On Tuesday, February 2, a grassroots 2A gun organization’s efforts proved successful in challenging the NRA’s sponsored Stand Your Ground bill.
SB 24 passed the Senate in January and moved on to the House Judiciary Committee where it failed overwhelmingly. Senator Trent Garner commented that “the Stand Your Ground Bill was halted by radical extremist liberals who stacked a committee to kill it.”
But, in an unusual and unprecedented alignment, a staunch conservative gun group, Gun Owners of Arkansas, crossed party lines in challenging the bill. The group’s President, Gary Epperson, has been quite vocal regarding the organization’s stand, and in fact, he and others have worked diligently with legislators to achieve the necessary language changes to support the bill. “Calling it Stand Your Ground is misleading at best,” stated Epperson. “Before a person has the protections of this law, they must determine if they’re lawfully present. If not, then the individual has a duty to ‘attempt’ to retreat even if the threat is a drawn weapon.”
Michael Kaiser, a criminal defense attorney testified against the bill in committee on Tuesday. “As written, this bill will add far more situations where a citizen will have to retreat rather than less,” stated Kaiser. “This bill will make a lot more innocent people guilty of murder or battery, where they would be not guilty under current law.”
State Representative Marcus Richmond agrees and did not support the bill. “I have been an NRA Lifetime member since 1979 which is longer than some of my colleagues have been alive. So I found myself in unusual territory today concerning a gun rights bill. I could not support SB24, SYG bill. While I support simplification and strengthening our ability and right to self-defense, this bill in my opinion did neither. Inclusion of the terminology ‘lawful presence’ created more possibilities of prosecution instead of improving your self-defense rights.”
Richmond went on to add why the language of the bill is so crucial. “You could find yourself in a location such as a business where you are unaware that the owner does not permit people to carry in his store. Suddenly you find it necessary to use deadly force. You could be prosecuted even though you were unaware of the owner’s policy. You might be within a thousand feet of a school and not know it and find yourself prosecuted. Look at Kyle Rittenhouse in Wisconsin. That kid ran away as hard and fast as he could and finally was forced to use deadly force or he would have been murdered. He is going to jail and part of the prosecutor’s strategy is that Kyle was not lawfully present, he was breaking curfew. The sponsors said such a thing would never happen in Arkansas and I say, “no one has a crystal ball.” Better language would have been, “a right to be present.” Laws change, rights do not.
Richmond added that legislators have spent the last month asking for the change, but the sponsors “responded with vilification, verbal attacks, and political threats.” Richmond refused to back down or be intimidated, however. “I refuse to be intimidated by someone who thinks they can threaten or bully me into submitting. It will never happen. So the bill that I and most of my Republican colleagues wanted to vote for, failed. I cannot tell you why they would not amend the bill except the sponsors said the prosecuting attorneys may not support such a change. Maybe not, but why so important to the prosecutors? Because it makes it easier for a prosecutor to use his 20/20 hindsight and pick apart your reason for not retreating. Such language makes it almost a certainty that they can find something in your defense to prosecute if they are a mind to do so. So in the sponsor’s opinion, their support was critical to him. I can only surmise the reason for wanting not to jeopardize prosecuting attorney support is that one of the sponsors may be considering a run for the Attorney General. Having the prosecuting attorney’s association endorsement would be politically helpful. Once again political ambition may have trumped the people’s considerations. Then again maybe not because I can’t read minds. The last issue I have as to why we should use ‘right to be present’ instead of lawful presence is because our laws are going to change under the Biden administration, and not for the good. Remember laws can change, rights do not. This bill was not about my ego. It is not about my political ambition. I have neither. What it is about is getting it right so a law-abiding citizen knows when he is in his right to defend himself…”
After the bill failed to pass out of the House Judiciary Committee, the bill’s sponsor, Senator Bob Ballinger, called for the bill to be brought out of committee to the House floor for a vote.
