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Florida's Stand Your Ground law led to a "abrupt and sustained" increase in homicides, according to a study published by the American Medical Association.

Since the law's passage, gun-related homicides have increased nearly 32 percent from when the law passed in 2005 and 2014.

"These increases appear to have occurred despite a general decline in homicide in the United States since the early 1990s," according to the study authored by two professors at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and one from the University of Pennsylvania.

Florida was the first state to enact the law and 22 other states have followed suit.

The study, "Evaluating the Impact of Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' Self-defense Law on Homicide and Suicide by Firearm" found that the state's homicide rate was higher compared to states such as New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Virginia that do no have Stand Your Ground Laws.

The law, which says a person has "no duty to retreat" when he or she believes that force is necessary to prevent harm to themselves or others, gained notoriety after neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman was acquitted in the killing of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in Sanford in 2012. Zimmerman claimed self-defense.

Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings who is also the president of the Florida Sheriff's Association, that supported the law said the study falls short of "objective reason."

"The Florida Sheriffs Association ... believes that the reasons why individuals commit homicides are a complex matter which cannot be attributed to a single factor," he said in a statement. "As such, the report should be narrowly interpreted and falls short of objective reason."

Gary Kleck, a criminal justice professor at Florida State University and expert on use of force, called the study arbitrary because there can be many other reasons for the rise in homicides.

"It's very weak methodology," he said.

dharris@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5471

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Study: Stand Your Ground law increased homicides in ...

On Monday, the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a paper on American self-defense law so fundamentally flawed that it is hard to view its publication as anything other than an act of propaganda.

The papers title describes its purported purpose: Evaluating the Impact of Floridas Stand Your Ground Self-defense Law on Homicide and Suicide by Firearm and its implicit conclusion is that Stand Your Ground is bad public policy because it fosters unlawful killing. Indeed, one of the papers authors, Antonio Gasparrini, makes this conclusion explicit in telling the U.K.s Daily Mail that this study highlights how Stand Your Ground is likely to be a cause of the rise in Florida murders (emphasis added).

In fact, the paper does not, and indeed by its very methodology cannot, do anything of the sort. The papers defects are numerous, but I shall focus on just two.

First, the paper conflates homicide and murder, and thus cannot result in valid findings with respect to murder in particular or with public safety in general. Second, the study contrasts Floridas Stand Your Ground law with a set of four purportedly nonStand Your Ground states. One of the four states in the control set, however, routinely applies Stand Your Ground doctrine in much the same manner as does Florida. This failure of methodology substantively invalidates the papers findings, and should have been identified in peer review long before publication in JAMA. (The widespread defects in the peer-review process of even, or perhaps especially, premier scientific journals are another subject entirely).

Homicide and Murder Are Not Synonyms

It is a common misconception that homicide and murder are essentially synonymous. They are not, and the authors should have explicitly noted the distinction in their methodology. Instead, they fail to even vaguely reference this essential issue until the third-to-last sentence of the paper. (Why this was buried in such a manner is left to the reader to consider.)

Homicide merely means the killing of a person by a person. Murder refers to the subset of homicides that are unlawful. This distinction is vital for public-policy discussion, because homicides that do not qualify as murder are not only lawful but are in many cases a social good. A few hypotheticals illustrate clearly why this is so.

An intended rape victim who shoots and kills her rapist to stop his sexual assault has committed a homicide. She has not, however, committed a murder. Her homicide of the rapist is lawful self-defenseand by any reasonable moral standard is preferable to the alternative of compelling her to allow herself to be raped. Similarly, a homeowner who shoots and kills an armed felony intruder has committed a homicidebut not a murder. In both cases, the killings qualify as lawful self-defense.

As a final example, and to draw an analogy to a recent well-publicized event, if a lawfully armed citizen shoots and kills a terrorist ruthlessly gunning down unarmed gay people in a Florida nightclub, he has stopped a murderous act of terrorism, not committed a murder. This to-be-wished-for outcome was prevented at the Pulse massacre by laws that prohibit firearms in locations that serve alcohol, a prohibition ignored by ISIS-allegiant Omar Mateen. (Criminals ignoring the law is a common mechanism of failure for preemptive gun-control laws generally, and is perhaps a matter worthy for a paper published in JAMA.)

