John Nichols: Standing Up to ‘Stand Your Ground’
  • July 24, 2013

John Nichols: Standing Up to ‘Stand Your Ground’

John Nichols: Standing Up to ‘Stand Your Ground’

Pushing back against the NRA campaign to weaken gun control in states across the country. 

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After President Obama called into question the efficacy of Stand Your Ground laws, Senator Ted Cruz responded by saying that the president was showing a “disregard for the Bill of Rights.” Senator Cruz should check his history. Stand Your Ground laws are neither federal, nor particularly old. In 2005, Florida became the first state to enact a Stand Your Ground law—and since then the legislation has spread to thirty-three states, part of an NRA campaign to strengthen gun-use protections in capitols across the country.

The Nation’s Washington correspondent John Nichols and democratic strategist Julian Epstein join MSNBC’s Karen Finney to discuss the role of the NRA in advocating for Stand Your Ground legislation and what activists across the US are doing to challenges these broken laws.

—Jake Scobey-Thal

How the NRA became an organization for aspiring vigilantes.

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