Talk:Stand-your-ground law/Archive 1

New User
I am hoping to make a few edits to this article due to a new interest in the subject. This topic is interesting to me because of how different it can be used depending on person using it. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback.Usernamesarehard555 (talk) 01:04, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Could someone please cite the law?
Could someone please cite the law? --Mareino 21:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Adding content
Just wondering if someone could add content on this page about multiple parties fearing an attack on their lives. For example, what if Trayvon were armed and shot Zimmerman, and vice versa? Since both are not required to retreat, who has a legitimate claim to Stand Your Ground? Does that mean that outside of the Castle doctrine, both are in the clear to shoot each other if they have a reasonable fear of an attempt on their life? If both survived, who would be prosecuted? Would any? Does this set the precedent for vigilante law enforcement? 98.191.115.8 (talk) 17:20, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Only the person who is attacked first can claim Stand Your Ground protection under Florida law.  ""776.013 (3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground. . ."" Harksaw (talk) 05:18, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

You are confusing "stand your ground" with "self defense". "Stand your ground" only means you don't have to retreat before resorting to force in self defense. "Stand your ground" doesn't authorize force. You still have to meet the other elements of valid self defense. It's only that the requirement to retreat is not one of them.

Merge with Castle Doctrine
It seems that this article is covering the same subject matter as Castle Doctrine, only that Castle Doctrine presents a much more positive view of the laws, with more supporting historical information, and this is more of the negative/critical perspective. Perhaps they should be merged? --129.33.49.251 22:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Castle Doctrine is a bit more narrow than the Stand-your-ground laws. As I understand it, the former applies only to dwellings and (sometimes) places of business. The latter is of similar effect, but applies more broadly to persons in any place where they are lawfully present.


 * Traditionally, that is true, but Castle Doctrine is the name that is being applied to these. I do think the articles should be merged though since they are functionally identical. Izaakb 14:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that "Castle Doctrine" and "Stand-your-ground law" should be merged. All written references that I've seen refer to "Castle Docrine". I've only heard references to "Stand-your-ground law" in casual (verbal) conversation. The merged article could have reference to non-dwelling defence laws.--TGC55 08:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that merging the two articles would be best. They're essentially the same thing. It could, and should be noted when a state's law does not extend beyond the home. Jeffrey.Rodriguez 22:55, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Each article currently behaves like a merged article already since both talk indiscriminately about the "Castle Doctrine," which was the common law position and is almost universality observed in the USA, and the "Stand-your-ground law," which is still somewhat controversial. I think that IF the articles can be completely revamped to talk about their proper subject without straying hopelessly into the other, then having two articles is fine. As it seems the people who are editing these articles just don't care about keeping that kind of organization this is probably a hopeless cause. There is good reason to conclude these articles should both be merged as subject headings into the existing article "duty to retreat" and then forward Castle and Stand-your-ground there. The subjects are truly facets of the parent concept, the duty to retreat, and the fuzzy legislative boundaries between the two constantly drive the separated articles to outgrow their specialization. Either the separate articles need to stay on message, which they won't, or they should be merged into "duty to retreat," which is the most technically correct approach and the most effective for helping the reader understand what they each mean and how they relate to the broader issue of self-defense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.205.156.83 (talk) 19:59, 25 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The stand your ground law article SHOULD be different than the castle doctrine article, as the common interpretation of stand your ground law is regarding public places, or to quote some of the reports language on this particular entity, "Any place where a person has a valid, legal reason to be", which would include streets, public parks, even the market. The castle doctrine implies the home or business, rather than public places and many states DO stipulate to that effect in their "castle doctrine" laws. Frankly, the article is a mess that IS in need of attention from an expert in the subject, to properly delineate the difference between castle doctrine and stand your ground in places OTHER than home or business. It's not at all made clear that difference in the cited legislation in the article (which needs a citation as well, all of the laws listed are uncited.Wzrd1 (talk) 03:07, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Article Title
I'm not sure how to do this, but someone should have a "Stand Your Ground law(s)" search link to this article. I also think we should change the title of this article to something more neutral than "shoot first law," since that clearly reflects a particular pejorative nickname. I'm not sure if "Stand Your Ground Laws" is that much of an improvement (since supporters have coined it), but it seems more commonplace than 'shoot first laws' - note how the USAToday article acknowledges that original nickname early on in its piece but only cites the "Shoot First" moniker later on when discussing opponents of the legislation.

Meantone 20:57, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


 * A neutral description would be something like "no-duty-to-retreat law". Unfortunately I don't suppose we get to make up names for it ourselves, no matter how pithy, descriptive, and value-neutral. Is there a section of the law that says something like "this act shall be known and may be cited as..." ? If so, then I'd suggest we use that name. --Trovatore 01:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, the "stand your ground" stuff is scattered throughout chapter 776 ("Justifiable Use of Force"). The most controversial provisions - the criminal and civil immunity - are grouped under 776.032, "Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force," but there are other important parts of the law that don't fall under that section.  I can't find any particular neutral name for the legislation that would cover everything without sacrificing the specific recognition "stand your ground law" affords.  I still think "stand your ground" is preferable to "shoot first," but only for the reasons mentioned above. - Meantone 19:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I created Stand your ground law as a redirect to this article the day before you posted this. TacoDeposit 00:32, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * So the question is, where should the article be? Personally I'm tempted to move it to Stand your ground law. Obviously neither name is really neutral, but in that situation I think we should, in general, more disfavor names invented as an attack on the subject matter than the names invented by its proponents.
 * Still, there's a question as to what version of the name to use. Stand your ground law sounds like a command, and a confusing one, because I don't know what a ground law is, nor how to stand it. Stand-your-ground law is a little better but perhaps a less likely search term. "Stand your ground" law is explicit, but I don't like article names beginning with quote marks. Other thoughts? --Trovatore 01:56, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Went for the hyphens; I think it's the best of the available options. --Trovatore 15:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

--BenEzra 05:25, 4 July 2006 (UTC) Some of the information on the Florida statute is incorrect. The author cites the Florida statute on use of lethal force to stop a forcible felony as if that were the "stand your ground" law. It is not; Florida (and many other states) have long had such statutes, and the new law changes nothing in that regard. See Jon H. Gutmacher, Esq., Florida Firearms: Law, Use, and Ownership, Fourth Edition (2001), p. 146 and following, for a pre-2005 explanation of that statute. Note also that the use of force to stop a forcible felony, as defined by statute, must still be *reasonable* (Gutmacher 2001, p. 147 and following). Gutmacher's book is available here (currently in the sixth edition): http://www.floridafirearmslaw.com/indexbook.shtml

The article seems to imply that Florida was the first state to eliminate the statuatory duty to retreat in the face of a violent attack, but that is not the case; most states, in fact, do *not* have duty to retreat statutes, so in revising that portion of the law, Florida did not break new ground.

