Alabama House approves Stand Your Ground law for churches

The Alabama House of Representatives on Thursday evening approved a bill that would extend the state’s Stand Your Ground law to churches.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Lynn Greer, R-Rogersville, would add houses of worship to the state’s 2006 law, allowing a person to use physical force against anyone committing a crime, attempting a crime or attacking an employee, volunteer or member of a church.

“If you have someone coming into a church with a gun that starts shooting folks, you want to have someone that’s going to shoot back,” Greer said during the debate.

The House approved the measure 40 to 16. In the Montgomery delegation, Rep. Reed Ingram, R-Pike Road voted for the bill; Reps. John Knight and Thad McClammy, both D-Montgomery, voted against it. Reps. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery; Kelvin Lawrence, D-Hayneville; Dimitri Polizos, R-Montgomery and Chris Sells, R-Greenville were listed as not voting.

The bill extends the protection to offsite church social events and does not specify that the protection of church members needs to take place in a church itself, and opponents of the legislation have said it would extend Stand Your Ground well beyond houses of worship.

The House took up the bill a day after 17 students were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Greer’s bill got on Thursday’s calendar before Wednesday’s shooting, but many Democrats suggested bringing up the bill in the wake of the shooting was inappropriate.

“We can be as irresponsible and reckless in the message we send, even when 17 people were killed in a school not too far from us,” said Rep. Christopher England, D-Tuscaloosa.

England, who called the bill “pandering,” also questioned the need for it, saying the existing Stand Your Ground law already covered private entities like churches — “This bill doesn’t give you any additional protection you enjoy in Alabama” — and others asked about the unintended consequences of the law. Rep. A.J. McCampbell, D-Demopolis, said innocent people might get shot in that situation.

“If happen to start shooting in a church because of a Stand Your Ground law ... they could hit someone that’s unintended,” he said. “That family is going to be just as devastated as if an intruder hit them.”

Greer argued at one point that the victims of the 2015 Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, might have stopped the shooter. Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, strongly disputed that.

“The enemy caught them with their eyes closed, praying,” he said.

Wednesday’s shooting was on other people’s minds. Rep. Will Ainsworth, R-Guntersville, a candidate for lieutenant governor, said Thursday he would file a bill that would allow teachers to carry guns in schools.

“Our children are sitting ducks in gun-free schools, and as the parent of three public school students, I believe we must act now in order to prevent another tragedy,” Ainsworth said in a statement.

The proposal met with a lukewarm reception. House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, held a news conference on Thursday afternoon in which Rep. Terry Collins, R-Decatur, outlined steps to improve school safety that came out of the state’s Emergency Task Force on School Safety and Security in 2016.

“My child’s a teacher,” Collins said. “I wouldn’t want her to have to make the decision to have to draw down on a student.”

Legislators at the news conference were noncommittal to any efforts to make it harder for individuals with an intention to do harm to obtain firearms. McCutcheon said they would look to federal regulations.

“That will dictate the state sales of weapons and firearms,” he said. “I would encourage the discussion of those things.”