Jeb Bush Confronted About Trayvon Martin, Stand Your Ground Law

As President Obama unveiled his executive actions on gun control Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was having his own firefight.

Bush was participating in a primary series hosted by the Greater Derry Chamber of Commerce when a female attendee asked what he would do about gun proliferation and how he would reduce gun violence. Bush began by repeating an oft-said line, that he reduced gun violence as governor of Florida.

“To this day we continue to see a dramatic reduction in gun violence because people that commit violence with guns--” he began, but was cut off by his questioner.

“Trayvon Martin would disagree,” the questioner interrupted. She continued, amidst Bush’s claims that “facts are facts.”

“When you have an asinine law that allows people to shoot other people and go, 'I was afraid of him because, guess what, he was dark,’” she said, referring to George Zimmerman, the then-neighborhood watch captain that shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, in 2012.

The woman was referring to the Stand Your Ground Law, that famous Florida law that enables citizens to use deadly force if they feel threatened, a legal defense that was used in Zimmerman’s defense. Zimmerman was eventually acquitted.

In spite of the controversy surrounding the law, Bush has vehemently defended it, telling an NRA conference audience, "We were often the model...because in Florida we protected people's rights to protect themselves."

On Tuesday, Bush continued in his defense. “The simple fact is gun violence has declined by about 30 percent when we imposed severe penalties for people committing crimes with guns. And we're a pro-Second Amendment state and I'm totally proud of that.”

Bush signed Stand Your Ground into law in 2005. In the years immediately following, incidences of homicide by firearm actually spiked and remained high for the rest of his tenure as governor. While the murder rate (per 100,000 people) was 4.9 in 2005, it jumped to 6.2 in 2006 and to 6.4 in 2007, according to statistics from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Bush's campaign affirms that overall gun violence did decline. From 1998 (the year he was elected) to 2006, there was a 20 percent reduction in violent offenses committed with a gun, according to FDLE stats.

In short, overall gun violence went down during his tenure. But murders by guns went up after Stand Your Ground was passed.

Bush has also been an outspoken opponent of any gun control measures. Today, in the wake of President Obama's announcement of measures that would require almost anyone who sells guns for a living to conduct background checks on clients, Bush predictably slammed the president.

“He doesn’t have the authority to do it,” Bush said of president's executive actions.

Bush said the president’s "first impulse is always to take rights away from law-abiding citizens.” When asked by ABC News how background checks would take away a citizen’s right to bear arms, he continued to condemn the president.

"If someone is selling a gun out of their collection, a one-off gun, they’re not a dealer, which would require a license and already requires that, you’re taking that person’s right away. It doesn’t make sense to add burdens on people where the problem isn’t -- you’re not solving whatever problem he’s trying to solve,” he said.

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