Meet Stephanie Flowers, VOICE OF A RIGHTEOUS WRATHFUL GOD

In the best possible way, holy shit!

Arkansas Sen. Stephanie Flowers on 'stand your ground' bill    youtu.be 

The Arkansas state Senate Judiciary Committee considered an NRA-approved "Stand Your Ground" bill Wednesday. Good news: It failed to move out of committee. Better news: We have this video of state Sen. Stephanie Flowers, the only African-American on the committee, giving her colleagues holy hell for what "stand your ground" means to communities of color, and that's a higher likelihood of people getting murdered and the killers walking away without charges. And she was NOT happy about a call to rush the bill through with limited debate:

I'll be as quick as I can, as quick as it takes to kill somebody I guess. You want me to be that quick. ... It doesn't take much to look on the local news every night and see how many black kids, black boys, black men are being killed with these Stand Your Ground defenses that these people raise, and they get off. So I take issue with that. I'm the only person here of color. I am a mother, too. And I have a son. And I care as much for my son as y'all care for y'all's. But my son doesn't walk the same path as yours does. So this debate deserves more time.

When Flowers raised her voice and said she felt frightened by members of the legislature carrying concealed weapons, committee chair Alan Clark told her she had to stop talking.

"No I don't," Flowers responded. "What the hell you gonna do, shoot me?"

"Senator," said Clark.

"Senator, shit," responded Flowers.

"I'm telling you, this deserves more attention," she said. "You want to come up here with all these NRA bills and all these bills that ALEC has. I'm talking about my son's life! And I'm talking about the lives of other black kids!"

The statistics back her up: A 2017 study found gun homicides in Florida resulted in an "abrupt and sustained increase in the monthly homicide rate" following the passage of that state's "stand your ground" law.

After the bill failed in committee, sponsor Bob Ballinger insisted one of the Republicans on the panel "made a bad vote" and accidentally voted against it. Too bad, so sad! But "an attempt to expunge the vote failed," according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Ballinger intends to re-introduce the bill later in the session so more people who need shooting can get shot.

[ Arkansas Democrat-Gazette / Arkansas Times ]

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