Standing Our Ground

I've been reading an excellent book. Standing Our Ground; A Mother's Story is written by Lucy McBath, who is a Democratic Congresswoman for the 6th Congressional District of the state of Georgia. It's a tale of hardship and adversity, leading to a determination to be an agent of change. As Hillary Clinton said, "Lucy, in the face of tragedy, turned her sorrow into a strategy, and her mourning into a movement".

The author's early life is charted through the lenses of family, race and religion. As a devout black woman, brought up in Illinois by parents who were active in the civil rights movement, she describes seeing the ransacking of Mr. K's Grocery Store while, alongside, Mr. Dunn's Record Store was untouched.

"Did Mr. K's store get firebombed and Mr. Dunn's didn't because Mr. K was a white in the black part of town, while Mr. Dunn was African American and lived right there in the neighborhood with the rest of us?" At the age of seven, "I was still years away from grasping just how betrayed black America was feeling that day."

It was the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis.

"I knew who Dr. King was. He was our prince of peace; a relentless advocate for nonviolent resistance to racial and economic injustice...I find it curious now that my first vivid childhood memory is of a black man cut down in an unspeakable act of gun violence. The tentative connections I began to make on that day would foreshadow my future, both the tragedy that awaited me, and the activism it would provoke."

34 years later, McBath relates "my 17 year old son was gunned down in Florida on Black Friday 2012." Jordan had been driven by a friend, with another boy, to a gas station to get some gum. They were playing music loud on the car stereo. A middle aged white man took exception to the volume and, after a verbal altercation, shot the boys, killing Jordan.

There was a witness to the shooting and the perpetrator - Michael Dunn - was soon arrested. He claimed he was acting in self-defence; his lawyer would use Stand Your Ground as the centrepiece of his defence.

In 2005 the state of Florida adopted the Stand Your Ground law. It is based on 17th century English common law and the concept of "an Englishman's home is his castle". Florida’s Stand Your Ground” law states, “A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat [my formatting] and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself."

In other words, Michael Dunn had only to demonstrate that he believed he was in danger in order to justify his use of force.

At trial in 2014, the jury convicted Dunn on four charges, including attempted murder but, with the jury deadlocked on the first degree murder charge, the judge declared a mistrial on that count. In a second trial a few months later, Dunn was found guilty of first degree murder.

At the sentencing hearing after the second trial, Lucy McBath gave the following statement:

"I choose to forgive you, Mr. Dunn, for taking my son's life. I choose to release the seed of bitterness and anger that would not honor my son's life. I choose to walk in the freedom of knowing God's justice has been served...I pray that God has mercy on your soul."

Thus began Lucy McBath's advocacy on the issue of what she calls "our nation's perilously lenient gun laws". Working with reform groups and in the media spotlight, she becomes an important campaigner for gun law reform, eventually leading her to Congress.

This is a profound, enlightening and moving story. Written simply but with an attention to detail, particularly in regard to gun law history and charting subsequent massacres. To a non-American, it is frankly shocking; how can a nation live like this?

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Postscripts:

"Looking back now, I'm shocked at my naiveté. Growing up in the civil rights movement, travelling to marches and protest rallies with my parents, I should have known better....it is why I feel such a charge now to help save lives, and why I will never allow the hope for a more equitable future to grow cold in my heart." [Congresswoman Lucy McBath]

37 of the 50 states of the USA have Stand Your Ground laws or case law/precedent.

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Notes:

3½ minutes, 10 Bullets. A documentary film made following the author through the two jury trials. It won a Special Jury Prize for Social Impact at the Sundance Festival. Also an Academy Award nomination. You can watch it on Amazon Prime Video.

The Armor Of Light. Emmy award winning film which follows an Evangelical minister, Rev. Scheck, as he meets Lucy McBath and they form an unexpected alliance on gun control issues as "they bravely attempt to make others consider America’s gun culture through a moral lens." Also on Amazon Prime Video, I believe. armoroflightfilm.com

UPDATE: I may have misled you; it seems these films are not available on any UK streaming service. Not sure why that is; maybe licensing issues, I don't know. Sorry. Read the book!