Paul Krugman: Corporate-Backed Lobbyists Have Pushed, Drafted Bills Similar To Florida's Infamous Stand Your Ground Laws

Paul Krugman (AP)

Florida’s now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution, sounds crazy — and it is. And it’s tempting to dismiss this law as the work of ignorant yahoos. But similar laws have been pushed across the nation, not by ignorant yahoos but by big corporations.

Read the whole story at The New York Times

Comments

[No Dogma Freedom]

12:56 PM on 03/28/2012

@ Odin's eye - who by way was blind for reason in the other - let see your guns at work in Mexico:

Fear of Crime and Things to Come : Information Clearing House - ICH

May 22, 2009 ...
-----> Of the thousands of traceable weapons seized in Mexico last year, 90 percent originated in the U.S.. The fact that a thousand Americans are ...
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22687.htm

U.S. Agents Launder Mexican Profits of Drug Cartels : Information ...
December 06, 2011 "NY Times" --- Undercover American narcotics agents ... After the agency lost track of hundreds of weapons, some later turned up in Mexico; ...
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29895.htm

Your position that military men and others well trained in guns can't make semi into a full automatic is laughable - they can do it in their sleep - or 3/4's drunk with hooker on their lap they needed to!

Zimmerman is an example of --out of control ego like you and others! You want the USA to be as Mexico with Good Old boys running towns and areas- !

[OdinsEye]

08:32 PM on 03/27/2012

"Florida’s now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution,"

Yet another complete mischaracterization of the SYG law.

First, you ALWAYS have a right to self-defense if you reasonably believe it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to yourself or another person. This is the law in all 50 states. The SYG law does not create this nor does it change the basic criteria under which force, including lethal force, can be used.

What the SYG law did was remove a duty to try to retreat before employing force. And there is no reason why a person who is in a place they have a right to be and is not doing something unlawful should have to try retreat from a criminal.

Further, the SYG law does not give a person immunity from prosecution. The only thing that the Florida law (in a different section, BTW) does is prevent an INITIAL arrest IF and ONLY IF there is no indication that the shooting is not lawful. It does NOT prevent police from arresting someone if there is evidence that the shooting might be unlawful. It does NOT prevent the investigation of the shooting or subsequent arrest of the sho.oter.

[No Dogma Freedom]

02:41 AM on 03/28/2012

Let us look at some law you ran from and it gets deeper: Do respond to your bold face denial of the facts

The two cases are mirror images of error. In 1857, the Dred Scott decision said that a flesh-and-blood human being had no constitutional rights because he was black.

On January 21, 2010, the Court, in a 5-4 decision, used Citizens United to declare that corporations-legal entities with no human attributes-have the same constitutional free-speech rights that humans have.

I
To Restore Democracy : First Abolish Corporate Personhood
Feb 17, 2007 ... Jefferson kept pushing for a law, written into the constitution as an .... The structure for this displacement of humans by corporations under the ...
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17103.htm

No sane person has to stalk a person that is an attack. You always back off in fight - if you can by the way.

The rules of engaging a man in fight is ---equal and measurable force ---you cannot kill a man for spiting in your face or pushing you! Your law allows for death - a pre-emptive strike like thing - right?!

[OdinsEye]

10:43 AM on 03/28/2012

"Let us look at some law you ran from "

What are you talking about? I did not run from any law.

"The two cases are mirror images of error. "

What two cases? You have obviously mistakenly responded to me regarding something else.

"You always back off in fight"

There is absolutely no reason why a person who has a right to be where they are and is not doing anything unlawful should have to retreat from a criminal. It is in.sane to think that such a person has to retreat.

"The rules of engaging a man in fight is ---equal and measurable force"

Not quite. The rule is enough force to stop the attack. And that rule mostly applies at the use of less than lethal force.

"you cannot kill a man for spiting in your face or pushing you!"

And I never said you could. I specifically stated that the use of force is for when you are threatened with death or great bodily harm. So you are creating a strawman.

"Your law allows for death - a pre-emptive strike like thing - right?!"

Wrong. Read it again.

[No Dogma Freedom]

10:43 AM on 03/27/2012

The law is has its bases in fear. If we all fear each other - how can we associate?! If you are zealot and you go to woman's rights protest with a loaded gun - and you say - you in fear of your life, then can shoot a person.

Stand your ground, is just a euphemism to shoot at will, people you find suspicious. That to the zealot is people not of their faith or atheists, gays, artists, dissidents and the like. Thus you had better be shy of gatherings or upsetting people.

Not to be found on the list of who you can shoot!

1) A CEO
2) Any Corporate Officer
3) An Ancient Eight kid
4) A corporation building
5) Any one in the Apparatus

For a country stoned on the terrorist and need for a police state, we pass laws that allow for guns and the right to shoot as you feel the need: so the Gun boys can't prove this has done jack to stop crime while it is proven to advance murder and prejudice, and social control

America is many ways is as this phrase: truth comes at the end of a long gun!

