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Report on Florida's "no retreat" law
Conclusion: hard to find any impact on anything. Not too surprising, since as I recall Florida never had a retreat requirement in the first place. The reporter's words are interesting: "So-called "justifiable homicides" have more than doubled." So-called?
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Florida did have a duty to retreat before the stand your ground law was enacted. You might be surprised that Wyoming, the cowboy state, has a duty to retreat as well. The stand your ground legislation has been introduced in the legislature but has been shot down. Since the law of self defense in Wyoming is solely by Supreme Court precedent and there is not statute [except for inside the home] the duty to retreat only applies when the justices think it is necessary. So maybe you don’t have to retreat, they’ll tell you afterward.
A duty to retreat only empowers criminals to go around forcing people to run away from places they have a legal right to be.
I have an addition to the above post. Colorado self-defense law is largely embodied in the statutes. The statutes say nothing about standing one’s ground or whether there is a duty to retreat. The Supreme Court of Colorado has, since the days even before 1876 when Colorado was a territory, emphatically proclaimed there is no duty to retreat in Colorado. That has been upheld in several recent cases. Colorado’s Supreme Court can be roughly said to be 4-3 liberal. Some would argue that point. But even the ones that I consider liberal, from long-time watching, are firmly behind the no-duty to retreat stance.
One of the most liberal justices wrote a strong no-duty to retreat opinion just a few years ago, and he was also the author of the case upholding the right of CCW holders to carry on campus.
I tremble at what they think and write in other areas, but I’m thankful for their thoughtful adherence to the rule of law when it comes to gun rights.
The UF preliminary report found that in the seven years since the law passed:
- Homicides have increased.
- Violent crime has continued to decrease.
- Tourism gains saw no significant change.
- So-called "justifiable homicides" have more than doubled.
- Applications for concealed weapons permits have tripled.
Yes, some of those trends had starting points before 2005, but there are ways to quantify the impact of SYG.
Separating homicides and [quote]so-called "justifiable homicides"[/quote] into separate categories might be cute if enough people do not bother to engage their brains while looking at the action. And yes, the "so-called" is a piece of art in and of itself.
stay safe.