Stand Your Ground laws get a lot of press, and most of it is based on absolute nonsense. They repeat a lot of pathetic talking points with no bearing on reality, but we haven't seen much lately about them.
But then the Wall Street Journal stepped up and unleashed the stupid.
It starts with their headline, proclaiming, "Six Words Every Killer Should Know: ‘I Feared for My Life, Officer’."
In theory, it's an exploration of the increase in justified homicides that has happened since such laws became the norm. That's probably a worthy topic of examination, too, because how many people would have been free had some prosecuted not convinced a jury that the person who actually was afraid for their life really could have gotten away?
Because that's all these laws do. They make it so you're not required to retreat first before using lethal force in self-defense, and that means no one can play Monday morning quarterback and decide there was an opening in a gate behind a dumpster you totally could have used to get away.
But no, that's not what the WSJ does. Instead, we get this crap:
It’s easier than ever to kill someone in America and get away with it.
In 30 states, it often requires only a claim you killed while protecting yourself or others.
While Americans have long been free to use deadly force to defend themselves at home, so-called stand-your-ground laws in those 30 states extend legal protections to public places and make it difficult for prosecutors to file homicide charges against anyone who says they killed in self-defense.
The number of legally sanctioned homicides by civilians in the 30 stand-your-ground states has risen substantially in recent years, The Wall Street Journal found in an analysis of data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Justifiable homicides by civilians increased 59% from 2019 through 2024 in a large sample of cities and counties in those states, the Journal found, compared with a 16% rise in total homicides for the same locales.
With more guns in more hands, families are grieving loved ones lost to quick-tempered killings, often involving law-abiding civilians, with no one held accountable.
A retired Las Vegas police officer walked free after fatally shooting a retired computer network engineer during a dispute over who had the right of way in a Walmart parking lot. Both men got out of their vehicles. Both were armed. The ex-officer said the retired engineer pointed a gun at him first.
“Only two people know what happened,” said Kathleen Hoy, the dead man’s widow. “Unfortunately, my husband is dead.”
That's the case they wanted to lead with?
I mean, sure, there are only two people who know what happened, but the fact that both men were armed suggests that there's at least some reason to believe it's justified.
Stand Your Ground laws don't condone murder simply because you say you were afraid. You have to actually have a reason to be afraid. The fact that the retired engineer in question was armed at least lends credence to the retired cop thinking his life was in danger. The fact that there wasn't any other evidence one way or another is just how it goes sometimes.
Look, justified homicides are up, but part of that is that violent crime is also up. From the relative low of 2019, we saw a massive spike in the homicide rate in 2020 that is slowly trickling downward. With more violent crime, you have more cases where people are going to legitimately fear for their lives. Seeing an increase over such a short span is hardly shocking.
Maybe the scale of the increase is surprising, but again, how many people were really and legitimately afraid for their life before their state got a Stand Your Ground law, but went to prison because a prosecutor convinced a jury they had an avenue of retreat they totally could have made, even if the shooter didn't think they could?
Honestly, this is trainwreck journalism. This is as biased a report as you're going to see, and the Wall Street Journal is supposed to be more conservative than the Old Gray Lady.
This looks straight out of the New York Times' playbook, though.