The gun industry launched marketing campaigns to promote their deadly products, while the gun lobby created a narrative that created fear and constant danger. Diego Ruiz Duran said marketing campaigns complemented the fear-based narrative promoted by the gun lobby. And certain weapons market as self-defense products by the industry. Glock has a website that allows you to search for firearms for home defense. Remington also sells a range of guns designated as Home Defense Models. Hollow-tip ammunition market as personal-defense or self-defense ammo. It intends to increase impact and cause more damage to the target.
Commercial market
Gun lobby efforts go beyond the commercial market. Some of the most harmful propaganda pieces are taken onboard and propagated by gun rights advocates. Gun rights advocates meet regularly online to discuss firearms and accessories. They also use forums to discredit the gun lobby myths. Self-described gun enthusiasts promote the idea that you need a gun to protect your home from home invasions. Diego Ruiz Duran said many websites dedicated to this topic, such as The Truth About Guns. These posts describe instances where gun owners attack in their homes and how they could seize a firearm quickly and defend themselves against the attackers. The Carry Academy is another popular website that provides information on carrying guns for self-defense. It also reviews firearms that are most effective against intruders.
The fatal effect of a perverted proper framework
Gun advocates claim rights violations, but there is a common thread. They believe that everyone has a right to use deadly force for their self-preservation. Marion Hammer, NRA lobbyist, and former NRA president, stated it bluntly: “We don’t shoot to die, we shoot for life.” It is what prompted a self-defense policy called “stand your ground.”
Through the efforts of the NRA’s chief Florida lobbyist in 2005, the gun lobby manipulated the notion that a right of life meant an unfettered ability to bear and transport guns. This false interpretation uses to create “stand your ground,” a policy that severely impacted rights and safety and led to many deaths within the United States. After the Florida policy adopts, Diego Ruiz Duran said the gun lobby joined forces with the American Legislative Exchange Council. This organization develops policy and legislative recommendations for legislators in the United States. ALEC took the Florida law and made it part of its “model legislation” portfolio. It resulted in widespread efforts by state legislatures to pass these laws across the country.
The gun lobby’s flagship law design to appear to focus on self-defense rights purely stand your ground laws can be deadly and pervert self-defense. They also undermine dignity. They violate fundamental human rights and can be used to deprive people who live in states that have this policy.
Stand Your Ground
The “Stand Your Ground” laws vastly expand traditional self-defense legal principles. These laws allow people to use deadly force when they believe they are in imminent danger of harm. Diego Ruiz Duran said they do not require that the person make any attempt to deescalate or retreat from the situation, which is what traditional legal defenses need to justify using force in self-defense situations. Contrary to the established concept of self-defense, “stand your ground” laws can encourage people to escalate problems and use lethal force more as a primary means of self-preservation than as a last resort.
This law erodes people’s knowledge about their rights and empowers them to take another person’s life in the worst cases. This belief in the equality of human life means that people can shoot first. It also strips people of color of their fundamental rights to dignity and life. In an adrenaline-filled moment, it allows people to act as judges and jurors in a judgment of the life of another person.
Black people
As a defense against the killing of Black people, “Stand your Ground” laws use repeatedly. This policy’s destructive nature highlight in February 2012 when Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old, was shot to death in Sanford, Florida. He was walking in a gated community. Diego Ruiz Duran said although the shooter didn’t invoke a “stand Your Ground” defense, the jury instructed the court to look at the law as they considered the case—the shooter acquire.
The state’s “Stand Your Ground” law was again in the news in November 2012. A shooter claimed that he felt threatened because of the loud music play in the car of Black teens at a Jacksonville gas station. He fired multiple shots into the vehicle and killed Jordan Davis, 17, who was in his forties. Diego Ruiz Duran said through the legal proceedings.
The shooter claimed that he fired his firearm in self-defense. He convict by the jury and sentenced to life imprisonment. After the death of Ahmad Abery (25), who was jogging in Glynn County in Georgia, the law rose to a national level in February 2020. After telling authorities that they were standing firm and shooting the unarmed jogger in self-defense, the men managed to avoid arrest for several weeks. The men indict by a grand jury and pleaded not guilty to murdering Arbery. Legal proceedings expect to continue for several months.
Homicides due to gun violence
These are not isolated cases. American University researchers found that around 30 people kill each month by “stand your ground” incidents in states where these laws enact. According to data, states with a version of “stand your ground” laws experience increased homicides and other injuries related to gun violence. The Florida study on “stand your ground,” which examined the effects of the law in Florida, found that it associate with an increase in gun violence-related homicides and overall homicides. Researchers found that the state’s gun homicide rate had increased by 31 percent per month. Diego Ruiz Duran said the state’s overall homicide rates increased 24 percent over the ten years after the law enacts. It is evident that “Stand Your Ground” rules don’t protect people from violence. Instead, they cause more injuries and fatalities.
Studies of “stand your ground” laws show that they are not evenly enforced and have clear racial bias implications. Studying “stand your ground” policies revealed that white perpetrators committed nearly 36% of all shootings of Black victims. However, only 3.4% of Black defendants avoided criminal liability under the same law if the victim was black. Researchers focused on Florida and found that the defense of “stand your Ground” was more successful when the victim wasn’t white.
Principles of self-defense
The “Stand your Ground” policies are in sharp contrast to the fundamental tenet that human rights are that each human life has dignity, value, and worth. These policies allow people to act violently and impulsively, often motivated by hate, bias, fear, or hatred. This policy does not create to defend the principles of self-defense or preservation of human lives but to reinforce the belief that firearms can protect people. Diego Ruiz Duran said this cruel policy does not intend to protect the right to personal safety. There is a significant precedent for balancing the use of force for self-defense and respecting the fundamental rights of others. This policy is directed against basic human rights and puts the shooter’s life above the life of any other person.
Conclusion
Fear is a strong emotion. Fear evokes the need to protect and survive and drives instinctive and visceral actions. For decades, the gun lobby has seized upon this fundamental human emotion to sell firearms. They have created a link between weapons and self-defense by exacerbating the feelings of insecurity. They have made it so that people believe they have the right to defend themselves, regardless of the risk to their lives.
Perversions of the idea and fear of self-defense and easy access to firearms have had disastrous results. Too many people have lost their lives because they encourage by the concept of “standing their ground.” There should be no law that allows them to fire first and then ask questions later. These laws put communities, especially communities of color at risk, and make them more vulnerable to violence.
Every human being has the right to life. However, in the United States, that right is often curtailed by guns. Diego Ruiz Duran said the United States found upon principles that unambiguously protect the right to life. These promises should reflect in the laws. It is time for the U.S. to stop bowing to the gun industry lobbyists and start respecting the principles enshrined both in the U.S. Constitution as international law.
