Our View: Reject stand your ground law for Guam
What happens when two people, both lawfully in a public place, feel threatened by each other? Is whoever survives automatically considered the victim?
Our View: Reject stand your ground law for Guam What happens when two people, both lawfully in a public place, feel threatened by each other? Is whoever survives automatically considered the victim? Check out this story on guampdn.com: https://www.guampdn.com/story/opinion/editorials/2019/01/13/reject-stand-your-ground-law-guam-our-view/2561095002/
Pacific Daily News Published 3:03 p.m. ChT Jan. 13, 2019
Last week Sen. Joe San Agustin reintroduced a "stand your ground" bill in the legislature, which would expand a person's ability to defend themselves without first attempting to retreat.
While well-intentioned, stand your ground laws have been problematic in communities that have enacted them. These laws have been on the books since Florida introduced the first one in 2005, and there is a fair amount of research indicating they result in more violence, particularly more homicides.
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We do not need more violence in our community. We do not need a stand your ground law.
Self-defense is a legitimate and necessary reason for using force, including deadly force, against another person. Under Guam's 5-year-old Castle Doctrine, people are allowed to use defensive force without retreating from their homes, workplaces or vehicles.
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Nationally, stand your ground laws have been linked to more violence, according to the Office of the Attorney General. (Photo: William Archie, Detroit Free Press)
The proposed stand your ground law would allow a person "to defend him or herself immediately, without fear of later prosecution or civil liability for a split-decision made while in reasonable fear of danger" anywhere they are legally allowed to be.
"This could be when walking, at the beach, or in other public or private places, where the victim or potential victim may legally be," the bill states.
On its face, it sounds like a good idea
On its face, it sounds like a good idea. But what happens in an encounter when two people, both lawfully in a public place, feel threatened by each other? Is whoever survives the encounter automatically considered the victim?
The Guam Police Department described San Agustin's original stand your ground bill a "recipe for increased violence," and the Office of the Attorney General recommended the original bill be reworked to comply with the American Bar Association's National Task Force on Stand Your Ground.
In 2015, the American Bar Association approved a resolution urging "all federal, state, local, and territorial legislative bodies and governmental agencies" to "refrain from enacting stand your ground laws that eliminate the duty to retreat before using force in self-defense in public spaces, or repeal such existing stand your ground laws."
Our laws already allow people to defend themselves and their homes. Another law allowing deadly force, particularly a law that has led to more violence in other places, will not make us safer.
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