“Stand Your Ground” Laws and Academic Inquiry

Professor David Yamane at Light Over Heat has an interesting take on learning Do “Stand Your Ground” Laws Allow You to “Shoot First and Ask Questions Later”?

For most of us who went to college, were are used to "test questions." They one correct answer. They get asked on tests. Professor Yamane is interested in real questions.

Take the question for Module 8: Do “Stand Your Ground” Laws Allow You to “Shoot First and Ask Questions Later”? This is a test question in the sense that I already know the answer. As I wrote in The Hill a few years ago, “Stand Your Ground laws do not allow you to ‘shoot first and ask questions later.’”

That is a yes no question, and while the media tends to paint the answer in one way, the media isn't interested in the truth. They are interested in narratives. If you want to get at the truth, you need to ask different questions.

The assignment below asks the students to investigate what Stand Your Ground laws actually say. I have an idea of what they will find, but I am not certain. So, I approach their answers to the question with open-mindedness (I haven’t thought of everything) and humility (I may be wrong in my answer).

This is the kind of thing I remember from college, which I guess is not usual today. We read both Marx and Engles, and Adam Smith in the same term. Communism and Capitalism in one term. And I can tell, even all these years later, that most of the recent college graduates today, who are in love with Socialism and Communism, have never read Marx.

Click thru for more details.