By: Azrael, Deborah and Blocher, Joseph and Cook, Philip J. and Hemenway, David and Miller, Matthew,

For a paper that has not yet been through peer review or even been formally published, William English’s "2021 National Firearms Survey" has been remarkably prominent in gun rights advocacy and scholarship. As of June 2024, it has been cited in roughly 50 briefs, invoked at oral argument in the Supreme Court and multiple courts of appeals, and regularly cited in public writings and published academic work.

This response is offered in the spirit of a peer review. Our focus is on methodological issues, questionable statistical results, and problematic conclusions. Because of serious methodological issues, the draft fails to provide a reliable estimate of the number of defensive gun uses, the stock of AR-15s, or the actual protective value of or frequency with which AR-15 type firearms have been used. The paper should not be used as an authoritative source.

Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2024-50

By Sounak Chakraborty ,Charles E. Menifield, Ranadeep Daw

Stand Your Ground lethal force laws deepen disparities in the legal system and disproportionately justify the use of violence by people who are white and male against people who are not. In July 2018 at a convenience store near Clearwater, Florida, a 28-year-old man named Markeis McGlockton was shot and killed in front of his longtime girlfriend and their three young children following a minor confrontation with another customer in the parking lot. Security camera footage of the killing showed that McGlockton was at least 10 feet away from the gunman, Michael Drejka, and beginning to turn away when the lethal shot was fired. McGlockton, a Black man, was unarmed. Drejka, who is white, was initially not even arrested, despite the security camera footage, multiple credible eyewitnesses and Drejka’s own known history of threatening violence with a firearm. The reason? The county sheriff announced at a press conference the day after the incident that he believed Drejka shooting McGlockton was “within the bookends of ‘stand your ground’ and within the bookends of force being justified” under Florida law. Being shoved in a parking lot – in an altercation instigated by Drejka – was deemed sufficient grounds for lethal force. (Two weeks later, the sheriff’s office turned the case over to the state attorney’s office, and Drejka was ultimately convicted of manslaughter. This chain of events is common; law enforcement and prosecutors have at least initially cited Stand Your Ground laws in determining not to arrest the killers of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, and more recently, Ahmaud Arbery, to name only a few.) ……. 27 states have enacted Stand Your Ground laws, and eight more have had de facto Stand Your Ground standards established by court decisions. We urge state lawmakers to repeal these laws and overturn these court decisions. We wrote this report to help provide advocates and lawmakers with the facts they need to make it happen.

Giffords Law Center. 2022. 27p.