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A wrong address, a mistaken car, and stray basketball five times over six days, seemingly mundane interactions turned violent or deadly after one party pulled out a firearm.

Though the facts in each instance vary, experts tell ABC News that the cases broadly reflect the sheer numbers of firearms in the United States and elements of gun culture that have bled into vital legal frameworks governing self-defense.

"There's absolutely a risk that the combination of loosening gun carry laws, relaxing self-defense laws, and politicizing self-defense through pardons and the like could lead to more incidents like the ones that we've seen," law professor Eric Ruben told ABC News.

The incidents began in Kansas City, MO, when 84-year-old Andrew Lester shot 16-year-old Ralph Yarl after he mistakenly approached Lester's home and rang his doorbell after looking for the wrong address. Two days later, Kevin Monahan, 65, shot and killed Kaylin Gillis, 20, when she and her friends pulled into his driveway mistakenly in upstate New York.

The same day, Antonio Caccavale, 43, shot at the car of Waldes Thomas Jr., 19, and Diamond Darville, 18, who drove into the wrong driveway while delivering groceries with Instacart in Florida.

On April 18, Robert Louis Singletary, 24, shot at a family, including a 6-year-old girl, after a stray basketball rolled into his yard in North Carolina. In Texas, that same day, Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr, 25, allegedly shot two high school cheerleaders after they mistakenly entered the wrong car.

Experts warn that the incidents reflect the sheer number of firearms in the U.S., with estimates suggesting there are more than 400 million firearms in circulation throughout the nation.

"The prevalence of guns is fueling what we're seeing. We are seeing the idea that we are a shoot-first culture," Johns Hopkins professor Joshua Horwitz told ABC News' Pierre Thomas. "Everybody seems to be afraid, they've been told to be afraid."

While each of these cases includes a different set of facts, similar cases often rely on a set of laws governing self-defense, according to ABC News legal contributor Kimberly Wehle.

The "castle doctrine" is a common law principle, codified by many state legislatures, that allows individuals to use reasonable force to protect themselves in their homes against intruders.

Florida expanded the idea of the castle doctrine in 2005, passing a law that permits residents to "stand your ground" if they believe they are preventing death or bodily harm, or a felony, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ten states have since adopted laws with similar language about standing one's ground.

However, some legal scholars believe this push for broader self-defense gun rights is a product of the U.S. gun culture rather than firmly rooted in the Second Amendment or legal traditions.

"The loosening of self-defense, this is actually a lot of the rhetoric, and a lot of the legal changes are actually contrary to the American legal tradition," Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law professor Eric Ruben said.

Ruben said that multiple signals including trial outcomes, public comments from politicians, and decisions to pardon notable defendants have contributed to a meaningful social norm about using guns in defense.

"If we were trying to reduce violence, the norms are as important or more important than the letter of the law," he said.

Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two men in Kenosha, WI, and George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, were found not guilty after jury trials, bringing public attention to using a firearm in self defense, according to Ruben. Public statements by politicians who promise to pardon individuals who use guns in self defense further strengthen the social norms of standing one's ground.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently made such a public promise, tweeting that he was "working as swiftly as Texas law allows" to pardon Daniel Perry, an Army sergeant found guilty of murdering a protester in 2020, according to Ruben. Ruben noted that such comments further strengthen the public's perception of acceptable self-defense gun use, which often is not aligned with the laws governing actual firearm usage.

Harvard professor David Hemenway explained to ABC News that Americans' perceptions of self-defense gun use are often unrealistic. Research from 2019 found that a high percentage of guns used in self-defense are utilized in manners that are not socially beneficial, such shootings related to drugs, gangs, and escalating arguments, rather than home invasions.

When he examined data from National Crime Victimization Surveys, Hemenway found little evidence that self-defense gun use reduces the chance of injury or property loss. Studying self-defense gun use for over 20 years, Hemenway summarized his research to the idea that carrying a gun, even in self defense, makes people less safe.

"The evidence seems to indicate that this should not be a surprise what happened, and it's sad," he told ABC News about the recent incidents.

Nevertheless, America's self-defense gun laws have bent in favor of more guns in the hands of more citizens.

I think there is a narrative in this country being pushed by the gun industry and certain legislators that a person needs to be armed in public at all times to be safe, Allison Anderman, Giffords Law Center director of local policy, told Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week."

