The Dangers of Shooting First: “Stand Your Ground” Laws Are a License to Kill

For centuries, self-defense laws have given people the right to protect themselves. Shoot First laws, also known as Stand Your Ground laws, go beyond these long-standing principles, aggressively altering criminal law to shield a person who claims self-defense from being arrested, prosecuted, or convicted for using deadly force. In 2005, Florida enacted the first modern Shoot First law, an effort backed by the National Rifle Association (NRA), during a time when they were making concerted efforts to reverse declining gun sales.¹Giffords Law Center and Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, “ ‘Stand Your Ground’ Kills: How These NRA-Backed Laws Promote Racist Violence,” July 2020, https://bit.ly/38tkOJB. Working with the gun lobby, the American Legislative Exchange Council pushed to turn Florida’s law into a template for a national campaign.²Calvin Sloan, “ALEC: The Hidden Player Behind ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws,” People For the American Way, March 21, 2012, https://bit.ly/2WD4YXo; Chris Brown, “Marion Hammer: The NRA Lobbyist Behind Florida’s Stand Your Ground Legislation,” Media Matters for America, March 22, 2012, https://bit.ly/3pef7pD. Now in 29 states,³As of April 2025, Shoot First laws have been enacted in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. these laws change the nature of self-defense, turning everyday disputes into deadly confrontations. Far from empowering victims, Shoot First laws lower the threshold for justifiable homicide, encouraging the escalation of petty arguments and armed vigilantism. 

Although the gun lobby created these laws under the pretense of empowering and protecting victims of crime, the data overwhelmingly shows that the statutes have failed at this. Research on Shoot First laws indicates that they increase gun deaths, leading to hundreds of deaths every year that would not have occurred otherwise. These laws also consistently fail to protect vulnerable communities; in addition to increased risk of victimization in Shoot First states, convictions are unfairly skewed against people of color and women. 

In the decades since the first Shoot First law was enacted, no research shows that these laws lead to better outcomes for anyone. Shoot First was created to solve a problem that does not exist—and Americans are paying the price. 

Shoot First laws are dangerous.

Extensive research shows that Shoot First laws lead to an increase in violence with zero protective effects. The nonpartisan RAND Corporation determined that Shoot First laws are among the gun policies with the strongest and clearest evidence for their harmful impacts; the organization concluded that these laws lead to a rise in homicides—both with and without a gun—and other types of violent crime, such as robbery, rape, and aggravated assault.⁴RAND Corporation, “The Effects of Stand-Your-Ground Laws,” July 16, 2024, https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/stand-your-ground.html. States whose laws go beyond traditional self-defense are putting their residents in harm’s way. 

Shoot First laws in the United States lead to substantial increases in violence and the senseless loss of hundreds of lives every year. Research shows that these laws have increased gun homicides by up to 11 percent nationally, translating to more than 700 deaths annually.⁵Michelle Degli Esposti et al., “Analysis of ‘Stand Your Ground’ Self-Defense Laws and Statewide Rates of Homicides and Firearm Homicides,” JAMA Network Open 5, no. 2 (February 21, 2022): e220077, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.0077. Some Shoot First states have seen even steeper increases, with those rates rising by 30 percent or more in Alabama, Florida, and Missouri.⁶Degli Esposti et al., “Analysis of ‘Stand Your Ground’ Self-Defense Laws.” Adolescents experience higher rates of gun homicides under Shoot First laws.⁷Michelle Degli Esposti et al., “Increasing Adolescent Firearm Homicides and Racial Disparities Following Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ Self-Defence Law,” Injury Prevention 26, no. 2 (2020): 187–90, https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2019-043530. And though many people associate gun homicides and assaults with cities, research shows that Shoot First laws do not discriminate, increasing violence in suburban and urban counties⁸Abdul Munasib, Genti Kostandini, and Jeffrey L. Jordan, “Impact of the Stand Your Ground Law on Gun Deaths: Evidence of a Rural Urban Dichotomy,” European Journal of Law and Economics 45, no. 3 (June 2018): 527–54, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-018-9581-z. Cassandra K. Crifasi et al., “Correction to: Association Between Firearm Laws and Homicide in Urban Counties,” Journal of Urban Health 95, no. 5 (October 15, 2018): 773–76, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-0306-y; Cassandra K. Crifasi et al., “Association Between Firearm Laws and Homicide in Urban Counties,” Journal of Urban Health 95, no. 3 (2018): 383–90, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-0273-3. as well as among white and Black populations.⁹David K. Humphreys, Antonio Gasparrini, and Douglas J. Wiebe, “Evaluating the Impact of Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ Self-Defense Law on Homicide and Suicide by Firearm: An Interrupted Time Series Study,” JAMA Internal Medicine 177, no. 1 (January 1, 2017): 44–50, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.6811.

Shoot First laws cause additional harm.