Where Florida [i]did[/i] break new ground was in extending the Castle Doctrine (the right to defend oneself against an unlawful forced entry) to one's motor vehicle, so that if someone attempts to carjack you, the Castle Doctrine presumptions would apply just as if you someone were breaking into your home. But this is specific to forced entry into an occupied motor vehicle, and has nothing to do with the "stand your ground" portion of the law. Defending oneself against carjacking was always legal in Florida (Gutmacher 2001, 147), so the new law did not create that right out of thin air.)

Gutmacher made some preliminary comments on the Florida law, which may be pertinent to the article, here: http://www.floridafirearmslaw.com/florida-selfdefense-law-analysis.pdf


 * I grew up in FL and the law, I think it was the Jack Handey Self-Defence Act, that says you can "use deadly force to prevent the commission of a forcible felony to yourself or others" has been on the books since at least 1990, not 2005 as the article claims. Homefill 16:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Footnote links broken
The footnote links (most of them) in the article are broken. (this seems rather common on wikipedia)

Update
indicates some state laws may have changed on Jan 1, 2007. -- Beland 21:19, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Split from castle doctrine
I split this article off of castle doctrine. Reasons:


 * 1) The Castle Doctrine article is too long, and this is a logical thing to split off.
 * 2) The previous discussion was based on the erroneous belief that stand-your-ground merely codifies the Castle Doctrine. This is not the case. The Castle Doctrine removes the duty to retreat from one's home or other property, while stand your ground removes the duty to retreat anywhere. This is an important different due to:
 * 3) This topic has gotten a lot of news coverage recently with the Tayvon Martin case.

Per number 2 above, I've fixed the definition of stand your ground laws. I will also go through the state laws section, as I suspect that nearly all of them are merely the Castle Doctrine and not Stand-your-ground laws. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me  12:49, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I suggest both be merged into "duty to retreat." It is only in that context that they can be put in perspective and properly related to each other.  The resulting article would not be too long as all three articles are actually very short.  It is only the individual state run-downs that give them any length at all.  These state-by-states lists should be given their own article, as is the practice in other parts of wikipedia.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.205.156.83 (talk) 20:06, 25 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The state run-downs could be improved by describing how the law has been applied in each state, though that would require actual legal research. 68.194.231.108 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC).

Research facts please?
What credible research exists on the subject, please? Laws often have effects that differ from what is intended or expected by supporters and foes alike. What do we know about how states with such laws saw a change in the incidence of violent crime? My intent here is not to push the controversy in any particular direction, but to include a relevant section on how the law is working in practice. Uberhill 14:53, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, the article does cite several news articles that state Florida has seen self-defense claims triple since their law was passed, as I've seen articles that indicate that prosecutors are reluctant to prosecute questionable cases. I can't say for sure if other states have had a similar experience. D O N D E groovily   Talk to me  02:40, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * That's helpful, yes. What I'm hoping for, however, is actual research into how crime stats have changed, what effect have these laws had on violent crimes generally?  We've got anecdotal references all over the place, but surely someone has hard numbers on the subject, I just don't know who. Uberhill 21:14, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, if you read the Politifact reference, the problem is that the hard numbers don't tell you anything. Critics and supporters are using the same sets of numbers to argue opposite things about the law. Crime has gone down, sure, but, at least in Florida, it was already dropping before the law, and there is no evidence that this law either increases or decreases the crime rates. D O N D E groovily   Talk to me  01:27, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The discussion of crime rates with the Stand Your Ground rules fails to note that it reclassifies certain actions that were previously murder as not a crime. Under common law, you could not follow a person in the street, then either attack him or get attacked, not try to retreat, decide, rightly or wrongly you feel threatened, kill the person you were following, claim self-defense, and be deemed innocent of all wrongdoing. The legalization of behavior previously criminal would make crime rates drop, but not necessary the rate of death by violence drop, it would just legalize the killing. Similarly, crime rates would drop if you legalized currently illegal drugs, but drug use might rise. The discussion of whether crime rates drop when you legalize behavior is misleading unless you separate out the crime rate without the newly legalized activity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barbreader (talk • contribs) 03:05, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The article claims that "The Stanford Law Review found that aggravated assaults temporarily increased in those states with "stand-your-ground"". But the citation given is an article about "shall-issue" CCW laws, a completely different matter. It does not mention the phrase "stand your ground" at all. It's possible that it mentions them under some other name, I don't hae time to read the whole article at the moment. Just highlighting this for scrutiny. TomSwiss (talk) 21:53, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

research results:
According to KNA 2012-06-18 a study of Texas A&M University says, that "the ... law doesn't show any deterring effect, ... but additional 500 to 700 casualties ..."

Can anybody give more details? (talk) 08:51, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

A very grey area?
The intro section has this text: "These laws have a very gray area which makes them fail." That is, at least, a subjective conclusion about these laws. Jim Hardy (talk) 19:20, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Most of this document is quoting statutes
Why is most of this page just verbatim quotes of statutes from a handful of states? None of that seems at all useful the way it is presented. It doesn't include historical facts like when they were passed or what states have such in their laws or what bills were passed. The statutes are printed on state websites, why are they here? 76.21.107.221 (talk) 05:57, 4 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Not only is it not useful, it violates WP:OR.


 * WP:OR is bad for a lot of reasons. For example, you can't just look up laws in the statute and pick out the parts that seem to be relevant. In some cases, the courts have reversed large sections of laws. In some cases, the language used in the statutes may have a meaning opposite to the everyday meaning of the law.


 * I think the whole section should be deleted. Does anybody have a reason why it doesn't violate WP:OR? --Nbauman (talk) 00:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I fail to grasp how quoting the law is OR, could you explain the rationale? If the law text is unaltered (no pick and choosing parts, which would potentially color context), I find it valuable. I'd suggest a hide table, which could be expanded for those interested in the choice of language in said laws, to make the page flow managable. I was rather disappointed that Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington entries didn't have the actual language of the laws. It gives some insight into what the legislature intended.Wzrd1 (talk) 02:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * After further examination of the contested text, I suggest a heavy dose of citation needed. Most states have their statutes online, to copy and paste the law in, but not provide the citation is improper and CAN result in the text being removed.Wzrd1 (talk) 02:58, 12 April 2012 (UTC)


 * WP:PRIMARY "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. Material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to the original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."


