‘Stand your ground’ laws are ‘leading to people getting killed’
Florida state Sen. Chris Smith, D-Ft. Lauderdale, and David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, discuss “stand your ground” laws with “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer. A task force marshaled by Florida Gov. Rick Scott to investigate such a law in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death recently recommended that few changes should be made to the controversial legislation.
But Smith says a task force he organized himself found substantial problems with the law, and Hemenway agrees. “These laws don’t seem to have any good effect in terms of deterring crime, and the one thing they do is tend to increase the number of homicides,” Hemenway says.
