For public safety, Ohio must reject ‘stand your ground’
On Dec. 4, 2018, I testified in front of the Ohio House Government Oversight and Reform Committee against House Bill 228, a stand-your-ground bill that would have eliminated the duty to retreat before using a gun in self-defense. I left the Statehouse that day dejected, feeling that the committee had ignored me and the many other Ohioans who had testified against the bill, including people in law enforcement, gun violence survivors and medical professionals.
This was personal to me. I know how painful it is to lose a family member to gun violence. My forever-14year-old cousin, Jaime Guttenberg, was killed on Feb. 14, 2018 in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Afew days after I testified and during my last class of the day at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, I heard that the committee had removed the stand-yourground provision from the bill. I had never felt so proud to be an Ohioan or so proud to have state officials who listened to the concerns of their constituents.
That’s why it’s unthinkable that less than two years later, the Ohio legislature is considering another standyour-ground bill. This new bill, House Bill 381, would not make Ohioans safer. In fact, it would do the opposite. Just over a year after the mass shooting outside a bar in Dayton, the legislature has needlessly chosen to introduce this gun lobby-backed bill.
Stand-your-ground laws in other states have led to significant increases in gun homicides, including a 32% uptick in Florida. One nationwide study found that as many as 30 people a month are killed as a result of stand-your-ground laws. In just one year, that’s over 350 people whose loved ones will face every holiday, birthday and celebration for the rest of their lives without them.
In Ohio, a state where an average of 526 people die by gun homicide every year, why would our legislature pass a bill that would greatly exacerbate this? Simply put: Lives are at stake.
Stand-your-ground laws will especially hurt communities and people of color, as research shows that race plays a significant role in whether a homicide is deemed “legally justified” under laws of this type. Analysis of FBI data shows that the murder of Black Americans by white Americans is deemed “justified” almost 10 times more frequently than the inverse, and that this effect is even more stark in states that have implemented stand-your-ground laws.
After a summer of reckoning over police brutality and racial inequality nationwide, we must recognize the deadly impact of white vigilantism, a threat that has led to the murders of so many individuals like Trayvon Martin and Ahmaud Arbery. The mixture of guns and racism is deadly, and policies like stand your ground have been used to justify those murders.
Iknow that my fellow Ohioans don’t want a state that arms racism. And frankly, our legislators know that. They must reject this bill – again.
At a time when gun violence continues to rise, we must take this issue seriously. I know too well that when it comes to gun safety, lives are at stake. Seeing my cousin’s face in the news, visiting her house without her in it, knowing that she simply should’ve been able to grow up – it hurts, and it hasn’t stopped hurting. It always will.
We should be proud to be from the Buckeye State, as I was when our legislators listened to their constituents and didn’t pass a stand-your-ground bill in 2018. And we should feel safe in our state, too. This bill and standyour-ground policies will make that impossible.
For all families in our state, the legislature must reject HB 381.
Matthew Youkilis is a Cincinnati resident and 2019 graduate of Walnut Hills High School.