Everytown Pushes ‘Study’ Bashing Stand Your Ground Laws

One of my many pet peeves with the mainstream media is how they just accepted Everytown studies as real research. I mean, it says what they want to hear, and it’s not like they’re good at sussing out legitimate research in any other field either, but it still irks me on this one.

Everytown isn’t a research organization. They’re an advocacy group, which means every bit of research they churn out should be treated as radioactive from the start. They have no reason to publish anything that goes against their advocacy aims and every reason to manipulate that research so as to advance them.

And they’re at it again, with the mainstream media biting.

Stand-your-ground laws, which are in effect in more than half of U.S. states, are associated with higher homicide rates, increased racial disparities in legal outcomes and broader public costs, according to a new report from Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control research and advocacy group.

Stand-your-ground or shoot first laws remove the legal duty to retreat before using deadly force in a self-defense situation. These laws evolved from the centuries-old castle doctrine, which permitted individuals to use force to defend themselves in their own homes.

Modern stand-your-ground statutes expanded this principle to apply in public spaces. Florida enacted the first such law in 2005, and the policy drew national attention in 2012 after the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, a private citizen.

First, I want to note that while the Trayvon Martin shooting did start a lot of talk about Stand Your Ground laws, Zimmerman didn’t need it for his defense. Martin was sitting on top of him, bashing his head into the concrete sidewalk. Stand Your Ground laws are about not having to attempt to retreat first before using deadly force.

There was no way Zimmerman could retreat with Martin on top of him. That’s something that was missing from almost all of that “national attention.”

I’ll also note that I look at the Everytown “study,” and what you have there is a report that doesn’t list its methodology, which means there’s no means by which we can review how they gathered the data, what was included and what wasn’t, etc.

That alone warrants ignoring this “study,” simply because they could count just about anything in their tallies and we can’t evaluate whether it should have been counted or not. They supposedly used FBI data, but which data was included and which wasn’t? Why was it and why were other data exlucded?

Of course, it should be noted that Stand Your Ground is also blamed for something else.

People are more likely to carry guns in public in states with stand-your-ground laws, which also increases the risk of gun theft and violent confrontations, according to research cited in the Everytown report. These laws also are linked to higher rates of gun homicide among adolescents and more unintentional shootings involving children and young adults.

Now, I can see people being more likely to carry in states with Stand Your Ground laws, but mostly because states with those are also likely to have a lower burden for those who wish to carry in the first place. It’s not because of Stand Your Ground laws themselves, but because they tend to co-exist with other measures.

As for the laws increasing the risk of gun theft, though, I’m going to point out that if people are actually carrying guns, their firearms aren’t being stolen. People leave guns in their cars, though, often because of gun-free zones. Lawful carriers are forced to leave their guns in their cars, which means guns are available for theft.

It’s not because people carry, but because of the fact that some places bar them from doing so.

Somehow, it seems Everytown failed to include that in their “study.” 

Shocking, I know.

Everytown’s “research” isn’t research. It’s activism with a thin veneer of science applied so that they can pretend they’re something other than a group that would eradicate our rights if given half a chance.

Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about the Second Amendment and gun owners.

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