By failing to distinguish between murder and homicide, the JAMA paper conflates unlawful and lawful killings. Indeed, it is quite possible that fully 100 percent of the increase in Florida homicides, which the paper attributes to the Stand Your Ground law, were in fact lawful acts of self-defense, the alternative to which would have been the murder, maiming, and rape of innocent victims. If so, the effect of the Stand Your Ground law has been to reduce the murder, maiming, and rape of innocent victims, arguably the very social good intended by its passage. For some reason, however, I see a remarkable absence of press coverage of this paper headlined, Stand Your Ground Law Shown to Safeguard Innocent Life. Odd, that.

Its Hard to Effectively Study What You Dont Actually Understand

The second fundamental error in this paper is that the authors have a basic ignorance of the legal principles they are purporting to study. This is perhaps not surprising given that their listed associated academic departments include Social Policy and Intervention, Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Biostatistics and Epidemiology, but nothing actually related to law. (Incidentally, I extend an open invitation to researchers desiring insight on these legal issues.)

A key facet of the papers methodology is a contrast of Stand Your Ground in Florida to four purportedly nonStand Your Ground states: New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Virginia. Although it is true that New York, New Jersey, and Ohio impose a legal duty to retreat on all defenders who have the safe means to do so before they are permitted to resort to deadly force in self-defense, this is not the case for Virginia.

In fact, Virginia takes a unique approach on whether a defender has a legal duty to retreat or has the right to stand his ground. Under Virginia law, a defender who has made a contribution to the affray that is, someone who is not an entirely innocent party in the conflict does indeed have a legal duty to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense. In that subset of self-defense scenarios, Virginia acts much like the duty-to-retreat states of New York, New Jersey, and Ohio.

A defender who has not made a contribution to the affray, however someone who is in every sense the innocent victim of an act of criminal predation has absolutelyno legal duty under Virginia law to retreat before they may use deadly force in self-defense. Because of this, to include Virginia among the set of nonStand Your Ground states used as a contrast for Florida is to fundamentally undermine the studys methodological validity on this point.

My reading of the papers methodology suggests that the authors fell into this error because they mistakenly believe that Americas Stand Your Ground laws are to be found only in statutes, the laws created by the state legislatures. This is a grave error. America also recognizes case law, the laws created by decisions of courts. That this is the cause of the authors error here is suggested by the fact that the paper claims that Stand Your Ground doctrine is the law in a minority of 23 of the 50 states. In fact, 35 states impose no legal duty on a defender to retreat. The states the authors missed largely enacted Stand Your Ground not through statute but through case law, and generally many decades before Florida adopted its Stand Your Ground statute in 2005.

For example, California instructs its juries in self-defense cases that a defender may not only stand his ground, he may even pursue his attacker if necessary for his safety. This position makes California one of the most aggressive Stand Your Ground states in America, and its stance is based on its case law dating back to 1898. At the same time, California has not a single Stand Your Ground statute on the books. It is noteworthy that the authors erroneously fail to include California as among the Stand Your Ground states.

This second error strongly suggests that not only did the authors either not understand or choose to conceal the vital distinction between murder and homicide, they fundamentally dont understand how the legal doctrine of Stand Your Ground is implemented or created in American law.

Research or Propaganda?

In closing, I note that in the third-to-last sentence of the paper the authors write: Our study examined the effect of the Florida law on homicide and homicide by firearm, not on crime and public safety. Wait, what? And you waited until the very end of the paper to explicitly disclose this highly relevant fact?

Then, pray tell, what was the purpose of writing the paper in the first place? Indeed, the same question must be raised with respect to JAMAs decision to publish the paper. If the paper is not informative or useful for public-policy purposes, given that it explicitly concedes that it does not address crime and public safety, then exactly what is its purpose? Surely the purpose could not have been to serve merely as propagandistic raw materials for antiStand Your Ground headlines by a nave popular press eager to uncritically accept JAMAs prestige? Surely not.

The papers conflation of murder and homicide and its basic ignorance of the legal principles in question are only the beginning of its authors errors. The two described above, however, should be more than sufficient to compel JAMA to immediately retract this paper because of its fundamental flaws in methodology and frank lack of utility.

Andrew F. Branca is an attorney and the author of The Law of Self Defense: The Indispensable Guide for the Armed Citizen.

