Stand Your Ground revision passes Senate committee

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Three gun bills that will be considered during Florida’s legislative session next year continue to pass through Senate committees.

On Tuesday the Criminal Justice committee passed a bill (SB 344) that revises the Stand Your Ground law and another that would allow those with concealed carry permits to openly carry in public. At the same time the Higher Education committee passed a bill to allow concealed permit owners to carry on campus.

Of the three, the one that got the most scrutiny was Stand Your Ground. The Senate’s version, sponsored by Republican Rob Bradley of Fleming Island, puts the burden of proof on prosecutors to prove that the defendant was not acting in self-defense where that person is asking for immunity. The current statute requires the defendant to prove those claims before a judge in order to avoid trial.

“What we are clarifying is that immunity has meaning,” Bradley said. “As case law has evolved they have strayed from legislative intent. Immunity has no meaning if it stands trail that the state could not bear the burden of proof. This bill brings full effect to the law.”

Stacy Scott, speaking on behalf of Florida Public Defenders Association, sees the bill as not an expansion of Stand Your Ground but as a clarification of the procedure by which those rights are asserted.

Lucy McBath, who spoke in opposition, said that had the proposed bill been in effect during the trial of the man who shot her son, prosecutors would have lost the case. Jordan Davis, 17, was shot and killed at a Jacksonville gas station in 2012 and the shooter claimed self-defense but was later found guilty. The dispute centered over loud music that was playing in the car.

“There’s far more ambiguity. It is based on perception of the shooter if the threat was credible,” McBath said. “If you have to do that before the judge and now jurors that is compounding work to prove innocence of the victim. It is ludicrous and it is not making communities safer.”

The bill still has to go through the Judiciary and Rules committees in the Senate in order to reach the floor. A companion bill in the House (HB 169) has yet to be heard by any committees.

Despite opposition from the state Fraternal Order of Police, SB 300 passed committee. The bill would make Florida the 45th state to allow residents with permits to carry anywhere not prohibited by law. A similar bill was approved by the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee on Oct. 6.

The Senate’s Higher Education Committee was the second committee to approve concealed carry permit owners to carry on college campuses (SB 068). It was passed by the Criminal Justice Committee on Sept. 16. However it still has to go through the Judiciary and Rules committees before reaching the floor.