In the past several years, about half of american states have passed stand your ground laws. It's a law that effectively repeals duty to retreat and says you don't need to exhaust all avenues of escape to claim self defence in a court of law. Study: States that passed stans our ground laws saw their murder rates rise seven point seven % compared to states that didn't pass those laws. And who are all these extra people getting killed in stands your ground states? White men. We speculate that because the white male population is the population that's most interested in the gun culture, more likely to be members of organizations like the n r a.