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A picture of Trayvon Martin is seen on a table with others pictures of people killed by gun violence at the third annual Circle of Mothers conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, May 16, 2016.

Floridas Stand Your Ground law, the subject of controversy following the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2012, has been linked to a significant increase in gun-related homicides, a new study has found.

As NBC News reports, the paper, published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, says that the implementation in 2005 of the states self-defense law was associated with a 24.4 percent increase in homicides and a 31.6 percent increase in firearm-related homicides.

A so-called Stand Your Ground law removes the duty to retreat when confronted with a perceived deadly threat. Florida was the first of more than 20 states to have implemented such laws.

Published at 4:59 PM PST on Nov 14, 2016 | Updated at 7:31 PM PST on Nov 14, 2016

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'Stand Your Ground' Law Linked to Significant Increase in ...

The stand your ground law only applies when the shooter is white and the victim is black.

These laws have been hotly contested since the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman. In 2013, Zimmerman was acquitted of the fatal shooting because of self-defense arguments, to which a jury determined that he used reasonable force to propel Martins alleged attacks. Despite uncontroverted testimony showing that Zimmerman was initially following Martin, even when a 911 dispatcher said we dont need you to do that, Zimmerman was found not guilty of all charges.

Stand your ground laws remove a white individuals duty to retreat before using force even deadly force in self-defense against a black person. For the past 10 years, they have been backed by powerful gun lobbyists, anti-black legislators, and conservative media. Currently, 33 states (Florida being the first) have some form of stand your ground laws, and like most laws, they have been grossly misapplied ever since.

It is clear that such laws only hold up in court when the targets are black people. Matthew Apperson, 37, understands this all too well.

Man who fired at George Zimmerman is sentenced

Most would think that Zimmerman who many believe literally got away with murder would crawl under a rock until it was safe for him to reappear. But even after the killing of Martin, Zimmerman has had multiple run-ins with law enforcement, and his actual and perceived whiteness allows him to escape every time. From multiple traffic ticketsto Shellie Zimmerman, his wife, filing for divorceto punching Shellies dad in the face to domestic violence charges filed by his then-girlfriend that were eventually dropped to the current incident against Apperson, its apparent that Zimmerman loves controversy and escaping prosecution.

Like Zimmerman in 2013, Apperson claimed he shot at Zimmermanin self-defense, alleging that Zimmerman pulled a gun on him during a road rage incident. The Seminole County jury later convicted Apperson of attempted second-degree murder for shooting into an occupied car and for aggravated assault. Apperson was sentenced to 20 years in prison, part of Floridas mandatory minimum sentence for shooting at another person with a gun.

Here we are again: another Florida court that promotes justice just gave Zimmerman another license to continue his reckless behaviors. Lets face it: ifZimmerman wereblack, Apperson would have been acquitted of all charges. We know this because it happened a mere three years ago. Now, to be clear, the stand your ground law was not the direct reason for Zimmermans 2012 acquittal because the law grants immunity from prosecution (and Zimmerman was prosecuted by former State Prosecutor Angela Corey, albeit minimally) but it was absolutely interwoven into the self-defense theory.

The sad truth is that stand your ground laws dont apply to black people unless the defendant is white and the dead person is black. The purpose of stand your ground laws is to not have to retreat or flee, even if a person has a safe place to do so, if an individual reasonably believes doing so would prevent death or serious bodily injury or harm. Marissa Alexander knew this wouldnt apply to her black body because the person she was defending herself against was her husband.

On July 31, 2010, after an argument ensued between her and her husband, Rico Gray, who physically assaulted her, Alexander fired a single shot at the wall to scare off him off. Gray was not injured. In May 2012, Alexander was sentenced to 20 years in Florida for discharging a firearm. It didnt matter that Gray was previously arrested three times for domestic violence charges, and it didnt matter that Alexander was afraid for her life because both Alexander and Rico were both black, and stand your ground laws wouldnt apply to either of them.

Despite Alexanders release from prison in January 2015, many advocates and activists understood that there was a gross misapplication of stand your ground laws when they would otherwise apply if the victim were black and if the defendant were white.

The stand your ground law often seen as an offshoot of the castile doctrine, which grants immunity from liability to individuals when an intruder enters their home started to coddle white fear of black intruders. In the eyes of many white people, black people are already perceived as initial aggressors, and therefore, stand your ground laws have continuously worked to the disadvantage of black people and our bodies.

