Could Missouri's 'stand your ground' law apply to the Super Bowl celebration shooters?
Source: Associated Press
Could Missouri’s ‘stand your ground’ law apply to the Super Bowl celebration shooters?
BY HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, SUMMER BALLENTINE AND JIM SALTER
Updated 12:37 AM EST, February 27, 2024
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The man accused of firing the first shots at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally told authorities he felt threatened, while a second man said he pulled the trigger because someone was shooting at him, according to court documents.
Experts say that even though the shooting left one bystander dead and roughly two dozen people injured, 23-year-old Lyndell Mays and 18-year-old Dominic Miller might have good cases for self-defense through the state’s “stand your ground” law.
Missouri is among more than 30 states that have adopted some version of stand your ground laws over the past two decades, said Robert Spitzer, a professor emeritus of political science at the State University of New York, Cortland, whose research focuses on gun policy and politics. While earlier laws allowed people to use force to protect themselves in their homes, stand your ground provides even broader self-defense rights regardless of the location.
Now, the mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl celebration could be a new test of those expanded protections, and comes as self-defense already is at the center of another high-profile Kansas City shooting that left Ralph Yarl wounded.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/chiefs-parade-shooting-stand-your-ground-law-fc7b0658055e285079430dd9ae6d602d
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