Stand Your Ground

• What these young people have in common is that they were killed in accidental encounters with armed property owners.
• Stand Your Ground laws, meanwhile, authorize defensive violence without a duty to retreat, wherever a person may legally be.
• Some also expand the circumstances in which someone could use lethal force to defend property.
• But he would still have to show reasonable cause for firing two shots at the unarmed teen standing at his front door.

Defining 'reasonable’ force

• This does not preclude the defense from invoking Lester’s right to “Stand his Ground” and use force in self defense, if his lawyers can show Lester truly believed Yarl posed a real threat.
• Traditional use of force laws place that burden on the alleged self-defender, who must prove that their actions were reasonable.
• This means that the prosecution must prove that the alleged self-defender was truly fearful when they used force.

Increase in gun homicides

• Research on public health and crime reveals a pernicious effect of Stand Your Ground laws on public safety, showing a correlation with increased rates of gun homicide.
• One study, which includes an assessment of Missouri’s law, found that the passage of “Stand Your Ground” laws correlates with an 8% to 11% increase in firearm homicide rates.
• An analysis of Stand Your Ground cases in Florida, carried out by gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety, addressed the way removal of the duty to retreat encourages violent escalation; researchers suggested that over half the cases could have been resolved without loss of life.

Encouraging armed citizenry

• In the case of Ralph Yarl, the possible presence of racial bias has not escaped the attention of Kansas City prosecutors.
• With laws that encourage armed citizens to use force against any perceived threat – real or imagined – even the most innocent mistakes and chance encounters can turn deadly.