Statistically, there are more stand your ground laws concentrated in the South, where there are also more black people. Over the years, this has provided more coverage to white shooters of black victims than it has black shooters of white victims. Race matters a lot in stand your ground states and verdicts.

If there is anything the Trayvon Martin killing taught black people in America, it is that the definition of justice differs throughout this entire country and race plays in 100 percent of that definition. The Zimmerman case in 2013 was a perfect example of where these stand your ground laws would have been used to protect people like Trayvon the person being followed by a stranger much older and bigger but blackness doesnt work that way.

It never has.

Preston Mitchum is a Washington, DC-based writer, activist, and policy nerd. He has written for the Atlantic, The Root, Ebony.com, Huffington Post, Hello Beautiful, and Think Progress. Follow him on Twitterhereto see just how much he appreciates intersectionality.

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Stand Your Ground laws only apply when the targets are ...

A stand-your-ground law (sometimes called "line in the sand" or "no duty to retreat" law) is a justification in a criminal case, whereby a defendant can "stand their ground" and use otherwise unlawful force without retreating, in order to protect and defend themselves or others against threats or perceived threats. An example is where there is no duty to retreat from any place where they have a lawful right to be, and that they may use any level of force if they reasonably believe the threat rises to the level of being an imminent and immediate threat of serious bodily harm or death. One case describes "the 'stand your ground' law... a person has a right to expect absolute safety in a place they have a right to be, and may use deadly force to repel an unlawful intruder."[1] Justification using stand-your-ground laws may be limited in that the justification cannot be used in some cases where defendant was engaged in other illegal conduct at the time, when "[the defendant] was engaged in illegal activities and not entitled to benefit from provisions of the 'stand your ground' law".[1]

This castle doctrine gives immunity from liability to individuals (ie., there is no duty to retreat) when an intruder enters their home. Of these, twenty-two jurisdictions have also extended the immunity to other locations,[2] some extending it to anywhere where a person may legally be.[3]

Other restrictions may still exist, however, such as when in public, a person must be carrying a firearm or other weapon in a legal manner, whether concealed or openly.

The states that have adopted stand-your-ground laws are Alabama,[4] Alaska,[5] Arizona,[6] Arkansas,[7][8] California,[9][10] Florida,[11] Georgia, Indiana, Iowa,[12] Kansas,[13] Kentucky, Louisiana,[6] Maine, Michigan,[6] Mississippi, Missouri,[14] Montana,[6] New Hampshire,[6] North Carolina (Stand Your Ground law (N.C.G.S. 14 51.3)), North Dakota, Oklahoma,[6] Pennsylvania,[15] South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee,[6] Texas,[16] Utah,[17] West Virginia,[6] Wisconsin,[18] and Wyoming. Other states (Iowa,[19] Virginia,[20] and Washington) have considered stand-your-ground laws of their own.[21][22][23]

For example, Michigan's stand-your-ground law, MCL 780.972, provides that "[a]n individual who has not or is not engaged in the commission of a crime at the time he or she uses deadly force may use deadly force against another individual anywhere he or she has the legal right to be with no duty to retreat if . . . [t]he individual honestly and reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent" the imminent death, great bodily harm, or sexual assault of himself or another individual.[24]

Some of the states that have passed or are considering stand-your-ground laws already implement stand-your-ground principles in case law. Indiana and Georgia, among other states, passed stand-your-ground statutes due to possible concerns of existing case law being replaced by the "duty to retreat" in later court rulings. Other states, such as Virginia,[25] have implemented stand-your-ground judicially but have not adopted statutes. West Virginia had a long tradition of "stand your ground" in its case law[26] before codifying it as a statute in 2008. These states did not have civil immunity for self-defense in their previous self-defense statutes.

