Three good friends: Wayne LaPierre, Marion Hammer and Jeb Bush

It’s no coincidence that after Florida passed its Stand Your Ground law in 2005, many other states followed suit.

The law — which greatly expanded the right to use deadly force — had been vigorously pushed by the National Rifle Association before being passed overwhelming by a deferential legislature and signed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, who called it a “commonsense” approach to making the citizenry safer.

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As soon as the bill was signed into law in Florida, the NRA’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, said the pro-gun organization would use the victory to promote the law everywhere.

Within weeks, a proposed statute with almost the exact wording of the Florida law was adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). That’s a conservative organization that pushes for laws favorable to its patrons, mainly scores of U.S. corporations. One of those backers is the NRA.

ALEC’s method is to hand cookie-cutter “model” bills to sympathetic state lawmakers — mostly conservative Republicans — who then sponsor them in their statehouses. They’ve been very effective. According to Mother Jones magazine, 23 states have followed Florida’s lead in passing these laws.

The NRA has long been a high-caliber force in Florida’s legislature. Between 2003 and 2010, the gun lobby gave $2.7 million to state lawmakers, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. They contributed the legal limit, $500, to Jeb Bush’s 2002 gubernatorial re-election campaign, an additional $60,000 to the state’s majority Republican Party — though none to Democrats.

In the vote for bill, all 22 legislators who received NRA money said “yea,” writes Think Progress.

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Bush has been silent on Trayvon Martin’s killing and the eruption of outrage and protest that have followed.

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