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[[Image:Trayvon.martin.jpg|left|150px200px]]In February 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by 28-year-old George Zimmerman as the unarmed high school student returned from a 7-11 with an iced tea and bag of Skittles. Police initially failed to arrest Zimmerman because of the state's "Stand Your Ground" law, which goes beyond the traditional right to self defense by establishing a legal presumption of immunity if a killer claims they had a reasonable fear of bodily harm. The law has been described as an invitation to vigilantism and a "license to kill."
<br>In March 2012, CMD [http://prwatch.org/news/2012/03/11366/alec-ratified-nra-conceived-law-may-protect-trayvon-martins-killer reported] that NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer [http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203270005 helped draft] the Florida law in 2005, and [http://www.prwatch.org/files/Retreat_from_NRA's_force_St._Petersburg_Time.DOC "stared down legislators as they voted"] to pass it. Just a few months later, Hammer [http://www.prwatch.org/files/NRA_2005.png presented the bill] to ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force (now known as the Public Safety and Elections Task Force), and the NRA [http://www.prwatch.org/files/NRA_2005.png boasted] that "[h]er talk was well-received." The corporations and state legislators on the Task Force -- which was [http://web.archive.org/web/20050810000953/http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/0805/08alec.html chaired] by Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer of long guns -- voted unanimously to approve the bill as an ALEC "model bill." Since becoming an ALEC model it has become law in dozens of other states, and the number of homicides classified as "justifiable" [http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/stand-your-ground-laws-coincide-with-jump-in-justifiable-homicide-cases/2012/04/07/gIQAS2v51S_story.html has dramatically increased].<br>
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