Colorado's statutes reflect the common law's "no duty to retreat" rule.[27] Colorado follows the doctrine of no-retreat, which permits non-aggressors who are otherwise entitled to use physical force in self-defense to do so without first retreating, or seeking safety by means of escape.[28] Only initial aggressors must retreat before using force in self-defense.[28] In other words, a person does not have to "retreat to the wall" before using deadly force to defend himself, unless the person was the "initial aggressor" in the encounter, even if he was in a place he had no right to be.[27]

Stand-your-ground laws are frequently criticized and called "shoot first" laws by critics, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.[29] In Florida, self-defense claims tripled in the years following enactment.[29][30] The law's critics argue that Florida's law makes it very difficult to prosecute cases against individuals who shoot others and then claim self-defense. The shooter can argue that he felt threatened, and in most cases, the only witness who could have argued otherwise is the deceased.[29] Before passage of the law, Miami police chief John F. Timoney called the law unnecessary and dangerous in that "[w]hether it's trick-or-treaters or kids playing in the yard of someone who doesn't want them there or some drunk guy stumbling into the wrong house, you're encouraging people to possibly use deadly physical force where it shouldn't be used."[31][32]

In Florida, a task force examining the law heard testimony that the law is "confusing".[33] Those testifying to the task force include Buddy Jacobs, a lawyer representing the Florida Prosecuting Attorney's Association. Jacobs recommended the law's repeal, feeling that modifying the law would not fix its problems. Florida governor Rick Scott plans his own investigation into the law.[33] In a July 16, 2013 speech in the wake of the jury verdict acquitting George Zimmerman of charges stemming from the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, Attorney General Eric Holder criticized stand-your-ground laws as "senselessly expand[ing] the concept of self-defense and sow[ing] dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods."[34] The defendant, George Zimmerman, claims he was restrained at the time of the shooting, thus allowing no option for retreat and making 'stand your ground' irrelevant to the case.[35] Florida's legislature is currently considering a bill that would allow people to show a gun or fire a warning shot during a confrontation without drawing a lengthy prison sentence.[36]

Research into how race affects outcomes of stand your ground cases has resulted in mixed answers, with some sources claiming significant racial disparity, while others find no bias.

A Texas A&M study, found that when whites use the stand-your-ground defense against black attackers they are more successful than when blacks use the defense against white attackers[37] A paper from The Urban Institute which analysed FBI data found that in stand-your-ground states, the use of the defense by whites in the shooting of a black person is found to be justifiable 17 percent of the time, while the defense when used by blacks in the shooting of a white person is successful 1 percent of the time.[37][38] In non-stand-your-ground states, the shooting of a black person by a white is found justified approximately 9 percent of the time, while the shooting of a white person by a black is found justified approximately 1 percent of the time.[37][38] According to the Urban Institute, in Stand Your Ground states, white-on-black homicides are 354 percent more likely to be ruled justified than white-on-white homicides.[39] The paper's author noted that the data used do not detail the circumstances of the shooting, which could be a source of the disparity. They also noted that the total number of shootings in the FBI dataset of black victims by whites was 25.[40] A 2015 study found that cases with white victims are two times more likely to result in convictions under these laws than cases with black victims.[41]

In 2012, in response to the Trayvon Martin case, the Tampa Bay Times compiled a report on the application of stand your ground, and also created a database of cases where defendants sought to invoke the law.[42][43][44] However, their report, contrary to those cited above, found no difference in Florida cases in the way in which defendants claiming self-defense under the law are treated regardless of race, with white subjects being charged and convicted at the same rate as black subjects, and results of mixed-race cases were similar for both white victims of black attackers and black victims of white attackers.[42][44] Shooters of black attackers overall were more successful at using the law than shooters of white attackers, regardless of the race of the victim claiming self-defense, but analysis showed that black attackers were also more likely to be armed and to be involved in committing a crime, such as burglary, when shot.[42][43][44]

The laws' effect on crime rates is disputed between supporters and critics of the laws. Justifiable homicides have been found to have increased by 8 percent in states with stand-your-ground laws.[37] Economist John Lott says that states adopting stand-your-ground/castle doctrine laws reduced murder rates by 9 percent and overall violent crime by 11 percent, and that occurs even after accounting for a range of other factors such as national crime trends, law enforcement variables (arrest, execution, and imprisonment rates), income and poverty measures, demographic changes, and the national average changes in crime rates from year-to-year and average differences across states.[45] One study found that the adoption of stand-your-ground laws caused a statistically significant increase in the raw homicide rate, and had only a very small positive effect on deterrence of crime. The authors of the study were unable to determine what percentage of the increase was justifiable homicide, due to the reporting of homicide to the FBI often lacking notation whether the homicide was justifiable or not.[46][47]

