The Tampa Bay Times has done a pretty thorough review of the Stand Your Ground cases that have been tried in the state. The results are not what some folks would have expected.
Apparently almost 70% of the victims in "stand your ground" cases were unarmed; only 20% of the cases involved a victim who was killed committing a crime; and in about 70% of the cases, juries or judges found that the defendants could have used other means than deadly force to resolve the conflict. In a number of cases, the law was -- literally -- used by drug dealers to escape prosecution for starting gunfights in which children and teenaged bystanders were killed.
And in 68% of the cases, the defendants were found not guilty. It's kind of sobering.
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