 * "... Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them."


 * The statutes are primary sources.


 * I have no objection to including texts of the statutes, but it would require an introduction or comment by a reliable secondary source, such as a law journal article written in language that a non-lawyer Wikipedia reader could understand, or a newspaper or magazine story (ideally one written by a lawyer, or a reporter who covers law regularly).


 * It's very easy for non-lawyers to misunderstand a statute. Just look at non-lawyers arguing about the Bill of Rights.


 * Furthermore, when you read the statutes, you don't know whether you have all the statutues that apply to the case in question, and you don't know if a court case has reversed the law. At a minimum, you should quote the annotated code, which gives the related court cases. --Nbauman (talk) 20:59, 13 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that simply quoting statutes isn't very encyclopedic. WP:INDISCRIMINATE policy comes to mind. The entry on Florida has no historic information, no sources, nothing of much use except reprinting the statute. The entry on Texas, has the history of the statute, a press release, link to a legal opinion on the bill, as well as a link to the bill that defines the statute in its current form. A link to an annotated statute would be nice, as long as they are written by a RS. Is there a place to find a free annotated version of Texas Penal Code? Stillwaterising (talk) 21:41, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Desperately Needs Cleanup/Re-write
Obviously, the 'stand your ground' principle must be explained in relation to the Castle Doctrine. There is a bright line (Public/Private spaces) difference though between 'stand your ground', which is New World in origin and Castle Doctrine which has its roots in 17th Century English common law. This article as written is muddy throughout in making this distinction. A table which listed attributes of various states' laws would be a good start for breaking out SYG/CD, immunity/defence, burden of proof, etc. --24.6.207.95 (talk) 21:50, 6 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I've noted the distinction, but a dearth of text to further define the issues. You ARE correct, but I DO lack the ability to create prose sufficient to describe that difference. I know all too well English common law HOME being the "castle", but lack the ability to create prose to define the difference. BE BOLD! WRITE! It can only be redacted or edited... If I had the skill, I'd have already done it.Wzrd1 (talk) 04:11, 13 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I suggest that instead of writing, find WP:RSs that have already done the job. --Nbauman (talk) 21:01, 13 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I've gotten nailed for copyvio on copy and pasting RS, so I again suggest one skilled with prose. I'll not bother and get bitten again and risk a block.Wzrd1 (talk) 04:54, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Indiana
Indiana - now spells out when Indianans may open fire on police http://www.in.gov/legislative/bills/2012/SE/SE0001.1.html ArishiaNishi (talk) 19:09, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Study of Texas A&M University
According to KNA 2012-06-18 a study of Texas A&M University says, that "the ... law doesn't show any deterring effect, ... but additional 500 to 700 casualties ..."

Can anybody give more details? (talk) 08:51, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

My question stood here without any reacton. However above in No.3 the question was discussed. Apparently it is of interest. So please go ahead searching. --Hans Eo (talk) 15:48, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The study notes it has little way to tell what was justifiable homicide, since crime reports to the FBI of homocide often do not correctly note whether it was considered justifiable or not. Any discussion of this study must note this fact that was glossed over in some of the media reports.  It is possible that the entire increase was an increase in justifiable homicide, which is to be expected. Gigs (talk) 15:30, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm cutting the statutes.
Lets see if we can move forward without the statutes. It's not really appropriate for an encyclopedia article to quote primary sources so extensively. If we can provide analysis of each state's laws cited to secondary sources, then it would be OK to readd some of it. Please don't bulk revert without a good reason. Gigs (talk) 13:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Removing Marissa Alexander paragraph
I am removing this paragraph because the text seriously diverges from its own citation both in omission and commission, and because the central issue is the 10-20-life law and the stand your ground law appears irrelevant. According to the Huffington Post article, Ms. Alexander unexpectedly encountered her estranged husband and twins when she returned to their former home. After getting into an argument, she went out to her car, returned with her gun, and fired towards her husband and twins. The bullet ricocheted into the ceiling. The judge refused to consider the stand your ground law because she left and returned with her gun, and she was convicted of aggravated assault in a 12 minute deliberation. Because she fired a gun, the sentence was a mandatory 20 years due to the 10-20-life law. 149.142.201.254 (talk) 22:51, 5 February 2013 (UTC) Actually it was her husband's sons, 9 and 13, not her twins. Hew Johns (talk) 23:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

This entry fails rather badly
This entry fails rather badly to answer the simple question, "What states have a stand your ground law?" The text is completely ambiguous and going by the citations it appears to be only FL, SD, and IN. 149.142.201.254 (talk) 23:26, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Not making any edit, but wanted to point out that this source may have been added to attempt to address the above, and it doesn't actually specify which states have laws at all:"^ a b c d e f g h Martosko, David (April 1, 2012) "'Stand your ground' laws not just GOP policy, records show" The Daily Caller. Retrieved 2012-04-03. "  All it says is that there are 15 states, does not name them, and yet it is cited as proof for a specific listing of states in the main article. Several governors are quoted in that article about their states' laws, but nowhere near fifteen of them. This needs cleanup - it's also not clear that this is a good source, as from my brief read it appears to be editorial, political or otherwise biased content, so I am not sure to what extent it's reliable for facts to be cited to. TheWGP (talk) 04:54, 26 March 2013 (UTC)


 * if there were a wikipedia rule about not sneaking discriminatory remarks into wikipedia articles I would cite it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.25.6 (talk) 01:50, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * TheWGP makes a good point. The section listing the states conflates those with Stand Your Ground laws and those with Castle Doctrine laws. The Castle Doctrine article explains the distinction and has the states properly distinguished by type of law. Please clean up this article. 70.134.226.23 (talk) 08:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

"More than half of the states in the United States duty to retreat when their home is attacked."
That doesn't make sense. Do more than half HAVE a duty to retreat law, or NOT have a duty to retreat law? Heywoodg  talk  07:09, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * A chunk of text had been deleted, by accident perhaps or maybe even due to vandalism, but that edit has since been reverted. Peace, Dusty |&#x1f4ac;|You can help! 14:52, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

June 16 2013 Trayvon Martin
In a July 16, 2013 speech in the wake of the jury verdict acquitting George Zimmerman of charges stemming from the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, Attorney General Eric Holder criticized stand-your-ground laws as "senselessly expand[ing] the concept of self-defense and sow[ing] dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods."

