“Does race play a role in ‘stand your ground’ defenses?”

St. Petersburg, FL’s Channel 9 interviews Dr. John Roman, Dr. John Lott, and Justin Murphy. As usual, the media identifies Lott as pro-gun and doesn’t have similar anti-self-defense labels for the other two people.

The surveillance video from the store shows that on July 19th Markeis McGlockton, 28 violently pushed 48-year-old Michael Drejka to the ground about 4 seconds before Drejka shoots McGlockton.

There were a couple of points that Dr. Lott made to the TV station about this case that weren’t included in the video or the accompanying article.

— It isn’t obvious why the Stand Your Ground part of the law is even relevant here as the older man is on the ground and really isn’t able to retreat any further.

— The use of force by the person being threatened has to be proportionate to the threat they face. If the person is unarmed, it is much harder to show that a gun is a proportionate use of force.

Lott’s research is available in Chapter 13 in The War on Guns. An older less complete version of it is available here from his testimony before Senate Judiciary Committee
A critique of Roman’s arguments is available here.