Increased violence is not the only consequence states have to confront when they pass Shoot First laws. By changing the nature of what constitutes self-defense, these laws create other destructive impacts for communities across the country. For example, research shows that people carry guns in public more often in Shoot First states.¹⁰ Michelle Degli Esposti et al., “Firearm Ownership for Protection in the USA, 2023: Results from a Nationally Representative Survey,” Injury Prevention (2024), https://doi.org/10.1136/ip-2024-045244. This change in behavior can lead to even further challenges, by increasing the risk of gun theft and the escalation of violence in public. In states with both Shoot First laws and permitless laws, which allow people to carry guns in public with no training and no background check, these dangers are amplified. 

On top of an increase in violence, Shoot First is associated with other types of harm, especially among youth. Unintentional shootings among youth also increase in states that enact Shoot First laws.¹¹Justin Lee et al., “Guns and States: Pediatric Firearm Injury,” Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery 75, no. 1 (July 2013): 50–53, https://doi.org/10.1097/TA.0b013e3182999b7a. It’s not just safety that Shoot First laws affect; a 2024 study found that students in states with these laws performed more poorly on tests than students in other states. This evidence suggests that the impacts of Shoot First laws, leading to more guns in public and more violence in communities, may be even more destructive than initially thought.¹²Krista Ruffini, Carole Roan Gresenz, and Nora Gordon, “The Effect of Stand-Your-Ground Laws on Student Achievement,” Preventive Medicine Reports 45 (September 2024): 102817, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2024.102817. 

Shoot First laws are expensive.

In addition to the incalculable human cost of lives lost, gun homicides carry a heavy financial burden. A single gun homicide costs approximately $15 million in police response, criminal justice, and health care, as well as lost income and quality of life for the victim’s loved ones. The 700 gun homicides every year attributable to Shoot First laws cost nearly $11 billion, with taxpayers bearing $500 million of that directly.¹³Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Calculate the Economic Cost of Gun Violence,” 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/report/economic-cost-calculator/. These numbers were calculated using “United States” for state and “Assault or Homicide” for intent. And when considering that Shoot First laws lead to an increase in nonfatal injuries, including increasing emergency room and hospital visits,¹⁴Chandler McClellan and Erdal Tekin, “Stand Your Ground Laws, Homicides, and Injuries,” Journal of Human Resources 52, no. 3 (2017): 621–53, https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.52.3.0613-5723R2; Justin Lee et al., “Guns and States.” these costs compound, given that an average gun assault costs over $800,000.¹⁵Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Calculate the Economic Cost of Gun Violence.” These laws add a strain that states can hardly afford.

Shoot First laws have been shown to protect people who have a history of violence.

In many cases when someone claimed a Shoot First defense, investigators report that the shooter had prior arrests or convictions for violent crimes. Evidence from Florida shows this to be a pervasive issue with these laws. An investigation of cases in the state found that roughly three out of five people in Florida claiming a Shoot First defense had prior arrests before killing someone and invoking this law, with about a third of those defendants having previously been arrested for serious crimes like assault and robbery.¹⁶Connie Humburg, “Many Killers Who Go Free with Florida ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law Have History of Violence,” Tampa Bay Times, February 17, 2013, https://bit.ly/2WBZLPm. The problem is severe enough that the president of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys warned that these laws “provide safe harbors for criminals and prevent prosecutors from bringing cases against those who claim self-defense after unnecessarily killing or injuring others.”¹⁷David LaBahn, “‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws: Civil Rights and Public Safety Implications of the Expanded Use of Deadly Force,” § Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights (2013), https://bit.ly/38rrqrW. 

Shoot First laws disproportionately impact communities of color and embolden racist violence.

Across the country, whether a homicide is deemed justifiable often depends on the race of those involved. In every state, homicides are deemed justifiable more frequently when white shooters kill Black victims than when the situation is reversed. In Shoot First states, this disparity is even worse. Across all Shoot First states, these homicides are deemed justifiable four times as often, compared to three times as often in other states. And, some states face even more dramatic differences, with these cases deemed justified up to 13 times as often.¹⁸Everytown analysis of the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) data, 2019–2023. In SHR, justifiable homicides are coded as either 80 (“felon killed by private citizen”) or 81 (“felon killed by police”). For the purposes of this analysis, only homicides involving a private citizen killed by a felon are included. Alabama was excluded from the analysis due to inconsistent data reporting to the FBI. Florida was excluded as they do not report to the FBI. Everytown analysis compared the percentage of homicides deemed justifiable by victim and offender demographics by state. With research finding that justifiable homicide rates increased by 55 percent in states with Shoot First laws,¹⁹Marc Levy et al., “Stand Your Ground: Policy and Trends in Firearm-Related Justifiable Homicide and Homicide in the US,” Journal of the American College of Surgeons 230, no. 1 (2020): 161–167.e4, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamcollsurg.2019.11.003 the impact is clear: These laws have disproportionately targeted Black people and made it more difficult for them and their survivors to receive justice. 

