Yet in Florida, some of the most ardent defenders of the law have been black defense attorneys. The reason: Their black, often young, clients are the most successful users of the law. Indeed, data show that black defendants have a high success rate in invoking stand your ground in black-on-black violence. In fact, if all cases are taken into account, black defendants have a higher success rate in claiming stand your ground than do white defendants, and they attempt to claim stand your ground at higher rates.
"There is a long history of African-American support for gun rights and the principle of armed self-defense," writes Jelani Cobb, director of the Institute for African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut, in The New Yorker. He cites the Deacons for Defense and Justice, an armed posse that protected civil rights marchers, and former NAACP head Walter White, who protected his home with a rifle during the 1906 Atlanta race riots.
