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! style="padding:2px;" | <h2 style="margin:3px; background:#2966B8; font-size:140%; font-weight:bold; text-align:left; color:#FFFFFF; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">Efforts to Rewrite Americans' Rights; Changes that Imprison More People for Longer and Make More Money</h2>

! style="padding:2px;" | <h2 style="margin:3px; background:#000000; font-size:140%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #000000; text-align:left; color:#ffffff; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">ALEC Ratified "Stand Your Ground" Law</h2>

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[[Image:Trayvon.martin.jpg|left|200px]]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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[[Image:Russell Pearce.jpg|right|100px]][http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/08/10947/brownskins-and-greenbacks-alec-profit-prison-industry-and-arizona’s-sb-1070 In December 2009], months before the Arizona legislature took up its highly controversial immigration bill (SB 1070), for-profit prison and bail industry lobbyists gathered behind closed doors with state legislators at an ALEC meeting where the "No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act" was approved as a "model bill" to be introduced in statehouses across the country. The National Rifle Association was then the private sector co-chair of that ALEC task force. After the bill was approved by ALEC corporations and legislators, it was [http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/11/11120/arizona-senator-recalled-over-alec-immigration-bill introduced in Arizona by Russell Pearce], a longtime ALEC member.

<h2 style="margin:3px; background:#000000; font-size:140%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #000000; text-align:left; color:#ffffff; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">More Helpful Resources</h2>

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<big>Additional resources on ALEC's corporate agenda:</big>

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<h2 style="margin:3px; background:#CC0000; font-size:140%; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #CC0000; text-align:left; color:#ffffff; padding:0.2em 0.4em;">READ the "Model Bills" HERE</h2>

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