In some states, shootings are far more likely to be deemed justifiable when the shooter is white and the victim is Black.

It is no coincidence that white people who shoot and kill Black people are frequently given immunity through Shoot First laws. Generations of policies designed to marginalize communities of color have resulted in prejudice that often puts them in danger. Consequently, laws that encourage others to shoot and kill based on perceived threats have unfairly targeted members of these communities, leading to instances of racist violence that escape justice. 

Research has shown that Shoot First laws exacerbate this dynamic of targeted violence. A study of simulated shooting behaviors found that people primed with knowledge of these laws were more likely to make racially biased decisions against Black people than those who were primed with traditional self-defense laws.²⁰Eric D. Splan and Chad E. Forbes, “Fight or Flight: The Role of Context on Biased Intergroup Shooting Behaviors,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 151, no. 2 (2022): 437–54, https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001082. People of color are vulnerable to gun violence in every state, but Shoot First laws embolden people to act on racial bias without facing consequences.

Shoot First laws do not reliably protect women and are often applied against them.

Some proponents of Shoot First laws have argued that repealing them is an “anti-woman” measure,²¹Mary Anne Frank, “Stand Your Ground’s Woman Problem: Laws Expanding Self-Defense Raise Questions About Gender as Well as Race,” Huffington Post, March 3, 2014, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stand-your-grounds-woman-_b_4886650. stripping women of their ability to defend themselves from harm. In reality, research shows that these laws are often skewed against women. Women are most often victimized by family members or intimate partners,²² Erica L. Smith, “Female Murder Victims and Victim-Offender Relationship, 2021,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, December 2022, https://bjs.ojp.gov/female-murder-victims-and-victim-offender-relationship-2021. but in the years since these laws were first enacted, it’s clear that they have not protected victims of domestic violence. One review of cases in Florida, which has a Shoot First law, found that domestic violence cases had a higher rate of conviction when the person claiming self-defense was a woman.²³Justin Murphy, “Are ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws Racist and Sexist? A Statistical Analysis of Cases in Florida, 2005–2013,” Social Science Quarterly, March 30, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12402. Another study found that women convicted in domestic violence-related Shoot First cases tended to face longer sentences.²⁴Denise Crifasi, “No Ground to Stand Upon?: Exploring the Legal, Gender, and Racial Implications of Stand Your Ground Laws in Cases of Intimate Partner Violence” (Department of Sociology, University of Central Florida, 2016), https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Denise-Crisafi/publication/305567478_No_Ground_to_Stand_Upon_Exploring_the_Legal_Gender_and_Racial_Implications_of_Stand_Your_Ground_Laws_in_Cases_of_Intimate_Partner_Violence/links/5793b3e908aec89db79490ae/No-Ground-to-Stand-Upon-Exploring-the-Legal-Gender-and-Racial-Implications-of-Stand-Your-Ground-Laws-in-Cases-of-Intimate-Partner-Violence.pdf. Although Shoot First proponents claim the laws protect women, research shows that they are often applied against them instead. 

Shoot First laws are unpopular.

Considering the damaging impacts of this law, it is no surprise that Shoot First laws rank among the least popular gun policies. A 2021 survey found that nearly 80 percent of adults did not support Shoot First laws, including majorities of gun owners and Republicans. In fact, when researchers asked this question in 2021, they found this policy to be among those with the largest declines in support over two years.²⁵Elizabeth M. Stone et al., “National Support for Gun Policies among U.S. Adults in 2019 and 2021,” Preventive Medicine, Epidemiology and Prevention of Gun Violence 165 (December 2022): 107314, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107314. Shoot First laws are not only dangerous and expensive, they are also widely unpopular. 

Legal experts and advocates also oppose Shoot First laws. In 2012, the NAACP called for a repeal of these laws due to their effects of increasing crime and promoting racist violence.²⁶Repealing ‘Stand Your Ground’ Type Laws, Protecting Black Americans and Honoring the Life of Trayvon Martin,” NAACP, January 1, 2012, https://naacp.org/resources/repealing-stand-your-ground-type-laws-protecting-black-americans-and-honoring-life. And in 2015, the American Bar Association also released a report recommending the repeal of Shoot First laws. According to an expert quoted in the report, “If our aim is to increase criminal justice system costs, increase medical costs, increase racial tension, maintain our high adolescent death rate and put police officers at greater risk, then this is good legislation.”²⁷Mark Obbie, “American Bar Association Calls for Repeal of Stand Your Ground Laws,” September 29, 2015, https://www.thetrace.org/2015/09/bar-association-stand-your-ground/. 

Conclusion

Traditional self-defense laws can protect people without the senseless violence and financial costs that these unpopular statutes pose. The evidence shows that as long as these laws remain in effect, communities across the country are at risk of violence.