Protesters demanding Florida revisit their "stand your ground" law camped out at the state capital in Tallahassee met with Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday evening. Scott told the group that he ultimately will not call a special session to repeal the law, according to the Associated Press.
Florida's "stand your ground" law has come to the spotlight after George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. While Zimmerman's attorneys did not specifically invoke the "stand your ground" law in their defense the jury was told to consider it when deciding whether or not Zimmerman acted in self-defense, according to CNN.
The Florida law says:
"A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."
The protesters are members of a group called Dream Defenders that tries to promote social change through nonviolence. They had been camped out at the state capital with hopes to speak with Scott for three day, according to CNN.
Scott met with seven of the protestors in a conference room for close to an hour on Thursday night. While the meeting was cordial the protesters did not hear the answer they were hoping to as Scott refused to budge in his support of the law, according to the Huffington Post.
"Tonight, the protesters again asked that I call a special session of the legislature to repeal Florida's 'stand your ground' law," Scott said in a statement. "I told them that I agree with the Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection, which concurred with the law. I also reminded them of their right to share their views with their state legislators and let them know their opinions on the law."
"We're not here to play games," Phillip Agnew, executive director of Dream Defenders, said after the meeting. "We're very serious about this. And it pains our heart that we do live in a state where a child can be killed just for the way he looks."
One Florida legislator is expected to introduce legislation to change the self-defense law, according to CNN.
"We have a clear case that shows 'stand your ground' has very troubling problems, and those problems are central to the well-being of Floridians," Senate Democratic Leader Chris Smith said.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has come out against Florida's law as well as the similar laws that exist in 22 other states. Holder has said that the law is trying to "fix something that was never broken" and that it promotes "violent situations to escalate in public," according to CNN.
"The attorney general fails to understand that self-defense is not a concept, it's a fundamental human right," Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action, said. "To send a message that legitimate self-defense is to blame is unconscionable."