Jury Nullification
I removed Jury nullification from the related links section. The article doesn't make clear why this link is needed. We certainly don't need to tag every law with this related link, and it's not clear why we need this here. If secondary sources suggest a close relationship between this article and jury nullification, then make the case in the article, and the link can be become with the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.174.174.181 (talk) 21:10, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Article image
This article needs a good image. I found the best one I could on the Wiki Commons. If you don't like it, find a better one. If you want a caption, add a caption. The page looks empty without any images. All the thousands of Wiki Commons images I found, other than this one, were Army, Navy, Marines, or Police Checkingfax (talk) 22:19, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I guess your image was removed at some point. The ideal image, I think, would be some type of map of the U.S. showing which states have similar laws; however, we need to first determine which states have the laws before creating the map. --Odie5533 (talk) 20:18, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

How many states have Castle Doctrine?
The intro to this article says "Less than half of the states[1] in the United States have adopted the Castle doctrine" - but the "US States" section lists 31 states that have castle doctrine statutes, which is obviously more than half. The citation for the first factoid is written in legalese and I can't understand how it comes to the conclusion about less than half the states having such laws, so I am going to remove it. Harksaw (talk) 05:20, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The numbers are definitely murky, but you appear to be conflating castle doctrine with "stand-your-ground law". The "US States" section on this article lists stand-your-ground law states, not castle doctrine states. Regarding Castle Doctrine, it appears that as of 2012 the number is now around 25, but not necessarily above it. "The State of the Castle An Overview of Recent Trends in State Castle Doctrine Legislation and Public Policy" states that 23 states enacted castle doctrine laws from 2005 to 2009 and "Trayvon Martin and the Dystopian Turn in US Self-defense Doctrine" claims that the number was 25 as of 2012, which seems reasonable. --Odie5533 (talk) 20:36, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Iowa
Iowa is said to both have a stand your ground law AND have considered one.

The law cited doesn't seem to state anything more than what it is virtually every state for a self-defense law. Stand-your-ground is considerably more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.110.28.104 (talk) 01:56, 11 October 2013 (UTC)


 * 701.4 "Reasonable force, including deadly force, may

be used even if an alternative course of action is available if the alternative entails a risk to life or safety, or the life or safety of a third party, or requires one to abandon or retreat from one's     dwelling or place of business or employment."

707.6 "707.6 CIVIL LIABILITY.         No person who injures the aggressor through application of      reasonable force in defense of the person's person or property may be      held civilly liable for such injury.         No person who injures the aggressor through application of      reasonable force in defense of a second person may be held civilly      liable for such injury. "

Seems to cover all the bases to me? (its not stand your ground everywhere, but does have stand your ground in the home or place of business) Gaijin42 (talk) 02:04, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

police officers
Police officers carry weapons in plain sight and create an atmosphere of intimidation simply by their appearance. There have been numerous examples where police officers have murdered innocent citizens either by mistake or by willful intent. Most often they are not held accountable for this in a court of law. If any judgment at all is given it is almost always a slap on the wrist and never for murder. My question is, are police officers exempt from the stand your ground law or can you protect yourself if you feel your life is in danger by a police officer without cause? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CD8D:4340:74D3:3ADD:1969:983D (talk) 05:18, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Foreign laws
Could this be expanded to discuss stand-your-ground laws outside of the U.S.?Thatswhatbatmansaid (talk) 19:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Removed Missouri
I removed the state of Missouri from the list of states. The state of Missouri has the duty to retreat, not stand your ground. Msdana74 (talk) 00:58, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Effects on Crime Rates
The information added is of a recent study done on the increasing number of homicides a year concerning the Stand Your Ground Law. Msdana74 (talk) 20:41, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Arkansas Stand Your Ground
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20150428/arkansas-legislature-adjourns-sine-die-multiple-progun-measures-pass-in-successful-year

With HB 1240 signed, doesn't that make AR a Stand Your Ground state? 65.35.194.182 (talk) 13:39, 9 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Here is the text of the new law: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2015/2015R/Acts/Act1073.pdf

65.35.194.182 (talk) 13:43, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No, because it references that you have to comply with § 5-2-607, and that section has a retreat requirement: http://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/2015/title-5/subtitle-1/chapter-2/subchapter-6/section-5-2-607/ Terrorist96 (talk) 06:58, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

stand-your-ground vs castle doctrine
''The law's effect on crime rates is disputed between supporters and critics of the law. Economist John Lott says that states adopting stand-your-ground/castle doctrine laws reduced murder rates by 9 percent and overall violent crime by 11 percent, and that occurs even after accounting for a range of other factors such as national crime trends, law enforcement variables (arrest, execution, and imprisonment rates), income and poverty measures, demographic changes, and the national average changes in crime rates from year-to-year and average differences across states.'' Cite:

