Stunning Report: "Stand Your Ground" Laws Responsible for 500-700 Homicides Per year

WOAI Radio ^ | 06/11/2012 | Jim Forsyth

[Afisra]

Research conducted at Texas A&M University concludes that far from reducing crime rates, so called 'Stand your Ground' laws are actually responsible for a drastic increase in the number of homicides nationwide each year.

[marktwain]

The report only considers justified homicides to be those reported to the FBI under the FBIs extremely limited definition.

From the report:

“While we view the evidence that castle doctrine increases homicides as convincing, we note that one downside of the homicide measure is that it could well include homicides that are justified under the new self-defense law and yet may not meet the strict definition of justifiable homicide. Thus, this increase may not be viewed by everyone as
unambiguously bad. For example, the increase could be driven by individuals protecting themselves from imminent harm by using lethal force.22 On the other hand, the increase could be driven by the escalation of violence in situations that otherwise would not have ended in serious injury for either party.

We address this issue in two ways. First, we focus solely on murder, which
excludes classifications of non-negligent manslaughter that are more likely to be used in self-defense killings that do not meet the strict definition of justifiable homicide. Results are shown in Panel C of Table 5, where all specifications show statistically significant increases of between 6 and 11 percent. In addition, we find suggestive evidence that felony homicide and suspected felony homicide—that is, homicides that were or were suspected to have been committed along with a felony, such as robbery or burglary—are
increased as a result of the laws. 23 These homicides almost certainly represent an escalation of violence by criminals, as opposed to self-defense situations.24 Combined, this suggests that the increase in homicides is unlikely to be entirely due to self-defense.”

[philman_36]

KUDOS to you for the perseverance and forbearance to put up that snippet.
Horrible formatting, isn't it.

[marktwain]

I tried to make it more readable, but it is difficult to do so. It is just the nature of the beast.

You have to be actively in the small circle of people who are working this issue to spot problems with the way the data is analyzed.

There can be problems of definition which make the analysis silly, even if it is mathematically valid. These problems can easily come from false premises about reality, which are nearly impossible for those that hold them to spot.

One “tell” that I would like to have the authors explain, is the choice of the year 2000 at the start of their study period. They repeatedly state that Florida was the first state to pass such a law, in 2005.

Why then did they choose the year 2000 for the start of their study period?

In many studies where the numbers give data that is ambiguous, an author can bias the results to get what he wants by choosing the time period under study.

[GOPJ]

Ummm, defending yourself against an attacker is NOT a homicide.

It's probably sad for criminals when citizens fight back - makes crime a more dangerous operation. Maybe the answer is to allow criminal certain 'free' spaces where citizens are NOT allowed to fight back. Places like liberal radio stations, liberal foundations, liberal 'gun control' centers etc. If liberals don't believe citizens have the right to fight back, fine. Make it a law that liberals can't fight back, the LEAVE the rest of us alone.

[FreedomPoster]

Excellent point about Lott. He does great work. I’ve been following him since his part in eviscerating Michael Bellesiles’ pile of dung made-up “history” of firearms in early America. I regret missing a chance to FReep Bellesiles at a speaking engagement while that was all going on due to a personal conflict.

[marktwain]

Here is an article that details some of the problems with the FBI definition of justifiable homicides:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2894470/posts

[Tunehead54]

Reference bump - thanks! ;-)

[dead]

In fact, they say the response of criminals to the idea that the victim may be armed is to arm themselves as well, turning what otherwise would have been burglaries and robberies into homicides.

Before the castle doctrine laws, criminals would use hugs and tickling to get your money from you.

[aruanan]

A&M researchers say laws have no impact in reducing street crime

Oh, really? They couldn't find the number of crimes committed by each of those killed in the course of an attack on someone standing his ground, get the average per year, multiply it by the average number of years someone in his demographic is expected to live and come up with a number of total crimes prevented from ever occurring? That's got to be a significant number. Even the authors of Freakonomics claim that abortions have a statistically significant impact on crime by taking out kids before they grow up in bad neighborhoods and start committing crimes. This is just doing the same thing about 15-30 years later, except here it's their own action that is responsible for their removal from the land of the living.

[philman_36]

Why then did they choose the year 2000 for the start of their study period?
I was wondering the same thing. And I found no real explanation.

[GOYAKLA]

Texas A&M, the school that taught us all how to build large bonfires. DOH!

[supercat]

It seems to me that SYG laws, by taking away "retreat to the wall" not only protect you in the case of unprovoked assault (where conventional self-defense law should work) but also eliminate the "stay out of trouble" part of the common law, which is as wise today as it was in 1066.

