force to defend himself is unconscionable.
It is, however, the typical statist philosophy of the northeastern liberal corridor, and it must be castrated once and for all.