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Question of the day: What interest would a corporate lobbyist group have in expanding the rights of citizens to shoot and kill each other?

A great deal has been written about the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and Bo Morrison over the past several weeks. I don't need to rehash that conversation, as there is little I can offer regarding specific facts of those cases. What I would like to do instead is examine why these Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground Laws have been promoted with such enthusiasm by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

...ALEC is a corporate lobbyist group that writes model legislation favorable to its corporate members and presents this legislation for passage in statehouses across the nation. The conduit for this legislation are the legislators who are also members of ALEC. This partnership between corporate lobbyists and politicians has been very fruitful for the corporations hawking their legislation. This is fact, not conspiracy theory, as evidenced when ALEC legislation was recently introduced in Florida still bearing the ALEC mission statement.

ALEC model legislation is being passed in statehouses all over the nation. ALEC legislation includes anti-labor legislation like that seen in Wisconsin, Ohio, and the numerous "Right to Work (for less)" states, voter disenfranchisement legislation ("voter ID"), and the privatization of schools, prisons, public works, and pension funds. ALEC bills dismantle environmental regulations, make it harder for people injured by corporations to sue for compensation, and take away public financing of elections...

ALEC has also vigorously and enthusiastically promoted Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground legislation around the country. The Florida "stand your ground" law became ALEC's nationwide model legislation on the matter, and since then, over two dozen states have enacted legislation tied to ALEC's model law...

As a police officer, I am intimately familiar with the law governing the use of deadly force. While police officers, by definition, use deadly force in justifiable circumstances more frequently that private citizens, the law relating to the use of deadly force applies to private citizens in the same manner...

Underpinning these standard use of force laws is a pretty basic moral tenet: We should not be killing each other unless absolutely necessary.

What laws like Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground do is essentially remove the requirement that a person actually evaluate whether the person they shoot is presenting an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm if that encounter occurs at the person's home (or business, or vehicle). You don't have to show that you reasonably believed they had a weapon, that they had intent to cause you or someone else death or great bodily harm, or that they had the means to do so…

One of the most extreme forms of Castle Doctrine law was recently passed in the State of Indiana. In its infinite wisdom, the Indiana legislature amended their Castle Doctrine to allow people to use deadly force against police officers entering their home if they reasonably believed the officers were acting unlawfully. Don't concern yourself with the fact that a judge has likely issued a search warrant if police are forcibly entering a residence. Instead, Indiana lets the homeowner (who is often an accused criminal) decide if the cops are there legally, and if the answer in his or her mind is no, he or she can blast away.

Let me make a couple of things clear, before people make erroneous assumptions about my view of the use of deadly force in society. As a police officer for 15 years, and a SWAT officer for 12 of those, I can say without reservation that if someone actually breaks into my house, there is a high likelihood they will be shot and killed. Not a certainty, because I have at least a moral obligation to make a very quick decision about what that person's intent is and if other options exist, but a high likelihood nonetheless. I will utilize deadly force without any hesitation if I determine that my life or someone else's life is in imminent danger, and I will be able to live the remainder of my days in peace with the consequences of those actions. The reason I will be able to live with having to use deadly force is because I will know in my heart that it is what I had to do. I will do my best to evaluate the situation first, and utilize other options if they are feasible. At the very least, I will attempt to determine the difference between Alzheimer's sufferer and rapist; armed robber and my own child.

That decision whether or not to use deadly force might occur in a milisecond, and it will certainly weigh in favor of protection of my family. If someone is in my residence, they may or may not get the chance to explain. If they are armed, they certainly won't. It will, however, be a decision based upon my processing of information, not because the Legislature has given me a blanket authorization to kill.

And here's the curious, and somewhat troubling, thing about all of this: Wisconsin law already provided protection for those using deadly force in a reasonable manner in defense of themselves or others prior to the Castle Doctrine...

From all of the reading I have done, there was no groundswell of demand for these laws by the citizens of these states. These laws were promoted by lobbyists directly to legislators. So back to my original question: why has ALEC been such a forceful proponent of this legislation across this nation? Why was this such a priority for a corporate lobbying group?...

I think there is something much more fundamental, and much more sinister, going on regarding ALEC's promotion of Castle Doctrine laws...

The small elite group that controls this country has done a fantastic job of manufacturing an attitude of "every man for himself" that now pervades our culture. They want destroy the human compassion we once had for one another, and the sense of common good (and sacrifice) that made this country prosper. They want us to be mean, and they want us to be selfish.

And the Castle Doctrine? In my opinion, they want us to get to the point where the moral component of taking a human life is out of the equation, the only question is whether it is legally justifiable.

I believe that in order for the corporate elite to continue to further an agenda that favors a select few, they have to turn the masses against each other...

The Castle Doctrine is just one part of the "shiny object" campaign that the corporate right has waged for decades to prevent this awakening from occurring. Don't mind that the top 1% controls 40% of the wealth in this country, instead blame the public worker making $40,000 a year. Don't mind the fact that the wealthy elite in this nation have siphoned trillions of dollars out of our economy and into their pockets through corrupt trade, banking, and tax policies. No, blame the fact that some single mom is getting $200 more in food stamps than she is entitled to. Even better if your mental picture of that single mom conjures up a person of color. The welfare abuse in this nation is but a grain of sand on the beach of corporate welfare and political corruption, yet the right has succeeded in getting us to focus on that one grain with rabid outrage...

In order to get people to continue to vote against their best interests, the ruling class has to make them believe the average guy next to them is the enemy. In order to "drown our government in the bathtub," they have to completely destroy any remaining sense that we are our brother's keeper. It is the only way it is OK to deny people health care when they are sick, or food when they are hungry. It is how they can demonize our teachers, firefighters and police officers while they siphon trillions from our collective bank accounts.

What the Castle Doctrine laws have done is take away the legal requirement of thought and reasonableness. I would strongly argue that the short-cutting of the legal requirements has the effect of also short-cutting the moral and ethical considerations of taking a human life, and groups like ALEC know this. It is one more step in their goal of having us utterly dehumanize each other...

At the end of the day, we have to decide on a fundamental level if we are our brother's keeper or our brother's killer.

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His comments about castle doctrines are not only contradictory but also condescending.