The older self-defense standard, as it was actually applied, effectively presumed that someone using deadly force should be omniscient about what possibilities for safe retreat might exist; prosecutors would sometimes argue that a person should have retreated unless that person could demonstrate that doing so would have exposed the person to some particular identifiable danger. By my understanding, SYG says that if an assailant's actions suggest a level of malice which would not be diminished by retreating, one need not make a vain effort to do so. One wouldn't have to identify a particular risk of retreating if one could demonstrate a reasonable belief that it wouldn't solve the conflict.

[piytar]

You altered the article's title from “homicides” (which can be justified) to “murders” (which can't). I hit the abuse button. Then I looked at your profile and said, huh?!

So did the site change the title? If so, a thousand apologies!!!

[Afisra]

The title was copied and pasted from the original web site. Sometime later WOAI changed the title. It was reflected in post # 65, 8:41:16 CDT by FreedomPoster that the title was changed. No worries!

[Afisra]

In fact web cache is here, listed under new title but w/ old title actually on page:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8KLPkzXokf4J:radio.woai.com/pages/localnews.html%3Ffeed%3D119078%26article%3D10192072+Stunning+Report:+%22Stand+Your+Ground%22+Laws+Responsible+for+500-700+Homicides+Per+year&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari

[CottShop]

We ARE goign to lose our RIGHT to defend ourselves- Antoher case in Texas ofall places, the person standign their ground was convicted- lkiberals are NOT goign to let this zimmerman case go by without repealing our RIGHT to defend ourselves- thjey are pushin a repeal of stand your ground law hard-, and they are threatenign violence IF they don’t get their way- Oh the irony!

[CottShop]

the ‘reporter’ i nthat article is not qualified to be a reporter because thewy are incapable of determinign truth- and they actually go a step further and print lies, apaprentyl hoping noone will notice and question them

The stand your law ground is NOT ‘responsible’ for an icnrease in homicides- Criminals tryign to abuse the law are responsible for the increase- the FACT that criminals tried to abuse the law by claiming stand your ground is NOT a flaw i nthe law, it is a flaw in the ability of prosecutors to convict criminals who abuse the stand your ground law by falsely claiming they were simply standing their ground when they committted murder-

ANY good lawyer or judge shoudl be able to distinguish the FACT that the law is NOT respponsible, however, this law has become such a political wedge bhy the left that it will be nearly impossible to find an objective judge to rule in an unbiased manner

This country is in deep deep trouble when even our judges, who swear an oath before God and coutnry to be be fair and unbiased, turn around and becoem partisan lackeys of special interest groups

[CottShop]

[[So now killings done in self-defense are now ‘murders’. Brought to you by the same folks who call 17-y.o. gangbangers ‘unarmed teenagers’...]]

Not only that, but armign yourself to defend yourself agaisnt hte unknown that you might encounter, is now concidered ‘beign an aggressor’ by the left- George zimmerman was ‘the agressor’ because he was armed and followed poor innocent little child martin- the mentality of the left is that “IF George zimmerman had just stayed home and not gone out into public, then martin woudl still be alive’— Apparently if we leave our houses now, and encoutner a dangerous situation, and we defend ourselves now, we are caleld ‘the aggressor’

The FACT of the case is that IF martin had just continued on to his father’s house, and had NOT turned around and ILLEGALLY attacked Geoirge Zimmerman, then martin woudl still be alive today- It is NEVER against the law to follow someone- it is NEVER agaisnt hte law to even confront someone- even angrily, however, it IS ALWAYS agaisnt hte law for someone to initiate an ILLEGAL attack on someone which martin did agaisnt George

I can NOT beleive Angela Corey is gettign away with the utter crap that she is- I hope to hell the judge is fair and objective enough that he will punish her for prosecutorial misconduct and not allow her to get away with her CORRUPTION any longer! It’s the ONLY hope we have to retain our RIGHT to defend ourselves agaisnt thugs who are tryign to MURDER us

[CottShop]

[[Apparently the belief of the left is that one should sit quietly while being robbed, offering no resistance or defense and thereby avoid having to shoot someone;]]

No- the ‘respo0nsibility’ of the victim being robbed is to leave the house while the robber robs them so that the poor little robber won’t feel nervous while robbing the victim’s house accordign to hte left- otherwise the robber, in the minds of the SCREWED UP FAR LEFT, could sue the homeowner victim for emotional distress accrued while robbin g the voctim- however, the victim isn’t allowed to sue for emotional distress, because victims aren’t allowed to feel distressed no matter what happens- just like George Zimmerman wasn’t allowed to feel distressed about havign is brains bahsed out by a THUG itnent on MURDERING him- accfordign hte FAR LEFT NUTJOBS