Are stand-your-ground and castle doctrine the same topic? Are the terms interchangeable? If so then we should merge the articles. If not, then the above material should be in the other article. What does Lott say? 2602:306:C5B4:E3D0:C849:153C:837F:8143 (talk) 04:11, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I do not think they are the same, no. As I understand it, stand-your-ground is about when you're in any place you have a right to be, whereas the castle doctrine is specifically about when you're in your home.  You could say that the castle doctrine is sort of a special case of stand-your-ground, except that I think that there might be jurisdictions that have both, and where the rules are different depending on whether you're in your home.
 * That said, the two things are often conflated. Also, I am not a lawyer. --Trovatore (talk) 05:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Gaijin42 (talk) 14:13, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Its complicated. First you have the basic self-defense laws, and under which conditions they apply. But many self defense laws include (explicitly, implicitly, or via judicial ruling) a duty to retreat.
 * 2) Then you add the "no duty to retreat" laws, and there is a very smooth gradient. I would probably not oppose a merge (for example in our state law summary tables, we generally combine these two concepts into a single row). Some WP:SUMMARY style merging may be appropriate, but I think we meet the WP:SPLIT criteria here based on WP:SIZESPLIT or WP:CONSPLIT, but certainly people can argue for a full merge too, That should probably get an RFC since GC is a temperamental area.
 * 3) All castle laws are stand your ground laws, but not visa versa. Some castle laws restrict to within the home. Some within the buildings on your property. Some anywhere on your property, some include place of business or car. The final step is "anywhere you have the right to be" which is full stand your ground. The crucial element is is there a not duty to retreat, and where that (non) duty applies. There are some other "extras" which are often included (civil immunity, legal fees, how much the burden of proof is, etc). Sometimes these are the same law, sometimes it is a set of laws which together are considered stand-your-ground/castle
 * 4) Regardless, Lott is talking about both, its just a poorly named table. Table 10.13 lists the states that he is talking about, and lists both
 * 5) for example, he specifically calls out Washington State and quotes the Judicial ruling that created stand your ground "that there is no duty to retreat when a person is assaulted in a place where he or she has a right to be")
 * 6) Washington is pretty complicated overall. They have explicit self defense laws, and explicit civil immunity laws but those are both for self defense in general, not just stand your ground/castle. Then the stand your ground law comes in via judicial ruling.
 * 7) He also includes Florida which is of course the most recently famous stand your ground state.
 * Thanks for the detailed and informative analysis. It does seem pretty complicated and it's possible that it would make sense in a single article, possibly duty to retreat.  I definitely don't think it makes sense to merge castle doctrine and stand-your-ground law by themselves, though, not least because there doesn't seem to be any good name for the merged article.
 * But on balance I think stand-your-ground laws are a notable and distinct topic by themselves, and I would probably support keeping three distinct articles as we have now. I would however interested to see an outline for merging both articles into duty to retreat; if it were convincing enough I might support it. --Trovatore (talk) 18:51, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both Trovatore and Gaijin42 for their thoughtful replies. It seems like the two articles are similar enough, and short enough, to be merged into a more comprehensive article. I agree with Trovatore that it's worth pursuing. 2602:306:C5B4:E3D0:A140:489C:7FEB:37D5 (talk) 08:38, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Deleted Entire Section on Race
I found the whole thing highly offensive, interjecting race into a article on self-defense, so I deleted it. Obvious POV pushing and pandering on a political level to "minorities" trying to compare which race is more or less "successful" than another race in using "stand your ground" as a legal defense. But they didn't bother to show that Blacks attack whites at 700% the rate in which whites attack blacks, and the only way to include race in this article is to include ALL the components of race and not cherry-pick which facts further the leftist agenda that paints blacks as victims when 20 years of FBI data proves the exact opposite is clearly the case, to the extreme, so unless Wikipedia wants to have an article talk about the fact that blacks commit murder at sometimes 2800% the rate of whites and open the discussion to the possibility that this is due to genetic defect and a predisposition to violence, I think it would be a good idea to keep the whole thing out of what should otherwise be a useful and informative article.66.25.171.16 (talk) 06:43, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Feel free to mention these facts in the article.Terrorist96 (talk) 12:59, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Original research
The original research policy does not allow us to make out own conclusion from a set of fact. In fact, even bare facts from a primary source do not belong in an article unless secondary sources have stated them in the context of the article's subject. These edits plainly violate that policy:  - MrX 19:45, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * The following is being challenged:


 * Florida's “stand your ground” law went into effect on October 1, 2005. Data published by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement shows the rate of violent crime per 100,000 at 471.4 for 2015. It was at 706.2 in 2004, prior to the passage of "stand your ground". The rate of violent crime had been dropping even before that, with the rate being 1,061.6 per 100,000 in 1995. This does not prove that "stand your ground" led to a lower violent crime rate, however, it also does not show "stand your ground" to cause an increase in violent crime rate either.


 * Please help to fix the wording instead of removing it. Citing the violent crime rate figures published by state officials isn't "original research". I provided a citation to politifact as well.Terrorist96 (talk) 19:47, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * PolitiFact is a good source, but you will see that they say "Why are rates declining? Nobody can say for sure. The theories are highly diverse, to say the least, and some are fairly controversial." Baxley says "... he didn’t think the "stand your ground" law was the main reason for Florida’s drop in crime rates. But it could be one of several reasons,..."
 * It would be reasonable to say that Baxley attributes some of the drop in crime rates to SYG, but such views are controversial. How does something like that sound?


 * What kind of wording would be acceptable? How about: Florida's “stand your ground” law went into effect on October 1, 2005 [this is a fact]. The violent crime rate published by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for 1995 - 2015 can be viewed here [include link to both sources].


 * This has no original research, doesn't draw conclusions, and only provides facts and links to data plus a politifact article. Would this still be objectionable to you, ? Your wording is fine too. Please update the article with whichever you think is best.Terrorist96 (talk) 19:58, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
 * A couple of things. We don't include external links in the body of articles per WP:ELNO. If you are going to introduce Florida violent crime statistics, there needs to be context connecting it with the SYG and it needs to come from a secondary source. Stand your ground is not directly intended to reduce violent crime. I'm OK with using sources like Politifact to explain the connection (i.e Baxley's claim), but we can't just drop an argumentative statistic into the article implying that SYG has reduced violent crime rates.- MrX 20:21, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * The name of the subsection is "Effect on crime rates". Including a link to the crime rates for florida is not inappropriate, as far as I can see. The politifact article includes those very same statistics from the florida website, but only includes figures from 2000 - 2010. Including the source of the statistics from the official site allows the user to see figures from 1995-1999 and the more recent 2011-2015 figures, which are absent from the politifact article. And the politifact article fails to link the user to the source of the statistics. I really don't see what objection you can have to this.Terrorist96 (talk) 20:50, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Since you hadn't made an edit, I went ahead and added it myself. There is no implication in using the statistics. It's just expanding on the statistics provided by the Politifact article. Please discuss any objections you may still see instead of reverting.Terrorist96 (talk) 21:07, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm going to restore the sourced material deleted here: . It's not up to us to second-guess a reliable source and say that a particular piece of data isn't statistically significant. If Politifact is reliable then let's not cherry pick their conclusions. Felsic2 (talk) 16:24, 9 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I've updated it to reduce redundancy and for WP:NPOV (ie. "cast doubt"). The conclusion simply says that violent crime had been dropping before the law, and has continued to drop. Picking out one or two years to mention in the article is cherry picking and ignores the overall trendline. The user is then linked to the raw numbers published by the state officials to see the data for each year.Terrorist96 (talk) 19:17, 9 December 2016 (UTC)


 * This text was deleted again:
 * Politifact Florida cast doubt on his belief with statistics showing that, from 2005-2007, the number of violent crimes actually rose and the once-declining crime rate stalled after the law took effect, before resuming previous rate of decline in subsequent years.


