Arkansas Lawmaker Tears Apart State's Proposed "Stand Your Ground" Bill
As news of mass shootings become more commonplace and depressingly unremarkable, states are trying out more and more ways to keep people safe—as long as they don't have to actually strengthen gun control laws. Arming teachers has become quietly common, for example, and North Carolina is considering pay raises exclusively for teachers who carry guns to school. This past week, Arkansas took up a less novel approach: adopting controversial Stand Your Ground laws.
In theory, Stand Your Ground laws are meant to free people to act in self-defense when they feel threatened, but in reality the application of the laws is wildly uneven. In Florida, for example, Marissa Alexander, a black woman who fired a warning shot at her abusive husband, was held in prison and then under house arrest for nearly six years. She was convicted of aggravated assault charges in 2012, the same year George Zimmerman was cleared of charges for shooting Trayvon Martin to death. Both Alexander and Zimmerman cited Florida's Stand Your Ground law, but only Zimmerman got off. A 2017 study also found that after Florida implemented the law, the state saw a sustained spike in homicides.
In Arkansas, the state's Senate Judiciary Committee took up discussion of the bill, and Senator Stephanie Flowers, the only black person on the committee, began her remarks in a now-viral clip by saying, "I'll be as quick as I can, as quick as it takes to kill somebody, I guess. You want me to be that quick."
She continued:
"It doesn't take much to look on the local news every night and see how many black kids, black boys, black men are being killed with these 'stand your ground' defenses that people raise. And they get off. So I take issue with that. I'm the only person here of color. I'm a mother, too. And I have a son. And I care as much for my son as y'all care for y'all's. But my son doesn't walk the same path as yours does. So this debate deserves more time."
From there Flowers launched into an impassioned speech, describing the intimidation tactics of anti-gun control opponents and calling out other lawmakers for carrying weapons themselves. "Do I have a right to stand my ground against some crazy-ass person walking around with a doggone gun? I don't know what the hell he intends to do!" At one point, the committee chair tells Flowers she needs to stop, to which she responds, "No, I don't. What the hell you going to do? Shoot me?"
She continued: "I'm talking about my son's life! And I'm talking about the lives of other black kids!" When the chair interrupted her a second time, she told him to go to hell.
The committee ultimately rejected the bill by a vote of four to three. Watch Flowers' full comments below.
