GOP's Gaetz, Mullin propose nationwide 'Stand Your Ground'

FPI / May 7, 2023

Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz and Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin are proposing national "Stand Your Ground" legislation.

Stand Your Ground laws, such as the one in Florida, allow law-abiding persons in a lawful place 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.

States have various laws for self defense. Some blue states have a duty to retreat law, but more than half the country allows you to stand your ground.

"No American should ever be under the duty to retreat," Gaetz tweeted. "Especially in these days."

While chairman of the Florid state House’s Criminal Justice Subcommittee, Gaetz said he held hearings on the state’s Stand Your Ground law amid "national calls to repeal" the statute.

"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 said. "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. I think we ought to have a national reckoning on the duty to retreat, and we ought to extinguish it."

Gaetz said America has "too many states that continue to maintain the duty to retreat if one is attacked outside their home" and that Congress "should supersede that state law because it leaves Americans vulnerable."

The Florida Republican noted that in "our nation’s capital today," a person being attacked on the street has to make a "split-second" decision on whether they can "turn their back and run," with a "miscalculation" potentially proving "fatal. And if you miscalculate toward the side of self-defense, you could be under arrest. If someone is intending to commit a forcible felony on an American, an American right should be meeting that force with comparable force."

Gaetz said he is seeing increasing support for the legislation among his GOP colleagues and said Mullin’s companion bill in the Senate "is a big boost."

Mullin told Fox News Digital that states "like Oklahoma and Florida recognize that in some cases, the use of lethal force is justified to prevent imminent death or serious bodily harm. Every American should have the right to defend himself or herself against imminent threats to personal safety without the duty to retreat."

"I’m proud to introduce the Stand Your Ground Act in the Senate to codify these commonsense self-defense protections for all law-abiding Americans," Mullin added.

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