WILD WEST USA
Study: 'Stand-your-ground' laws associated with 11% increase in homicides


"Stand-your-ground" laws were associated with a nationwide 11% increase in homicides, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Network Open. 

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Feb. 21 (UPI) -- So-called "stand-your-ground" laws were associated with hundreds of new homicides every year in the United States, according to a study released Monday.

The laws, which remove the duty to retreat when facing an attacker before using deadly force, may have contributed to an 8%-11% increase in homicides nationwide, according to the study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA Network Open.

An additional 58 to 72 homicides were reported each month, totaling to more than 700 each year.

David Humphreys, an associate professor at the University of Oxford who worked on the paper, told The Washington Post that proponents of the laws often seek to center their justification around "actually having some protective effect on public safety and deterring violence."

However, the study showed no evidence of a decrease in homicides in any states after implementing the laws, while the nation overall reported an "abrupt and sustained" increase in monthly homicides and firearm homicides."

"There doesn't seem to be any evidence to show that and, you know, we only seem to see the opposite effect," Humphreys said.

Increases in homicides were greater in southern states such as Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, with spikes of as much as 35%. Other states such as Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia did not report significant changes in homicide rates after implementing stand-your-ground laws.

Michael Seigel, a doctor and researcher at Tufts University School of Medicine, said he believed the "most important factor" to increasing homicides related to stand-your-ground laws is public awareness of the law change.

"One possible explanation for the outcomes observed in these early-adopting states is that the campaigns to adopt these laws were accompanied by high levels of media coverage and public debate, resulting in very high awareness of the existence of the new laws," he wrote in commentary on the study for JAMA Network Open. "More recently enacted [stand-your-ground] laws tended to be pushed through state legislatures without much discussion or fanfare, which could have resulted in much lower levels of public awareness of the change in these statutes."

Siegel also suggested some other factor such as "a culture of violent self-defense, a high prevalence of gun ownership, or easier access to guns because of weaker state regulation," may be interacting with the laws to lead to the increase in homicides.
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