With last week's string of incidents exemplifying seemingly mundane interactions gone wrong, experts worry the incidents will likely send a chilling public message about the danger of common mistakes.

"It is going to create a chilling effect to deliver an Amazon package, to trick or treat, to have a postal worker or a delivery service just make a common sense mistake," Wehle said.

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How two decades of gun culture helped shape America's 'Stand Your Ground' laws - ABC News

Texas's Republican governor has said he is seeking a pardon for an Uber driver convicted of murder for shooting a protester during a Black Lives Matter rally in 2020.

Governor Greg Abbott said Saturday that he had asked the state's Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend a pardon for Daniel Perry, who was convicted after an eight-day jury trial of killing protester Garrett Foster.

"I look forward to approving the Board's pardon recommendation as soon as it hits my desk," Abbott said in a statement on Twitter. Under Texas law, he said, he needs such a recommendation before acting.

Perry, a US army sergeant and part-time ride-hailing service driver, has said he was driving through capital city Austin when he turned into a street full of demonstrators protesting in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Police said Perry honked at the protesters and drove into the crowd trying to get through.

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Foster, a 28-year-old white man, was legally carrying an AK-47 rifle.

The jury heard conflicting testimony as to whether Foster pointed the AK-47, but Perry, who is also white, said he feared for his life and opened fire with a handgun he was legally carrying.

Perry's lawyers said the state's "Stand Your Ground" law justified his action.

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Abbott agreed.

"Texas has one of the strongest 'Stand Your Ground' laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or progressive District Attorney," he said in his statement.

The Texas Republican Party had urged Abbott to issue a pardon, something he did twice last year and eight times in 2021, all for lower-level offenses, the Texas Tribune reported.

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While Texas Republicans praised Abbott's decision, a Democratic state legislator, Sarah Eckhardt, called it "a stunning and dangerous abrogation of the rule of law that will embolden more armed confrontations and inevitable tragedies."

"Stand Your Ground" laws have been highly controversial, particularly since a Florida jury in 2013 acquitted George Zimmerman of murdering an unarmed Black teen, Trayvon Martin, whom Zimmerman had pursued based on unfounded suspicions.

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The murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 by the white police officer, Derek Chauvin, led to an increase in public interest in the impact of ongoing racism and discrimination. Around the world, people took to the streets to call for justice and equality. There were protests, demonstrations, acts of civil disobedience. There were sit-ins, die-ins, and waves of internet activism. At the centre of many of these protests was Black Lives Matter, a grassroots political movement launched by three Black women in the US, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

The murder of George Floyd captured on video translated into extensive soul-searching both personally and in the business world, followed by meaningful attempts to advance social justice in the workplace through the creation of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) programmes and a much greater consciousness of inequality. Racial equity became a top priority for corporate America and across the globe. Nearly $70 billion was pledged towards racial equity work. Diversity and inclusion officers soon became high-demand positions.

But now, much of that progress is at risk. Faced with geopolitical volatility, energy crises and an economic downturn, investment in EDI has begun to slow and there is evidence to suggest that EDI budgets are being cut. The director general of the Institute of Directors in the UK has warned that the task of progress could be eroded, and the UK government is under pressure to cut supposedly woke causes which include the drive for greater diversity, inclusion and equity from the public sector.

Maybe this is to be expected. Last in, first out often a method of redundancy selection can apply to just about everything, and EDI initiatives launched in the last two or three years are now being targeted. Organisations are also struggling to determine how best to implement EDI initiatives and how to measure their impact, making it harder to tie investments directly to results. But the idea that EDI has less value than other business areas betrays a misunderstanding. And though it goes without saying that organisations have to be financially prudent, this misunderstanding could be costly.

We need to remember that what were trying to achieve with the implementation of EDI and similar initiatives is the undoing of prejudices and injustices entrenched over centuries as they manifest in the world of work. Addressing these injustices is clearly the ethical response and it provides an enormous benefit to wider society, by helping to create a more just world. And since businesses are in dialogue with society they dont exist outside of it EDI helps to create a virtuous cycle, whereby businesses help to make society more equitable, diverse and inclusive, and society influences businesses in return.