[dwuzze]

10:09 AM on 03/27/2012

I feel threatened by big corporations .... Can I shoot 'em? ... After all, Corporations are people too ..... ??????? Wha a bunch of ignorrrrrant laws these repubs have passed

[Berettasskeeter]

10:38 AM on 03/27/2012

No, you may not shoot them under this law!
Semper fi

[No Dogma Freedom]

07:24 PM on 03/27/2012

They are human under law - called sentient and thus human- so are you in contradiction?

Do you want to state how they are under law human?

You, the man who wants to tell us what weapons are- can you write a book?!

You, the man who holds up the 2nd amendement but is pawn and advocate of For profit prisons and was a guard!

Can you say you have met your obligations to the USC having worked with this mentality of so called crime in your mind ----stand before the hague or court of international human rights - could you?

Let us hear this - from you!

[No Dogma Freedom]

10:54 AM on 03/27/2012

But you know the 1% have paid black water guards and the like; they can shoot at will, on you!

Stand your ground is the order to execute with will - those you deem unworthy of life---say the Presidents order to kill by decree any American who he thinks is a threat to the USA

[wmnorton]

09:53 AM on 03/27/2012

People seem to forget that the National NRA represents gun manufacturers not gun owners. The Chamber of Commerce is the same way, they represent the suppliers not the small business owners. And how much money will they be spending in the next election?

[Berettasskeeter]

10:39 AM on 03/27/2012

The National Shooting Sports Foundation supports manufacturers, and shooters. The NRA does not represent manufacturers!
Semper fi

[No Dogma Freedom]

12:02 PM on 03/27/2012

Let us look at the NRA's work to rule itself out of it responsibility to us

Senate Moves to Shield Gun Industry, New York Times, July 26, 2005:

''What's happening on this gun liability bill is really despicable,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. ''To put that ahead of the defense bill, I think, is the most distorted priorities I can possibly conceive of.''

"No one ever believed that legislation this bad could pass," said Mike Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He was referring to a bill passed by the House that immunizes gun makers and sellers from liability.

President Bush has indicated that if the bill passes the Senate, he'll sign it. New York Times, September 22, 2003.

The ten-year ban on assault weapons expires September 13, 2004. The House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, who decides what bills will and won't come up for a vote, has announced that a vote to continue the ban on assault weapons will not come up for a vote, so Tom DeLay will have decided that assault weapons will become available once again.

http://www.theocracywatch.org/govern.htm#Gun

On March 2, 2004, the Senate scuttled a bill that would have immunized gun makers from lawsuits. Democrats and moderate Republicans added two amendments to the bill that gun advocates could not live with. One was to extend the ban on assault weapons, the other to require background checks on weapons buyers at gun shows. T

[wmnorton]

02:04 PM on 03/27/2012

You know them by their deeds not their words, the NRA spends most of its time and money insuring that gun sales for any gun remains legal. My dad had over 50 rifles and pistols, before he died he dropped his membership in the NRA, his comment if George H.W. Bush is going to drop his membership he was too, especially since they no longer represented him.

[OdinsEye]

08:49 PM on 03/27/2012

"People seem to forget that the National NRA represents gun manufacturers not gun owners. "

Completely false. You are confusing the NSSF with the NRA.

[Leosun]

11:46 PM on 03/26/2012

WOW...saw this article this morning, and is now MIA on HuffPo. Hmmm...someone trying to keep ALEC from prying eyes...

[RandyMan7027]

09:56 PM on 03/26/2012

For 24 years --and in tens of thousands of hours of reruns-- FOX Television has featured the prime time reality show "COPS." This highly edited show puts the very best face on the law enforcement profession while presenting a distorted view of how we're all on the verge of being overrun by gangs of violent thugs. Of course the show wouldn't have lasted this long without adequate viewers. But it also serves the criminal industrial complex by keeping America scared sh*tless. The decriminalization of marijuana and prostitution face a long uphill battle because of the billions in lost revenue to the law & order profiteers.

[Berettasskeeter]

08:53 AM on 03/27/2012

I'm sure you have equally good theories about all the other "reality" shows on tv that aren't presented by FOX, and they may actually mean something. This opinion is silly, but you're welcome to it.
Semper fi

[No Dogma Freedom]

10:49 AM on 03/27/2012

No he is right! TV propaganda and Fox News is always showing brown skinned people and poor people being shot and chased by white men! The corporate crimes of theft and pollution - though wide spread and deadly - get no press.

----The Criminal Industrial Complex - indeed! For profit prison and faith based prisons and the like - it is on the Stock Market. You make money with BS laws and long sentences that the criminals in suits want - stiffer and stiffer to insure they get their blood money!

---------> Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons

Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted With Cattle Prods, Burned By Toxic Chemicals, Does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were committed in Iraq?

By Deborah Davies

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for Channel 4 . It’s terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you’re not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm

[No Dogma Freedom]

07:55 PM on 03/27/2012

“The Left is self-defined as wanting MORE government control over our lives, our work, our family, our bodies. And I'm not the first of my "ilk" to define this.

