[WS:] So what makes you believe that Gonzales would be found guilty absent the stand your ground law? I'm not a legal expert, but it seems to me that he would be acquitted even the absence of the said law. Again my point is that such laws are unnecessary since defendants gave more than adequate protection even without them. However, they send a wrong message that violent confrontation is ok. This is different than cops encouraging confrontation (which I did not argue.) It legitimizes violence by giving it special legal treatment.
Similar argument was proposed a while ago by the criminologist Dane Archer.
One final comment - finding a statistically significant effect of any particular measure on the number of homicides is nearly impossible due to the small number of cases and many variables. A better way of looking for possible effect s is by interviewing persons involved.
Wojtek