But businesses also stand to benefit from stronger performance when they create inclusive environments that tap into unique perspectives and skillsets. McKinsey & Company has conclusively shown that high gender diversity corresponds to higher profitability and productivity. The most ethnic and culturally diverse companies outperform the least by a third in terms of profitability. Meanwhile, The Boston Consulting Group has said that investing in increasing EDI at the management level is a slam dunk for businesses. These companies find unconventional solutions to problems and generate more and better ideas, with a greater likelihood that some of them will become winning products and services in the market, the articles say. As a result, they outperform their peers financially.

Businesses with greater EDI are also more attractive to customers. Gen Z in particular are demanding more EDI from brands, and the vast majority (75 per cent) say they will boycott companies that discriminate based on race and sexuality in their advertisements (something far more likely to happen in homogenous teams). This generation, who are growing in purchasing power and having an outsize influence on the culture as a whole, want to buy from companies that look like all of humanity, not just one segment of it. This should be a major consideration of companies considering taking their foot off the pedal on EDI.

So what should businesses do now, faced with economic uncertainty? My answer is simple: they should double down. The more they invest, and the more intelligently they invest, the faster change happens, and the quicker they will derive the enormous benefits of EDI benefits that will help them to ride out this and future crises. Businesses should be led by the data, and the data on the value of EDI is in, and conclusive. By doubling down, they can play their part in preserving and advancing the gains made in the aftermath of George Floyds tragic murder, and help to create a better world. They will also position themselves to be far more competitive than their peers who cut EDI programmes now.

Monica McCoy is CEO and founder of Monica Motivates

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Why businesses should double down on EDI to weather economic ... - People Management Magazine

One of the two Black lawmakers expelled April 7 from the GOP-led Tennessee House was reinstated and continued his call for meaningful gun control legislation in what has been a lifetime of activism.

CBS News reports that Nashvilles Metro Council voted unanimously Monday (April 10) to return Rep. Justin Jones to the state Legislature, restoring the 27-year-old Democrat to the seat Republicans stripped from him over his protest of gun violence.

"I'm hopeful for the days ahead for Tennessee, not because of the actions of this body, but because of the actions of the people out there, the thousands gathered outside this chamber right now, who are calling for something better, Jones told his legislative colleagues shortly after his reinstatement.

He added: "We will continue to be your voice. And no expulsion, no attempt to silence us will stop us, but it will only galvanize and strengthen our movement. And we will continue to show up in the people's house."

What happened last Friday was an extraordinary move by the Republican supermajority. Forced expulsions are rare in the Tennessee House, according to The Tennessean. Only eight lawmakers in the states history were removed from office, including six following the Civil War.

Republicans accused Jones and fellow Democrats Reps. Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson, dubbed the Tennessee Three, of leading an inappropriate protest with anti-gun violence demonstrators from the House chamber.

The protest was a response to yet another mass shooting in the nation. On March 27, shooter Audrey Hale, armed with assault-style rifles, fatally shot three 9-year-old children and three staff members at The Covenant School, a private Christian school, in Nashville.

GOP House members voted to expel Jones and Pearson, a 28-year-old Black lawmaker from Memphis, in a controversial vote that garnered national attention and criticism as anti-democratic and racist move. Johnson, a white 60-year-old retired teacher from Knoxville, survived the expulsion vote.

Here are five things to know about Jones who entered politics as a community organizer in Nashville, using activist skills he honed as an HBCU student.

Jones graduated from Fisk University with a bachelors degree in political science, according to his bio. While at the Nashville HBCU, Jones received the John R. Lewis Scholarship for social activism. He spent his time at Fisk organizing student-led campaigns for the expansion of health care in Tennessee, the repeal of voter ID laws and accountability for police brutality. Hes currently working on a graduate degree in theological studies at Vanderbilt University.

As a high school student in Oakland, Calif., Jones says he was on the front line as an organizer after the death of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Black teenager fatally shot in 2012 by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in Florida. Zimmermans acquittal ignited nationwide protests.

He also led student campaigns to repeal Stand Your Ground laws, which are on the books in several states and allow people to use deadly force against someone whom they believe is a threat.

Jones told The Tennessean that John Lewis, the iconic civil rights leader and congressman, has been a guiding force in my life.

Lewis, Fisk graduate who died in 2020, was chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was one of the youngest leaders involved in several seminal civil rights marches, including the 1963 March on Washington and the Selma to Montgomery Marches.

