Hunger Games Star says “Stand Your Ground Law is BS”

Actress Elizabeth Banks sounded off on Twitter in opposition against a new bill that she tells Ohioans will “endanger your neighbors.” 

Responding to the news that Ohio’s Senate passed a “Stand Your Ground” bill that does not require shooters to allow an attempt for retreat before firing in self-defense, Banks shared a story from her childhood to illustrate her opposition.

“Stand Your Ground is BS. We used to play hide and seek all over the neighborhood on summer nights. Intent was to play. We were kids but some of my cousins were big guys,” she began. “There were a few easily-jumped fences in the neighborhood but also houses with no fences at all. A new neighbor moved onto our street. Apparently he mistook us hiding behind trees in his unfenced yard at 9pm for… burglars? Predators?”

Ironically for The Hunger Games actress, which centers on a bow-wielding teenage heroine, her neighbor shot an arrow without warning.  

“All of a sudden, an arrow was shot into the tree behind which we hid. From a professional bow and arrow. This guy didn’t yell out “who’s there” or “get off my property or I’m calling the cops” or any other question or warning,” she recalled. “He just shot at children. He hit the tree so it was seemingly a warning shot. Message received, WE yelled out that we were just playing and could he let us please run away without shooting. Then we ran.”

She ruminated on how searching for her escaped dog could have ended in tragedy. “Also sometimes our dog got loose. We would go into yards looking for her. All I can think about when people pretend Stand Your Ground is about anything other than permission to kill people are those moments when I myself stepped onto a neighbor’s property.”

Banks claims that Stand Your Ground laws do nothing but “endanger your neighbors” and justify using weapons for deadly force. “Where is the evidence that Stand Your Ground does anything but endanger your neighbors, their dogs, their kids? It helps nobody but people who want justified reasons to use a deadly weapon,” she continued. 

“If I’d been shot and killed playing hide and seek, would that new neighbor have been able to just shrug his shoulders while living across the street from my grieving parents? With laws like this, probably yes,” Banks concluded.  “I don’t want to live in a world where we fear our neighbors so much that we can’t freely lose a ball/dog/frisbee or cut through somebody’s yard to avoid harassment – all things I have done. What yards did you wander into and why?

Where is the evidence that Stand Your Ground does anything but endanger your neighbors, their dogs, their kids? It helps nobody but people who want justified reasons to use a deadly weapon. /6

— Elizabeth Banks (@ElizabethBanks) December 18, 2020

Marie Finn