So you mean - Civil liberties, OSHA, Women's Rights, human rights, Environmental law, ADA, Geneva Conventions and codes?

In luie of the above you would rather ----guns in all hands, Zealot laws on nudity, indecency, abortion and shift fed money to support their growing zealot economy as they levei laws on us as tight as the Taliban---- ???

Theocratic State known as Civil Religion?

I do not like your view - it is bare bone and more statements then facts:

Here is link for you on the issue:

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/left_and_right.html

Your excuses of crime are to be seen in Vichy's regime and others- where laws are written to excuse their crimes and or justify them - like the Prison we have! Power hides- they are crimes Goldman Sacks was nailed for Fraud and Love canal killed people as others do--- men like you would water down the laws in the name profit to suit your visions of gain!

Do you want to send me more of this prosaic, justifications for despotism and violence in the name of your ideas about the USC??

[benshere8]

05:57 PM on 03/26/2012

Our country has come to an all time low when common sense and the right thing are no longer part of our make up. Hate talk,lawless behaviour and the search for the truth have nothing in common. I don't understand the people of Florida since the Casey Anthony verdict and now this travisty of misjustice with the Martin case only proves there is more evil than good controlling the minds of Floridians. What is behind this kind of life style--drugs--greed-hard to understand.

[wyb]

05:54 PM on 03/26/2012

"Stand Your Ground", is a live ammo, spagetti western. It is higher level of lethal theater, a league more than the golden "Castle Law". First they built castles in the sky, now they build castles in the sky, and move in.

[Mike Cofta]

05:49 PM on 03/26/2012

...does the N.Y. Times have mandatory drug testing for their columnists ??? I bet NOT.

[girl4progress]

06:46 PM on 03/26/2012

So what are you saying? That ALEC doesn't exist? That most of these state legislators didn't sit on an ALEC board at one time or another? That it is a coincidence that these laws spring up all over the country where there is a republican majority, all almost identical in language?

[Mike Cofta]

09:08 PM on 03/26/2012

...read my post again, slowly...

[RandyMan7027]

10:01 PM on 03/26/2012

I guess you favor people be required to pee in a cup before the NY Times runs their "Letter to the Editor?" Works both ways my friend.

[Mike Cofta]

09:44 PM on 03/27/2012

...that comment makes no sense at all.

[rikilii]

05:32 PM on 03/26/2012

"...Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution..."

When a writer starts his article with a gross mischaracterization of the law he's writing about, it's hard to justify reading any further.

[jmpurser]

07:56 PM on 03/26/2012

That's actually what it does and how it's being used in this case.  A white thug chased a black teenager down the street, confronted him, and MURDERED him and isn't even being arrested.  Free racial murder in Florida.

[rikilii]

08:33 PM on 03/26/2012

That's not what happened at all according to the witnesses and all the tapes.  But following one fabrication with another is no longer surprising to me.

[Berettasskeeter]

08:54 AM on 03/27/2012

Really? A white thug, who happens to be hispanic/indian/white? And the black teenager, who was taller and a drug user?
Semper fi

[PandaUnbound]

05:30 PM on 03/26/2012

krugman is an obama shill who spews hate. He like obama has to interject himself into this situation where they are both encouraging violence.

[girl4progress]

06:47 PM on 03/26/2012

What????????????

[Toolologist]

12:16 AM on 03/27/2012

Unwound would be more appropriate, little bear.

[mjdloc157]

05:26 PM on 03/26/2012

What an idiotic statement just what "corperations" are out backing these laws? and for what reason, The left wants to blame everything in the universe on corperations

[girl4progress]

06:53 PM on 03/26/2012

It's corpOrations. He listed many of the corporations sitting on the ALEC board, did you read the article?

Here's a list of the rest!!

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ALEC_Corporations#For-Profit_Corporations

[jmpurser]

07:57 PM on 03/26/2012

Your lack of reading comprehension and aversion to reality doesn't make Krugman wrong.

[mjdloc157]

08:30 PM on 03/26/2012

and your fantasies and believeing anything Obama and his left wing press says does'nt make you smart

[intotheabyss]

05:07 PM on 03/26/2012

Wouldn't it be more accurate to call this law The Shoot First and Ask Questions Later Law?

What a surprise that monopolistic corporations would be behind this and other anti-democratic legislation. These sociopaths firmly believe that the people should have no say in the laws that govern this country. We need to demand that anti-trust laws, which are still on the books by the way, be strictly enforced. All these monopolies need to be broken http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/paul-krugman-stand-your-ground-laws_n_1378936.html#up. That would take care of many of the problems that plague us.

[rikilii]

05:33 PM on 03/26/2012

One who, like the author, knows nothing about the law or wants to mischaracterize it, might call it that.

[hoperequired]

05:02 PM on 03/26/2012

Gee, Paul, don't both sides have lobby groups? Boo hoo...........