Florida Homicide Rate Increased After Passage of ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law, Study Finds
The rate of homicides, especially homicides by firearms, sharply increased in Florida in the years after the “stand your ground” law was passed, according to a new study published today by the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine.
Passed in 2005, the so-called “stand your ground” law in Florida allows residents to use force, including deadly force, if they “reasonably believe” they are at risk of bodily harm. The law also created a “no duty to retreat” provision if they felt at risk.
To see if they could find any measurable effects in the homicide rate after the law’s passage, researchers from the University of Oxford looked at Florida homicide data at various points in time from 1999 to 2014. They then compared increases or decreases in those rates with four control states (New York, Virginia, New Jersey and Ohio) where a “stand your ground”-type law does not exist.
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