Thanks, Stand Your Ground! No homicide charges for teen who shot, killed man

[Bazinga]

68. Take another look at your statistic

The original source is here, and it says:

Overall, shootings are ruled justifiable in only 1.5 percent of cases. However, the rate goes up substantially in those cases for which Stand Your Ground laws purport to protect innocent shooters. Specifically, in cases where the victim and the shooter are strangers and a handgun is used, a homicide is ruled justifiable in about 10 percent of cases.

Across the country, when the shooter is white and the victim is white, the percentage of shootings ruled justifiable is a little more than 11 percent. When the shooter is black and the victim is black, about 8 percent of homicides are ruled justifiable.

Now, when the shooter is white and the victim is black, the justifiable homicide rate is 34 percent. When the situation is reversed and the shooter is black and the victim is white, shootings are ruled to be justifiable in only slightly more than 3 percent of cases.

Notice in the first paragraph they are talking about SYG, saying the number of homicides ruled justifiable is increased. However, in the second and third paragraphs they are talking about the proportion of all shootings saying that more white on black shootings are found to be justifiable than the reverse.

The second and third paragraphs are considering all shootings, not those invoking SYG (or even in states with SYG vs those without). It is, therefore, the same reflection of racial disparity in the justice system as the death penalty. Your statistic has nothing to do with SYG.

The numbers I used in the thread I linked to above, on the other hand, come from Tampa Bay Times' database of only SYG cases. In those cases there is no evidence of racial bias in white on black cases vs black on white cases.