 * I don't see why an assertion that the decline wasn't steady is an example of cherry picking. The fact that crime went up seems significant. A secondary source is better than raw numbers.Felsic2 (talk) 20:15, 9 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Because it violates WP:NPOV. I can cherry pick dates as well. You're drawing a conclusion based on specific dates. If you look at the change since 2000, the crime rate didn't go up. If you look at the change since 2005, it went up 1% for one year, then went back down. Point this out implies that immediate passage of the law caused a spike in crime, which isn't borne out by the evidence. Hence, cherry picking. Let the numbers speak for themselves.Terrorist96 (talk) 20:23, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Please cite the section of WP:NPOV that this text violates.
 * You're second-guessing the source. This isn't a matter of what we think of the data - it's about what reliable secondary sources say about the data. If you think Politifact is an unreliable source then say so. But if it is reliable, and if the material is relevant to this article, then it belongs. If there are other sources which dispute their assertion then let's include those. Sometimes things aren't neat and tidy - it isn't our job to make them seem that way. Felsic2 (talk) 21:03, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:NPOV links to WP:CHERRYPICKING. I didn't say it is unreliable. But if you really want to include that one statistic, then include them all, such as "By 2010, the violent crime rate had dropped 23 percent since 2005".Terrorist96 (talk) 21:08, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * So the issue is cherrypicking alone. It would be an extreme example of cherry picking to quote "By 2010, the violent crime rate had dropped 23 percent since 2005" because, in context, the article goes on to say that crime dropped nationwide by an even larger amount,
 * We found that violent crime has dropped significantly in Florida since 2005. (The law went into effect Oct. 1, 2005.) We calculated the drop in violent crime rates, to account for population growth. In 2006 and 2007, violent crime rates were up just slightly up compared with 2005. In 2008, the violent crime rate began declining. By 2010, the violent crime rate had dropped 23 percent since 2005. (See chart below.) But that’s not the whole story. We also looked at crime rates for the five years before the "stand your ground" law started, and we found violent crime was declining during those years as well. Between 2000 and 2005, violent crime dropped 12 percent.
 * Our job is to summarize accurately what the source says, not pick and choose which parts we agree with. If Politifact is a reliable source then we can assume they are accurately analyzing the data, and we should report their full analysis. Felsic2 (talk) 21:17, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That's fine. I never said don't include all of it. But just saying that crime went up after the law went into effect without following up to say that the overall trend is still downward, implies the law caused a spike in crime, which is not proven. So include all the statistics if you want, or don't and let the reader draw their own conclusions. But don't include a statistic saying crime went up after the law, and then leave it at that. That's cherrypicking.Terrorist96 (talk) 21:21, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

So that page concerns what we as editors do, not what our sources do. That's an important distinction. Is there another way you can summarize Politifact's point about the varying levels of crime? Felsic2 (talk) 21:24, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
 * WP:CHERRYPICKING In the context of editing an article, cherrypicking, in a negative sense, means selecting information without including contradictory or significant qualifying information from the same source and consequently misrepresenting what the source says. ... . Our concern within Wikipedia is about cherrypicking from within a source or closely-related multiple sources, and an editor should be careful in handling that.

Humphreys 2016
The Humphreys study was written by a team of professors and was published in one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed academic journals. As such it is at the highest level of reliability and weight. OTOH, the Branca piece was written by a lawyer who advocates for gun use and who wrote a self-published book, and was published by a highly partisan general interest magazine. That puts it at a lower level. Using popular sources to critique scholarly studies is bad practice. If we're going to mention their critique it should be brief, much briefer than the summary of the study's findings. Also, I added The Economist to show that this study has received positive attention too. So from a WP:WEIGHT angle we'd need to greatly expand the summary and attention from positive sources to avoid over-weighting the National Review POV. Felsic2 (talk) 01:13, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I reordered the quotes. Both quotes are from the JAMA paper itself. The only thing from National Review is the very last sentence.Terrorist96 (talk) 01:39, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The John Lott article is better than the Branca article, as Lott is a recognized (if controversial) expert. However their views should be attributed so that the criticisms aren't presented without context. Felsic2 (talk) 17:14, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Re: "conflating Virginia as a non-stand your ground state". This article says "Other states, such as Virginia,[24] have implemented stand-your-ground judicially but have not adopted statutes." The argument made by Branca is that Virginia has a kinda-sorta equivalent. It's hard to summarize as he's not saying Virginia is an SYG state but that it's similar. I don't think that the source is significant enough to devote the extra space which would be needed to explain. Maybe a better way of saying it would be to say he criticized the study for "using statutory laws instead of case law in determining the data set." Felsic2 (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Iowa just passed stand your ground
Map needs updating. 72.187.50.8 (talk) 21:58, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅Terrorist96 (talk) 03:35, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

