
The wounding of the Black teen, who was simply trying to pick up his siblings, generated widespread outrage, especially when Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves suggested that investigators would consider whether the shooter – an 84-year-old white man – might have recourse to the state’s stand your ground law as a defense against prosecution. Some also expand the circumstances in which someone could use lethal force to defend property.Īlthough the laws appear to apply to all law-abiding citizens, research shows that they are not equitably enforced, and that they may be emboldening property owners to shoot first and question their actions later, even when there is no real threat of harm.Ĭertainly that seems to be the case with the shooting of Yarl. Stand your ground laws, meanwhile, authorize defensive violence without a duty to retreat, wherever a person may legally be. While preexisting laws regarding justifiable use of force allowed the use of lethal force for self-defense in some circumstances, they required that people first try to retreat from a perceived threat if it was safe to do so or to seek a nonlethal solution to a hostile encounter. Since 2005, these “ stand your ground” laws have spread to around 30 states, transforming the United States’ legal landscape.

What these young people have in common is that they were killed in accidental encounters with armed property owners.Īs a scholar who has studied America’s love affair with guns and lethal self-defense, I have explored the history of laws that selectively shield citizens from criminal responsibility when they use force and claim self-defense. And then there is the case of 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis, a passenger in a car that turned around in a driveway in upstate New York on April 15, 2023.

Take Renisha McBride, who sought help after wrecking her car in a Detroit suburb in 2013, or Carson Senfield, who entered the wrong car in Tampa – thinking it was his Uber – on his 19th birthday. Others who have made similar mistakes have died. The wounds the 16-year-old suffered after being shot twice on April 13, 2023, by the owner of the house whose doorbell he rang, thinking it was where he was due to pick up his two younger brothers, did not prove fatal. Interview: Nintendo Taps U.S.In one key respect, Ralph Yarl was fortunate.Read more of Wired's WiiWare Launch Guide. Whoever gets the most points at the end of the level is the "king," and gets to choose the upgrades on the menu screen. Now you're all cooperating to save the castle, but you're also competing for points. If things get truly hairy, you can call on three friends, who can join in the game just by picking up a Wiimote. They'll call out giants with heads made of soda caps, battering ram specialists who attack with popsicle sticks, etc. You'll need all this stuff, as the enemies get fiercer and grow their numbers as the levels wear on.

And mages bring a variety of magic spells, that you can cast with the D-pad. Clicking on the demolition tower will send out a soldier with a bomb (made of a cap gun's red ring of ammo) that you can click on to "set your enemies up the bomb" (the game's words). Masons will rebuild your tower if it's damaged. Archers will pick off enemies automatically. Now you can click your castle towers to assign them to the different stations. Add this first, and you can drag and drop soldiers into it, and they'll be spit out as allies. And how do you add people to your army? Why, the "Pit of Conversion," of course, which is a bucket of blue paint.