Another analysis of stand-your-ground laws by economists at Georgia State, using monthly data from the U.S. Vital Statistics, found a significant increase in homicide and injury of whites, especially white males. They also analyzed data from the Health Care Utilization Project, which revealed significantly increased rates of emergency room visits and hospital discharges related to gun injuries in states which enacted these laws.[48]

In a 2007 National District Attorneys Association symposium, numerous concerns were voiced that the law could increase crime. This included criminals using the law as a defense for their crimes, more people carrying guns, and that people would not feel safe if they felt that anyone could use deadly force in a conflict. The report also noted that the misinterpretation of clues could result in use of deadly force when there was, in fact, no danger. The report specifically notes that racial and ethnic minorities could be at greater risk because of negative stereotypes.[49]

Florida state representative Dennis Baxley, an author of the law, said that crime rates in Florida dropped significantly between 2005, when the law was passed, and 2012. However, crime rates had been declining nationally, including a 12% decrease in Florida, since at least 2000. Baxley said that he does not believe his law is the main reason for the drop in crime rates in Florida, but may be one of several reasons. Politifact Florida cast doubt on his belief with statistics showing that, from 2005-2007, the number of violent crimes actually rose and the once-declining crime rate stalled after the law took effect, before resuming previous rate of decline in subsequent years.[50]

In 2012, a study was published which found that after the Joe Horn shooting controversy in 2007 publicized Texas' stand-your-ground law, burglaries decreased significantly in Houston, but not in Dallas.[51]

A 2013 study in the Journal of Human Resources claims that Stand Your Ground laws in states across the U.S. contribute to 600 additional homicides a year. According to Mark Hoestra, co-author of the study: "We asked what happened to homicide rates in states that passed these laws between 2000 and 2010, compared to other states over the same time period. We found that homicide rates in states with a version of the Stand Your Ground law increased by an average of 8 percent over states without it which translates to roughly 600 additional homicides per year. These homicides are classified by police as criminal homicides, not as justifiable homicides."[52]

A 2015 study found that the adoption of Oklahoma's stand-your-ground law was associated with a decrease in residential burglaries, but also that the law had "the unintended consequence of increasing the number of non-residential burglaries."[53] In 2016, Mark Gius published a study that found that stand-your-ground laws were not associated with lower crime rates.[54]

There is no explicit stand-your-ground or castle doctrine provision in the laws of the Czech Republic, however there is also no duty to retreat from an attack[55] and that has an effect similar to "stand your ground" provision. In order for a defense to be judged as legitimate, it may not be manifestly disproportionate to the manner of the attack.[56]

German law allows self-defense against an unlawful attack.[57] If there is no other possibility for defense, it is generally allowed to use even deadly force without a duty to retreat.[58] However, there must not be an extreme inadequacy ("extremes Missverhltnis") between the defended right and the chosen way of defense.[59] In particular, in case of the use of firearms there must be given a warning shot when defending solely a material asset.[60] Nevertheless, because of the low circulation of firearms in Germany the impact of this law is not all that strong.

Under the terms of the Defence and the Dwelling Act, property owners or residents are entitled to defend themselves with force, up to and including lethal force. Any individual who uses force against a trespasser is not guilty of an offense if he or she honestly believes they were there to commit a criminal act and a threat to life. However, there is a further provision which requires that the reaction to the intruder is such that another reasonable person in the same circumstances would likely employ. This provision acts as a safeguard against grossly disproportionate use of force, while still allowing a person to use force in nearly all circumstances.

The law was introduced in response to DPP v. Padraig Nally.

A person who uses such force as is permitted by section 2 in the circumstances referred to in that section shall not be liable in tort in respect of any injury, loss or damage arising from the use of such force.

The force used is only such as is reasonable in the circumstances as he or she believes them to be

(i) to protect himself or herself or another person present in the dwelling from injury, assault, detention or death caused by a criminal act,

(ii) to protect his or her property or the property of another person from appropriation, destruction or damage caused by a criminal act, or

(iii) to prevent the commission of a crime or to effect, or assist in effecting, a lawful arrest.

It does not matter whether the person using the force had a safe and practicable opportunity to retreat from the dwelling before using the force concerned.

This law does not not apply to force used against a member of An Garda Siochna (Irish Police) or anyone assisting them, or a person lawfully performing a function authorised by or under any enactment.

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Stand-your-ground law - Wikipedia