YOU’RE WRONG

NRA Heavyweight: Yes, Cops Can Arrest the Stand-Your-Ground Florida Gunman

Lobbyist Marion Hammer disputes sheriff’s claim he was unable to do anything to parking-lot killing suspect.

The National Rifle Association has dismissed a Florida sheriff’s claim that the state’s Stand Your Ground law prohibited him from making an arrest in a shooting death caught on video last month. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told reporters on July 20 that he couldn’t arrest the gunman because the Florida statute “created a standard, that is a largely subjective standard” that allows the use of deadly force by a shooter who feels threatened. According to Politico, Gualtieri also suggested his office could be civilly liable for arresting the shooter. But the gun lobbyist who ushered in the law says the sheriff is wrong. “Nothing in either the 2005 law or the 2017 law prohibits a sheriff from making an arrest in a case where a person claims self-defense if there is probable cause that the use of force was unlawful,” said Marion Hammer, the powerful National Rifle Association lobbyist who helped push Stand Your Ground through the GOP-led Florida legislature. “Nothing in the law says a person can sue the sheriff for making an arrest when there is probable cause.”