Stand Your Ground laws significantly reduce violent crime
There are many laws related to the possession and use of guns and each comes under attack when an event is politicized by special interest groups determined to curtail the liberty of gun owners. Polarizing large groups of Americans against gun ownership and use is an easy task when an unpopular death occurs and voters are presented with a celebrity blaming guns for the death. Phrases like "caused by guns" and "gun-related" are used liberally in public speech which is then broadcast in the news without the burden of fact-checking or fear of libel.
Guns actually reduce violent crime
While it is true that most murders in the United States are committed with guns, the presence of guns in society has been proven to reduce murder rates along with the rates of other violent crimes. Gun laws designed to put guns into the hands of law abiding citizens and keep them out of the hands of criminals reduces violent crime even further. The three general gun laws touched on here to dispel the myth that gun laws increase murder rates are the ones allowing a citizen to possess a firearm, the concealed carry law and Florida's landmark statute 776 or "Stand Your Ground Law". The "Stand Your Ground Law" is not a gun law, but the benefits to society are touched on here to demonstrate its effectiveness at reducing violent crimes.
Possession of a Firearm
Most Americans are allowed to possess firearms as a result of language in the Second Amendment1 to the Constitution of the United States2. The Second Amendment reads:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
In 2010 the United States Supreme Court held in the McDonald v. Chicago case3 that the Second Amendment restricts individual States from infringing on the rights of Americans to bear arms in the same way that it restricts the Federal government. Laws restricting felons and the mentally ill from possessing firearms are some of the exceptions that have been allowed.
A study by the Department of Justice has shown that gun-related crimes have plummeted 40 percent in recent years while gun ownership has risen to an all time high. According to Joseph Farah, columnist and founder of World Net Daily13:
The hard numbers released by the FBI show that gunshot wounds inflicted during crimes dropped from 64,100 in 1992 to 39,400 in 1997. During that same period, the number of guns in America surged to 230 million from 205 million, according to the National Association of Federally Licensed Firearms Dealers.
Murder rates in gun control countries like Mexico and the African nations are more than twice as high as those in the United States.14,15,16 In these countries with strict gun control laws far fewer murders are committed with firearms, but the murder rate per capita is much higher than in those countries that allow gun ownership. On its face it would seem that laws restricting gun ownership causes more murders, but the correlation between gun ownership and murder rates is more complicated than that.
Disarming victims demonstrably increases crime rates. The Southern Illinois University Law Journal describes the results of the 1977 ban on firearms in the District of Columbia.4
As a demonstration that disarming honest citizens increases violent crime, the District of Columbia banned the possession of handguns (grandfathering in those already legally possessed) in 1977. In 1976, the year before this law took effect, Washington had the seventh highest rate of violent crime of any city in the nation. Six years later, Washington took the lead and became America's most violent city. Then-Police Chief Maurice Turner remarked, "What has the gun-control law done to keep criminals from getting guns? Absolutely nothing. . . . City residents ought to have the opportunity to have a handgun." In fact, Washington's gun-control law is worse than useless. The gun control law reduced the number of felons killed in the course of felonies by two-thirds and increased crime by disarming victims. One author has summed it up well, "Gun Control = Victim Disarmament & Increases Violent Crime!"
Concealed Carry
Gun laws vary widely among the individual States with regard to "Concealed Carry" and this is the one of the laws that so many claim increases murder rates. In 1987 Florida began issuing licenses to carry a concealed weapon and, like the Stand Your Ground Law, it became a model for other States. One study conducted by the Southern Illinois University Law Journal found that by allowing concealed weapons homicides and rapes were reduced drastically in Florida.4 Sources for the statistics are cited in the article.
Since Florida has been the nation's leader in licensing honest citizens to carry concealed weapons, examining Florida's experience is important to understanding the effects of concealed carry. In 1987, when Florida adopted its current concealed-weapons law, Florida's homicide rate was 11.4 persons per 100,000. In 1993, Florida's homicide rate declined to 8.7 persons per 100,000. During this same period, the national homicide rate increased from 8.2 to 9.3 persons per 100,000. Thus, allowing honest citizens to carry concealed weapons saves lives. During the same period (1987-93), the incidence of rape went up 14.4% while in Florida the rate went up only 2.9% and started declining in 1993. Although Florida's rape rate went up somewhat, Florida women avoided the skyrocketing rape rates that the rest of the country experienced. Allowing honest women to carry concealed weapons thus prevents rapes.
According to David Kopel, Research Director at the Independence Institute5:
What we can say with some confidence is that allowing more people to carry guns does not cause an increase in crime. In Florida, where 315,000 permits have been issued, there are only five known instances of violent gun crime by a person with a permit. This makes a permit-holding Floridian the cream of the crop of law-abiding citizens, 840 times less likely to commit a violent firearm crime than a randomly selected Floridian without a permit.
John Lott and David Mustard studied crime statistics for all counties in the United States from 1977 to 19925 and determined that the 31 states that allow their residents to carry concealed weapons experienced a significant reduction in violent crime.6 According to John Lott7:
Our most conservative estimates show that by adopting shall-issue laws, states reduced murders by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%. If those states that did not permit concealed handguns in 1992 had permitted them back then, citizens might have been spared approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and 12,000 robberies. To put it even more simply criminals, we found, respond rationally to deterrence threats... While support for strict gun-control laws usually has been strongest in large cities, where crime rates are highest, that's precisely where right-to-carry laws have produced the largest drops in violent crimes.
