The wake of Trayvon Martin’s shooting is not reaching the shores of public sentiment alone.
It’s extending to the State House, too, and with support from organized labor.
Last week state Rep. Bakari Sellers (D-Denmark) introduced a bill to remove the “stand your ground” modification, enacted in 2006, to South Carolina’s “Protection of Persons and Property Act.”
The South Carolina AFL-CIO came out in support of Sellers’ motion, too. "We have long had laws on the books that allowed for legitimate self defense," says Ken Riley, vice president of the organization.
"These new laws are being used by vigilantes to excuse frontier justice against unarmed people,” and “have no place on the books of a society that considers itself civilized," says Riley, who is also president of the ILA Local 1422 in Charleston.
“The SC AFL-CIO believes these unnecessary laws conflict with its commitment to equal rights and due process for all citizens,” reads a press release from the labor organization.
Originally a Castle Doctrine that only applied to residences and places of business, the Act’s change extended the right for a South Carolinian to use deadly force to “another place where he has a right to be(.)”
South Carolina’s statute is very similarly worded to Florida’s “stand your ground” law.
The same statute was recently used as basis to not pursue charges against a Spartanburg woman who shot a homeless man inside a vacant property.
Sellers says his bill would restore the law to its original Castle Doctrine format, still allowing deadly force in self-defense inside the home, car or other owned property.
It’s extending to the State House, too, and with support from organized labor.
Last week state Rep. Bakari Sellers (D-Denmark) introduced a bill to remove the “stand your ground” modification, enacted in 2006, to South Carolina’s “Protection of Persons and Property Act.”
The South Carolina AFL-CIO came out in support of Sellers’ motion, too. "We have long had laws on the books that allowed for legitimate self defense," says Ken Riley, vice president of the organization.
"These new laws are being used by vigilantes to excuse frontier justice against unarmed people,” and “have no place on the books of a society that considers itself civilized," says Riley, who is also president of the ILA Local 1422 in Charleston.
“The SC AFL-CIO believes these unnecessary laws conflict with its commitment to equal rights and due process for all citizens,” reads a press release from the labor organization.
Originally a Castle Doctrine that only applied to residences and places of business, the Act’s change extended the right for a South Carolinian to use deadly force to “another place where he has a right to be(.)”
South Carolina’s statute is very similarly worded to Florida’s “stand your ground” law.
The same statute was recently used as basis to not pursue charges against a Spartanburg woman who shot a homeless man inside a vacant property.
Sellers says his bill would restore the law to its original Castle Doctrine format, still allowing deadly force in self-defense inside the home, car or other owned property.
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