I worked in D.C. the summer he led the sit-in in Congress calling for common sense gun legislation after the Pulse Nightclub massacre, Jones stated. That was a transformative moment for me in seeing the movement in political spaces from a sitting elected official.

Jones told The Tennessean that he ran for the state Legislature in 2022 because this moment demands a new generation of leaders who are fighting for their communities and are not backing down to the extremist Republican supermajority that is harming our state.

Before winning the open Tennessee House District 52 seat, Jones said his top three priorities as a legislator would be voting rights, public education and health care as a human right.

We are not in normal times and cannot rely on the same normal politics to lead us out of this tumultuous time, he added. Nashville has a history of young people, young activists moving our community forward and it is our time now to do so together.

Jones credits his two grandmothers for teaching him the importance of community involvement, environmentalism and spirituality. Hes the grandson of Black grandparents from Chicagos South Side and Filipino immigrants who migrated to California.

The Tennessee representative was born in Oakland, Calif., and grew up in the East Bay area. He was raised by a single mother who managed to care for him and his sister while putting herself through nursing school.

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Rep. Justin Jones: 5 Things About The HBCU Grad Reinstated To ... - BET

On this date, April 11, in history:

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In 1506, construction began on the new St. Peters Basilica at the Vatican under the guidance of Pope Julius II, who enlisted the talents of Michelangelo and Raphael. The original church had been built in the Fourth century. The new one was not finished until 1626.

In 1689, William III and Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain.

In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht under which France ceded Hudson Bay, Acadia and Newfoundland to Britain was signed.

In 1755, British doctor and surgeon James Parkinson was born. He identified the neurological ailment that became known as Parkinsons disease.

In 1768, fire destroyed one-third of Montreal. It was one of several major fires in the community in the 1700s, a time when most of Montreal was built out of wood and there was no fire pump. The only way to fight fire was with pails of water.

In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as emperor of France and was banished to the island of Elba.

In 1890, John Merrick, afflicted by a disfiguring disease that led to his being known as the Elephant Man, died in London at the age of 28.

In 1899, the treaty ending the Spanish-American War was declared in effect.

In 1904, Sydney, N.S., was incorporated as a city.

In 1917, Hockey Hall of Fame broadcaster Danny Gallivan was born in Sydney, N.S. He broadcast more than 1,900 Montreal Canadiens games between 1952-84 a period in which the Habs won 16 Stanley Cups. Gallivan made such phrases as cannonading drive, Savardian spin-a-rama, rapier-like glove save and headmanning the puck part of Canadas vocabulary. He died on Feb. 24, 1993.

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In 1919, the International Labour Organization was established. It became a UN agency in 1946.

In 1940, women were allowed into the Quebec legislative assembly chamber for the first time.

In 1945, Allied troops liberated the Buchenwald death camp, 200 kilometres southwest of Berlin.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseballs colour barrier when he made his major league debut, playing in an exhibition game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees.

In 1951, British police recovered the Stone of Scone which had been stolen the previous Christmas Day from Londons Westminster Abbey. It was taken by students demanding an autonomous parliament for Scotland. The 220-kilogram stone was part of the coronation ceremonies for British monarchs since being taken to London from Scotland in 1296. It was finally returned to Scotland 700 years later, in 1996.

In 1951, U.S. president Harry Truman announced he had fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur as commander of UN forces in Korea. MacArthur had challenged Trumans war strategy.

In 1961, accused Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann went on trial in an Israeli court. He was convicted and executed.

In 1963, Pope John XXIIIs encyclical On Peace in Truth, Justice, Charity & Liberty was published.

In 1970, Apollo 13 blasted off on a mission to the moon. But an on-board explosion on April 13 crippled the spacecraft, forcing it to return to Earth four days later.

In 1971, Toronto doctors performed the first successful operation in Canada to separate conjoined twins.

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In 1973, Martin Bormann, who was Adolf Hitlers personal secretary during most of the Second World War, was officially declared dead. His skeleton had been discovered four months earlier by Berlin construction workers.

In 1979, Idi Amin was deposed as president of Uganda.

In 1984, the first baby to emanate from a frozen embryo was born in Melbourne, Australia.

In 1984, Soviet Communist Party leader Konstantin Chernenko became the countrys president. He died less than two years later and was succeeded by Mikhail Gorbachev.