race re-redux
Could you please provide quotes from those sources which back your statement? The Tampa Bay one in particular I think does not. It raises some questions in that arena, but quite explicitly does not give any causation. The Times analysis does not prove that race caused the disparity between cases with black and white victims. Other factors may be at play.. I think there is likely room for expansion of the racial implicatoins of this law, or other parts of society, but I don't think the statement you made is currently supported (and certainly not supported enough to be in WP:WikiVoice) In particular I am not seeing any text at all in the sources which purports to address who people perceive as violent ResultingConstant (talk) 00:33, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The original sentence that I revised simply said that racial prejudices compounded the negative effects of Stand Your Ground. Therefore, as my edit note explains, I revised that statement to be far more specific in a way that would demonstrate 1. That there were negative effects of Stand Your Ground and 2. That those negative effects were racialized.  It was Lave that argued, "(...) studies show that Stand Your Ground disproportionately affects minorities, particularly African American men (p. 843).  I decided to further probe that point--keeping in mind that the edit was motivated by the "according to whom" notation.  Again, it is according to T.R. Lave, who states that, "(...) Studies show that Stand Your Ground disproportionately affects minorities, particularly African American men" (p. 843).  I chose to cite Lave and the source she footnotes when making this point for a few reasons.  First, Lave's article demonstrated that Stand Your Ground increases homicide rates, which in and of itself is a "negative effect" of the law.  Next, the Tampa Bay Article Times article demonstrated that when people have successfully invoked Stand Your Ground to avoid prosecution, the victims are more likely to be black.  In nearly 200 cases, 73% of those who killed a black person walked free, compared to 59% of those who killed a white person.  Lave attributes that statistical difference to racial bias, especially against black people.  She goes further to explain that people of all races can be biased against black people--seeing them as more aggressive, hostile, and dangerous.  She quoted and footnoted L. Song Richardson's article when making that argument (See: "Arrest Efficiency and the Fourth Amendment, 95 MINN. L. REV. 2035, 2039 (2011)).  His article focuses on implicit bias and its effect on policing.  It contains ample research by social psychologists that repeatedly demonstrates that black men are stereotyped this way.  When considered together, all three sources seemed to show that Stand Your Ground created a context, in which killing could be justified, and likely to be excused when homicide victims are black.  This demonstrated that racial bias could play a role in "negative outcomes" of Stand Your Ground.  I did not cite Richardson in my edit because it was Lave who concluded that the race and racism affects the causes and consequences of Stand Your Ground.  JaneNova (talk) 14:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the detailed response! I would say what you have written above is far superior to what we have in the article currently. The opinions and research are WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV (attributed)  to their respective authors/researchers, and importantly it does not involve analysis or (our) opinion of what those points mean. That is much more in compliance with WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. Your statement When considered together is a strong hint that WP:SYNTH is involved.  I would suggest removing the old content in the article, as well as your recent additions, and replacing it with something more similar to the first half of what you wrote above. ResultingConstant (talk) 15:11, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Information on Controversy
I added some recent information that I found on the percentages of homicides with racial bias.Msdana74 (talk) 20:20, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

This sentense needs improvement. My last change may be incorrect.
 * "Some research shows that racial prejudices, whether explicit or unconscious, affects who people consider to be violent, which end[s] up disproportionately affecting marginalized populations such as black men."

Should it be this ??...
 * "Some research shows that racial prejudices, whether explicit or unconscious, and that affect those who people consider to be violent, end up disproportionately affecting marginalized populations such as black men."

In Other Words, this makes sense...
 * "Some research shows that racial prejudices, whether..., and that affect..., end up disproportionately affecting marginalized populations..."

I'll change it to this and see... &#32;-- Steve -- (talk) 02:32, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

But shouldn't a further edit be made to the Controversy Section?
There is no mention, under the section on Trayvon Martin, that the Zimmerman case did not rely on Florida's Stand Your Ground law. Missyagogo (talk) 01:52, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

While it is true that the defense didn't file for Stand Your Ground, it is the law of the land in Florida. As such, included in the jury's instructions was this graph:

"If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in anyplace where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand hisground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it wasnecessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to preventthe commission of a forcible felony"

Stand Your Ground was very much a part of the case — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.24.163.77 (talk) 02:03, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that's because the Stand Your Ground part of the law and the "non-SYG" ordinary self-defense law are combined into one overall law. In other words, there wasn't a separate non-SYG self-defense law to apply to Zimmerman, only the overall law which includes both ordinary self-defense and SYG. The problem is that people are acting as if the Zimmerman case would be different (either that he'd have been arrested sooner, or found guilty) if SYG wasn't a part of the law at all. That's not the case, because Zimmerman had no ability to retreat after he was attacked. If the shooting had taken place in any non-SYG state, or indeed any other Western nation in the world (ignoring how some other places don't have the same concealed-carry firearm laws,) Zimmerman would still have been acquitted. Aelius28 (talk) 04:54, 19 July 2013 (UTC)


 * That's all baseless and irrelevant. Please stick to reliable sources and improvements to the article. -- 96.247.231.243 (talk) 10:10, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I would be interested in reading an explanation of what is either baseless or irrelevant about it. The only connection that the Zimmerman case has to the subject of "Stand your ground" laws is that in the aftermath of Zimmerman's trial, many people alleged that "Stand your ground" laws were responsible for his acquittal.  Due to the attention that it brought to the subject, I do think that it makes sense for the article to acknowledge that those claims were made, but it also makes sense to acknowledge (as the current version of the article does) that those claims were disputed by others.  After all, the only way the presence or absence of a "Stand your ground" law could have affected the outcome of that case would have been if the jury believed that Martin had been the aggressor, that Zimmerman feared (and was reasonable in his fear) that Martin was about to either kill or seriously injure him, that Zimmerman at that point still had the opportunity to safely retreat instead of using deadly force against Martin, and that Zimmerman decided in favor of using deadly force.  However, I am not aware of anyone who has claimed that events unfolded that way.  There are people who believe that Martin attacked Zimmerman and people who believe that Zimmerman attacked Martin, but the "Stand your ground" rule only comes into play if the accused truly had been acting in self-defense, but ignored an opportunity to escape, instead (or can't prove that he/she did not ignore an opportunity to escape).  The article can acknowledge that people have blamed Florida's "Stand your ground" law for Zimmerman's acquittal, but it is good that the current version of the article (not as I write this, anyway) acknowledges that those claims are disputed. Duodecimus (talk) 07:00, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Castle Doctrine Definition
I added this section because castle doctrine was used previously without a definition of what it is. I feel like a majority of self-defense cases occur in homes or cars. Also, I thought it was important to state that you do have the duty to retreat before using deadly force. Was this information beneficial? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Usernamesarehard555 (talk • contribs) 01:39, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Wyoming becomes Stand Your Ground state.
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180315/wyoming-stand-your-ground-legislation-becomes-law

The map needs updating and I don't know how to do it. 173.169.18.165 (talk) 21:17, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It's done.Terrorist96 (talk) 20:50, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, you're the most friendly Terrorist on the planet. <3 173.169.18.165 (talk) 12:44, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Stand Your Ground becomes law in Idaho.
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180321/nra-backed-self-defense-bill-becomes-law-in-idaho

Idaho becomes a Stand Your Ground state on July 1, 2018! 173.169.18.165 (talk) 05:38, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * ✅Terrorist96 (talk) 21:47, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Utah not the stand-your-ground depicted in map and lead section
Utah Code 76-2-405 “Force in defense of habitation” is hardly a blanket stand-your-ground defense, as it specifies violent or stealthy entry by an intruder for purposes of felony and the person using defensive force to have a reasonable fear of serious bodily injury or death. While the habitation need not be the defender's own residence, it's clearly a home or business structure within walls the defender occupies at that time, not just any public sidewalk. Utah law is not an exemption from prosecution, either, whether at time of incident or later; see 76-1-405.

