(no subject)

[icelore.livejournal.com]

Comments

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

1,000,000+ concealed carry permits in florida versus 35K+ in california. What could go wrong?

[hookemnick.livejournal.com]

Why do you think the violent crime rate in Florida is dropping so dramatically since the SYG legislation took effect in 2005? Curious.

http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/mar/23/dennis-baxley/crime-rates-florida-have-dropped-stand-your-ground/

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

How much has the murder rate declined in the nation as a whole since 2005?

Also, many have claimed that many murders in SYG states have been reclassed as SYG, and the murderers get gold stars for their trouble.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Crime had dropped before SYG was passed as your link pointed out, and it also pointed out that crime rates dropped in other states without SYG laws.

[hookemnick.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I'm not crediting SYG laws for the reduction in violent crimes over the past 20 years. But someone please show me the data to suggest that SYG and looser gun laws are increasing violent crime rates.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

At least two empirical (http://www.nber.org/papers/w18187) papers (http://econweb.tamu.edu/mhoekstra/castle_doctrine.pdf) have found that Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws like the one in Florida are associated with an average increase rather than a decrease in firearm homicides. This plausibly occurs because the deterrent effects of such laws are outweighed by the increase in the range of legal defenses for the use of lethal violence that become available to attackers. While SYG laws are meant to protect defenders, the absence of impartial witnesses makes it difficult in many cases to determine who ought to have had a “reasonable fear” of whom.

Anton Strezhnev (a former student and current co-author of mine) provides some interesting additional evidence (http://causalloop.blogspot.nl/2013/07/some-more-evidence-that-floridas-stand.html) for the Florida case. You should read his full post to comprehend the methodology used (based on the synthetic control method) but here is his description of the graph above:

The figure above plots the gap in firearm homicide rates between the actual time series and the estimated synthetic control for Florida and for each of the control states. Relative to the distribution of relevant placebos, the Florida effect stands out post-2006. Florida’s is the most unusual line in the set and from 2007-2010 shows a positive deviation from the control greater than any of the placebo tests. Although the pool of control states is somewhat small, limiting the number of possible placebo tests, the trajectory of Florida’s homicide rate is certainly unusual and difficult to attribute to pure chance.

So, compared to a group of states that had similar homicide rates prior to 2005, Florida’s homicide rate shot up unusually after 2005 (and in a way that cannot easily be accounted for by observed variables). One can never definitively proof a causal effect with aggregate data of this type but the data appear consistent with the claim that this law has not served the purpose of reducing homicides.

http://themonkeycage.org/2013/07/17/did-floridas-stand-your-ground-law-increase-firearm-homicides/

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Wow. I wasnt aware of that information. Gracias.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

That could just as well imply that before SYG, more people were convicted of murder who shouldn't have been.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

...are increasing violent crime rates.

Because a successful SYG defense would result in no crime being committed.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Your source expresses some curiosity too.

<<<<<<<<<<<<

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.

[...]

Baxley said "We’ve had a dramatic drop in violent crime since this law has been in effect." His comments in television interviews implied the law itself reduced violent crime rates. There has been a drop, but rates were declining before the law went into effect. We found no proof that that the "stand your ground" law caused the drop in crime rates; some groups worry the law could lead to more violence. We rate his claim Half True.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[hookemnick.livejournal.com]

Sure, and I'm not claiming that the SYG law had any effect at all on the violent crime rate(even though the decline seemed to pick up steam after the law went into effect). I'm simply countering the claim that with looser gun laws, SYG, and higher gun ownership(as we've seen in many areas) that there will be this crazy influx in gun violence when, in fact, the opposite has been true. I've found that most anti-gun folks tend to argue their points on raw emotion rather than citing necessary data.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Correlation doesn't equal causation. Read your own link, there are hypothesis within....

[dwer.livejournal.com]

because now certain kinds of killings aren't illegal.

[hookemnick.livejournal.com]

Any evidence of this?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Yes. George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering or manslaughtering Trayvon Martin.

Look at the study Telemann linked you to.

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

Silly Justice! You don't use a sword to hunt alligators. You gotta choot 'em!

[madscience.livejournal.com]

Any time people want to knock off the hyperbolic bullshit...

The law sets a much higher standard than "I felt threatened." (Full text here (http://www.husseinandwebber.com/florida-stand-your-ground-statute.html).)