In 1987, Primo Levi, a Jewish-Italian chemist, Holocaust survivor and author of memoirs, short stories, poems and novels, died after falling from the interior landing of his third-storey apartment in Turin, Italy, to the ground floor, leading to speculation he killed himself. His book, If This Is a Man (published in North America as Survival in Auschwitz) has been described as one of the most important works of the 20th century. He spent nearly a year in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz between February 1944 and January 1945.

In 1990, Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard died at age 86.

In 1991, a permanent ceasefire in the Persian Gulf War took effect.

In 2002, the UN established a permanent International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

In 2003, the northern Iraqi city of Mosul fell into U.S. and Kurdish hands with the surrender of an entire corps of the Iraqi army. The city quickly descended into lawlessness, with looting, arson and shootings. U.S. special forces were sent in to restore order.

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In 2005, a $7 billion class-action suit was launched on behalf of 100,000 farmers in four provinces, accusing the Canadian government of negligently allowing mad-cow disease to devastate the cattle industry.

In 2006, Iran announced it had successfully enriched uranium for the first time.

In 2007, Canadian soldiers Allan Stewart and Patrick James Pentland were killed in two Taliban attacks in Afghanistan.

In 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled in favour of restoring a Federal Court order that the RCMP must serve all of New Brunswick in both English and French and respect unique language protections in Canadas only officially bilingual province.

In 2010, Canadian soldier Pte. Tyler William Todd was killed and another injured by a powerful roadside bomb while on foot patrol in Belanday, eight kilometres southwest of Kandahar city. His death raised to 142 the number of Canadian soldiers killed since the Afghan mission began in 2002.

Calgary Herald April 12, 2010; page A1.

In 2011, Ontario Justice Donald Taliano declared the federal medical marijuana program to be invalid, along with laws prohibiting possession and production of cannabis, since they can be used to criminally charge medical users unable to get the drugs through legal means. (The ruling was stayed in June after the Crown appealed.)

In 2011, France became the first country to ban Islamic face veils anywhere in public. (A similar ban took effect in Belgium in July.)

In 2011, an explosion tore through a key subway station in the Belarusian capital of Minsk during evening rush hour, killing 13 people and wounding over 200.

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In 2011, Alassane Ouattara, Ivory Coasts elected president, used his troops and French tanks and air power to oust strongman Laurent Gbagbo, pulling him from his burning residence and ending their four-month standoff.

In 2012, George Zimmerman, 28, the Florida neighbourhood watch volunteer who shot and killed unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder after mounting protests over racial profiling and controversial self-defence laws in Florida and other states galvanized the U.S. (In July 2013, a jury found Zimmerman not guilty.)

In 2013, comedian Jonathan Winters, whose breakneck improvisations inspired Robin Williams, Jim Carrey and many others, died at age 87. The Jonathan Winters Show aired in the 1950s and he returned to TV in 1981 as the son of Williams goofball alien in the final season of Mork and Mindy.

In 2018, an Algerian military plane carrying soldiers and their families crashed soon after takeoff into a field 30 kilometres south of Algiers, killing 257 people in the worst aviation disaster in the countrys history.

In 2018, Philadelphia 76ers rookie point guard Markelle Fultz became the youngest player in NBA history (19 years, 317 days) with a triple-double.

In 2019, police in London arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy on a court warrant dating back to 2012. Ecuadors president said his government had withdrawn asylum status, citing what he called repeated violations of international conventions and daily-life protocols. Assange hadnt left the embassy since August 2012, for fear he would be arrested and extradited to the U.S. for publishing thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through his WikiLeaks website.

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In 2020, Edmonton Oilers forward Colby Cave died. The 25-year-old suffered a brain bleed earlier in the week, and was placed in a medically-induced coma at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto.

In 2020, Opposition parties agreed to support the Liberal governments massive $73 billion wage subsidy program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The House of Commons held an emergency sitting in order to pass the legislation, which was assured after Conservatives dropped their attempt to tie the bill to the longer-term question of how Parliament should function in the midst of a national health crisis.

In 2021, Nomadland won four prizes, including best picture, at the British Academy Film Awards. The films director, Chloe Zhao, became only the second woman to win the best director trophy. Star Frances McDormand was named best actress.

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Jackie Robinson breaks baseball barrier: Today in history - Calgary Herald