Therefore I object to Utah’s classification as a stand-your-ground state. Unless you’re defending your own home or business (see 58-22-102), or that of another person, you’ll probably lack access to 76-2-405 as legal defense if prosecuted for hurting or killing an aggressor. It’s an indoor law, inside buildings. My guess is that Utah has an extended form of castle doctrine in which the “castle” may be any occupied structure the actors are positioned within at the time they use defensive force in fear. Jessegalebaker (talk) 21:45, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Seems to make sense.  WP:SOFIXIT ResultingConstant (talk) 21:50, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I reverted your edit as it seemed to be original research. I've also updated the Utah citation to the correct section of law.Terrorist96 (talk) 05:14, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

John Lott
I removed the following statement:


 * Economist John Lott says that states adopting stand-your-ground/castle doctrine laws reduced murder rates by 9 percent and overall violent crime by 11 percent, and that occurs even after accounting for a range of other factors such as national crime trends, law enforcement variables (arrest, execution, and imprisonment rates), income and poverty measures, demographic changes, and the national average changes in crime rates from year-to-year and average differences across states.

Lott's continuous scandals aside, the National Academic Press finds his analysis faulty and unable to produce statistically-significant results. Disputed studies are not encyclopedic. John Moser (talk) 13:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)


 * I think the most appropriate thing is to note that the study was found faulty by the NAS report, not to remove any mention of it. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:12, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Agree 100% with Snooganssnoogans. The entire topic is disputed, it would be an empty article (and indeed empty encyclopedia) if we could only list things there was 100% agreement on. ResultingConstant (talk) 15:26, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Hawaii?
Hawaii is tagged as castle doctrine in the image but not stated in the prose. Is there a specific reason for this (no source available?) or was it just missed off accidentally? Nosebagbear (talk) 13:38, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Goverment Funded Sources from 1940's?
Using RAND Corporation as a source is a joke. Funded by the Government since 1948. Shall we take everything the Government funds at face value? I bet the Syphilis studies on black men were valid in the pursuit of science. To further the discussion about RAND Corporation they make weapons to kill people, with their non-profit model. Non-Profit — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.251.234.124 (talk) 10:09, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Stand your groud law.

The highest murders rates are in states without stand your ground LAW, which account for more murders. Let us not forget numbers too about population density and color. They only want to take guns away from law abiding citizens.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls

Sort by 2018...proven under reports are funny when wiki posts them as statiscal fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.251.234.124 (talk • contribs)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_homicide_rate — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.251.234.124 (talk) 10:55, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

In life there are 3 things. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.251.234.124 (talk • contribs)


 * There is nothing wrong with using government data and sources. See, you refer to the FBI that is part of the government yourself, so you must think that they are reliable, don't you? Please familiarize yourself with the relevant Wikipedia rules, like WP:RS and WP:OR. You might also want to read No personal attacks. Sjö (talk) 12:20, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Ohio becomes a stand-your-ground state.
With the passage of SB175 on December 18th, there has been no news about DeWine vetoing or signing the bill. According to Article II, Section 16 of the Ohio Constitution, DeWine had ten days (excluding Sundays) to sign or veto the bill, and with no word on that, it's likely that the bill is now law and will be in effect in a little less than 90 days.

To that end, I think the map and jurisdiction section should be updated to include Ohio as a stand-your-ground state, or we should at least prepare for that. MrThunderbolt1000T (talk) 23:31, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

History section
Can we have a history section? Would be nice to compare cases that users know against a timeline of when these types of laws were introduced. Saledomo (talk) 11:36, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

New User
I am hoping to make a few edits to this article due to a new interest in the subject. This topic is interesting to me because of how different it can be used depending on person using it. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Usernamesarehard555 (talk • contribs) 18:02, October 9, 2017 (UTC)


 * I recommend that you start a new section. More active editors will guide you. The talk section is much less formal than the page. Dw31415 (talk) 08:37, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Initial aggressor assertion
Proposal: delete the sentence that asserts that self defense cannot be used by the initial aggressor.

This sentence doesn’t seem backed by fact or citation. I want to say it’s trying to “prove a negative” but that’s not exactly what I’m trying to say. Dw31415 (talk) 09:24, 21 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Agree, it's not mentioned in the article and varies by jurisdiction. It's very subtle e.g. if you attack someone, but defend yourself after trying to flee, it could be counted as a separate incident.  If they massively over-react to verbal aggression by pulling a gun you could still claim self defense etc. etc. JeffUK (talk) 10:07, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Wisconsin
Wisconsin has neither a statutory duty to retreat, nor a duty to retreat imposed by case law. Juries may *consider* whether a defendant could have retreated in assessing whether said defendant reasonably acted in self-defense, but that's not the same as *requiring* one to retreat. Therefore, in my opinion, Wisconsin should be labelled as being "middle-ground," the same as Washington, D.C. MrThunderbolt1000T (talk) 17:46, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Stand your ground law florida
A stand-your-ground law (sometimes called "line in the sand" or "no duty to retreat" law) provides that people may use deadly force when they reasonably believe it to be necessary to defend against deadly force, great bodily harm, kidnapping, rape, or (in some jurisdictions) robbery or some other serious crimes (right of self-defense). Under such a law, people have no duty to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense, so long as they are in a place where they are lawfully present.[1] The exact details vary by jurisdiction. 193.114.110.72 (talk) 10:56, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

JAMA Network Open article
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789154 February 21, 2022 Analysis of “Stand Your Ground” Self-defense Laws and Statewide Rates of Homicides and Firearm Homicides Michelle Degli Esposti; Douglas J. Wiebe; Antonio Gasparrini; et al David K. Humphreys JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(2):e220077. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.0077

Key Points

Question Are “stand your ground” (SYG) laws associated with increases in violent deaths, and does this vary by US state?

Findings In this cohort study assessing 41 US states, SYG laws were associated with an 8% to 11% national increase in monthly rates of homicide and firearm homicide. State-level increases in homicide and firearm homicide rates reached 10% or higher for many Southern states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/21/stand-your-ground-research-homicides/ ‘Stand your ground’ laws linked to 11% rise in U.S. firearm homicides, study says By Hannah Knowles Washington Post February 21, 2022

--Nbauman (talk) 17:38, 23 February 2022 (UTC)