In an interview at the University of Chicago John Lott had this to say about the reduction of crime through handgun posession11
Criminals are deterred by higher penalties. Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate--as more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent.
Concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime for two reasons. First, they reduce the number of attempted crimes because criminals are uncertain which potential victims can defend themselves. Second, victims who have guns are in a much better position to defend themselves.
To demonstrate that disarming a populace increases crime rates, the study by the Southern Illinois University Law Journal4 describes the results of the 1977 ban on firearms in the District of Columbia.
As a demonstration that disarming honest citizens increases violent crime, the District of Columbia banned the possession of handguns (grandfathering in those already legally possessed) in 1977. In 1976, the year before this law took effect, Washington had the seventh highest rate of violent crime of any city in the nation. Six years later, Washington took the lead and became America's most violent city. Then-Police Chief Maurice Turner remarked, "What has the gun-control law done to keep criminals from getting guns? Absolutely nothing. . . . City residents ought to have the opportunity to have a handgun." In fact, Washington's gun-control law is worse than useless. The gun control law reduced the number of felons killed in the course of felonies by two-thirds and increased crime by disarming victims. One author has summed it up well, "Gun Control = Victim Disarmament & Increases Violent Crime!"
Florida's Stand Your Ground Law
The Stand Your Ground Law is not new to Florida, but is more than 100 years old. In 1895 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the use of deadly force in self-defense is justifiable and legal in the case of Beard v. United States - 158 U.S. 550.8 The syllabus reads:
A man assailed on his own grounds, without provocation, by a person armed with a deadly weapon and apparently seeking his life is not obliged to retreat, but may stand his ground and defend himself with such means as are within his control; and so long as there is no intent on his part to kill his antagonist, and no purpose of doing anything beyond what is necessary to save his own life, is not guilty of murder or manslaughter if death results to his antagonist from a blow given him under such circumstances.
The "Stand Your Ground" defense against homicide charges is often referred to as the aptly-named "Castle Doctrine" because it allows for, but does not limit, the use of deadly force to protect against an intruder in the home. One of the most common applications of this defense is in cases where a homeowner is attacked by a burglar and, instead of fleeing the home, defends himself or herself against the burglar's attack. The Florida "Stand Your Ground" law extended that area to any place one has a right to be, including public places--not just in the home.9 It declares that the victim of an attack or person witnessing a violent crime has no duty to retreat, but can "meet force with force". Subsection 3 of section 13 of Florida statute 776 reads:
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 and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.
It is true that some murder defendants who were not the victims of violent attacks have tried to use "self defense" as a defense against murder and manslaughter cases, but in these cases the defendants are still found guilty. Some defendants have attempted unsuccessfully to invoke the immunity provided by Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, but where it is obviously a ruse, the judge presiding in the case has denied the immunity and moved forward with prosecution. There is no anecdotal evidence that a murder has been committed because of the law. Contrary to many beliefs the law does not legalize murder. Section 32 of Florida statute 776 reads:
A person who uses force as permitted . . . is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force.
Florida's "Stand Your Ground Law" is often mistaken for a gun law. The law does not mention guns except to ensure that the definition of deadly force is not limited to the discharge of a firearm in the direction of an attacker or an attacker's vehicle.9 Subsection 6 of statute 776 reads:
(1)The term "deadly force" means force that is likely to cause death or great bodily harm and includes, but is not limited to:
(a) The firing of a firearm in the direction of the person to be arrested, even though no intent exists to kill or inflict great bodily harm; and
(b) The firing of a firearm at a vehicle in which the person to be arrested is riding.
Research shows 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 (poverty and unemployment rates, per capita real income, as well as income maintenance, retirement, and unemployment payments), demographic changes (broken down by race, gender and age), and the national average changes in crime rates from year-to-year and average differences across states (the fixed year and state effects).10
Professor John A. Tures of LaGrange College crime rate statistics in 2004 before the first official "Stand Your Ground" law was adopted in Florida and the crime statistics in 2009. States that adopted official "Stand Your Ground" laws experienced a decline in violent crime while the states that did not experience an increase in violent crime12. According to Tures:
For those who passed "Stand Your Ground" laws, the violent crime rate did fall from 446.42 per 100,000 residents in 2004 to 431.34 per 100,000 residents in 2009, while those that did not pass them rose from 398.53 to 398.62 over that same timespan. This does seem to indicate some support for these "Stand Your Ground" laws.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Const...
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._Chicago
4. http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Espohl1.htm
5. "More Permits Mean Less Crime..." Los Angeles Times, Feb. 19, 1996, Monday, p. B-5
6. http://www.guncite.com/lott.pdf
7. "More Guns, Less Violent Crime", Professor John R. Lott, Jr., The Wall Street Journal, August 28, 1996, (The Rule of Law column).
8. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/158/550/case.html
9. Florida statute 776 or "Stand Your Ground Law"
10. "More Guns, Less Crime" 3rd Edition (University of Chicago Press, 2010) by John Lott
11. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html
12. http://news.yahoo.com/stand-ground-laws-reduce-crime-182200361.html
13. http://www.wnd.com/2000/10/1707/
14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
15. http://www.twrtoday.com/Murder_Rates_Highest_in_Africa_and_The_Americas.asp
16. http://worldnews.about.com/od/crime/tp/Top-Murder-Rates-In-The-World.htm
