Posted on 07/06/2012 7:27:08 PM PDT by marktwain
Jeff points me to a paper by Chandler McClellan and Erdal Tekin which begins as follows:
The controversies surrounding Stand Your Ground laws have recently captured the nation’s attention. Since 2005, eighteen states have passed laws extending the right to self-defense with no duty to retreat to any place a person has a legal right to be, and several additional states are debating the adoption of similar legislation. Despite the implications that these laws may have for public safety, there has been little empirical investigation of their impact on crime and victimization. In this paper, we use monthly data from the U.S. Vital Statistics to examine how Stand Your Ground laws affect homicides. We identify the impact of these laws by exploiting variation in the effective date of these laws across states. Our results indicate that Stand Your Ground laws are associated with a significant increase in the number of homicides among whites, especially white males.According to our estimates, between 4.4 and 7.4 additional white males are killed each month as a result of these laws.We find no evidence to suggest that these laws increase homicides among blacks. Our results are robust to a number of specifications and unlikely to be driven entirely by the killings of assailants. Taken together, our findings raise serious doubts against the argument that Stand Your Ground laws make America safer.
I don’t really trust their regressions. I mean, sure, 5 additional homicides per month is as good an estimate as any, but the conclusions are coming from the data, which McClellan and Tekin display reasonably well:
I think one would want to understand these wavy ups and downs in the curves before making any definitive pronouncements.
From a policy standpoint, I guess it’s no surprise that Stand Your Ground laws could be associated with an increase in homicide. After all, these laws aren’t really enacted as a homicide-control measure, right? It’s more the opposite, that they legalize certain violence that used to be criminal. I could imagine Stand Your Ground decreasing homicide in some sort of deterrence effect, but that would seem to me to be a bit of a bank-shot of an effect, hoping that legalizing some acts of violence would decrease others. It’s possible but I wouldn’t bet on it. To put it another way, even if Stand Your Ground laws really did increase homicides, I could imagine people still supporting the laws on the grounds that some of these homicides were justifiable. I suppose that would be the next stage of research but it would take a lot more effort as it would have to investigate the story of each homicide.
A very sparse data set. It seems open to charges of timing selection.
It seems uncontroversial to me that an increase of justifiable homicides is likely to decrease unjustifiable homicides. The data seems way to sparse to judge from this working paper.
Why is it the duty of the attacked to HAVE TO retreat from an attacker?
Why is it the duty of a victim to have to run away from the criminal?
Next rape victims will be told just to relax and lie back, they might change their minds and enjoy it.
Do they factor in the increase in home invasions and other crimes directly linked to the economic conditions?
Do they consider the huge number of young blacks who are unemployed?
Old folks always said “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
Stand Your Ground laws should result in more deaths. After all, the reason for the law is to allow the attacked to defend themselves against the attackers.
Firearm defense should result in a dead attacker. Real life is not Hollyweird, where shooting a gun or knife out of the attacker’s hand occurs just as the script writer wants. In real life, the attacked shoots until the threat to life//severe injury is removed.
Usually, this means either the attacker flees or if the attack is continued, hopefully the bullet placement of the attacked is sufficient to cause incapacitation, unconsciousness, or death before the attacker can cause severe injury to the attacked, or kill the attacked.
Summation: Stand Your Ground laws allow armed defense. If the situation turns out to be a murder, that is why America has Grand Juries and petit juries.
Let's say you are being pursued by the bad guys. SYG lets you use subtrefuge and ad hoc booby traps to maim or kill them.
You have no obligation whatsoever to just stand there and let them hurt you.
Yeah. Properly, it's called self-defense.
SYG also tends to disarm indictment-happy political prosecutors who know the shoot was legitimate, but want to flex their muscles and run up your legal tab before the incident is closed as justifiable. Any justifiable shooting brings legal risks, but lack of SYG makes it just too easy for political prosecutors to make your life extra-miserable, despite your survival.
In a lot of SYG states, successful defense under that law also preempts the next-of-kin from trying to ruin the rest of your finances in civil court. Yes, poor Johnny was just starting to turn his life around, but he would have been far more valuable dead in a civil suit.
Someone remarked that the increase in non justifiable homicides in this data set seems to have some correlation to the relocation of criminals from New Orleans after Katrina.
It might be worth looking at.
Irritates me consdierably when “researchers” use terms that are ambiguous at best, disingenuous AT WORST.
“Homocide”=killing of a man
Pretty sparse in descriptives. Lawful/justifiable homocide indicates a quality of the act.
Homocide is not necessarily a bad thing. Unlawful homocide has a connotation of crime, while lawful homocide describes a reasonable act against a threat or other qualified act.
I never cease to wonder at how silly these researchers are; or are they intentionally parsing words for a purpose?
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