Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) are introducing legislation Thursday to create a national “Stand Your Ground” law.
The legislation, entitled the Stand Your Ground Act, would make Stand Your Ground laws nationwide instead of state-specific.
[A]llow law-abiding persons in a lawful place who are attacked to forcefully defend themselves from death or great injury, including with deadly force, without having to retreat first if the person believes it’s reasonably necessary to do so.
Gaetz told FOX News that he chaired Florida’s House’s Criminal Justice Subcommittee during hearings on the Sunshine State’s “Stand Your Ground” law in the wake of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
He said, “I became even more convinced that the legal duty to retreat from common law puts the law on the side of the attacker, not the victim.”
Gaetz added, “And 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.”
He said it is time to “extinguish” the duty to retreat.
Gaetz tweeted that Mullin is proud to help sponsor the Stand Your Ground Act, noting, “Every American should have the right to defend himself or herself against imminent threats to personal safety without the duty to retreat.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.