‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws Linked to Increase in Homicides
Researchers found that "stand your ground" laws are associated with an increase in monthly firearm homicide rates — ranging from 8 to 11 percent. Many of the states seeing the highest increase are in the South, according to a study published in the Journal of American Medicine.
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Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws, fiercely debated as a flashpoint about gun violence, self-defense, and racial profiling, may actually lead to hundreds of additional homicides each year, according to a Journal of American Medicine (JAMA ) Network Open peer-reviewed study.
The study authors analyzed all 23 of the states that enacted SYG laws between 2000 and 2016, and 18 states that did not have the laws during the full study period — from 1999 to 2017, and linked the laws to 700 additional homicides each year, the Washington Post reported in its summary of the findings.
Within their data parameters, the final dataset included 248,358 homicides (43.7 percent individuals aged 20-34 years; 77.9 percent men and 22.1 percent women), including 170,659 firearm homicides.
After using a multiple-baseline and location-interrupted time-series design, using natural variation in the timings and locations of SYG laws to assess associations, the researchers found that SYG laws were associated with an average national increase of 7.8 percent in monthly homicide rates, and 8-11 percent in monthly firearm homicide rates.
The largest jumps in firearm homicides — as high as 33.5 percent — occurred in southern states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Missouri, the Washington Post lists. In contrast, stand-your-ground laws were not associated with significant changes in Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia, the study found.
That suggests stand-your-ground is not the only factor at play, the researchers acknowledge.
See Also: ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law OK’d By Ohio Gov. DeWine
As quoted by the Washington Post, Michael Siegel, a doctor and researcher at Tufts University School of Medicine who was not a part of the research team, expanded on the possible explanations in a commentary for JAMA Network Open, writing, “I would argue that the most important factor is the public’s awareness of the change in the law.”
Siegel added that intense media coverage, particularly that surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin, and the public campaign by the National Rifle Association in southern states to get these laws passed has increased the prevalence of gun ownership.
This latest study did not find evidence that stand-your-ground widens racial disparities in who is killed. The researchers note that they did not examine other areas of potential racial disparity — for example, the legal outcomes of stand-your-ground cases.
Michelle Degli Esposti, Ph.D., is a member of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford. Douglas J. Wiebe, Ph.D., is a member of the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania. Antonio Gasparrini, Ph.D., is with the Department of Public Health, Environments and Society in the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
The full report can be accessed here.
Additional Reading: Stand-Your-Ground Laws Make People ‘Less Safe’: RAND, April 22, 2020
