Some people simply do not like self-Defense.

We know that the title is legally correct since the killing of a human being in self-defense is a justifiable homicide and thus belongs in the lists with other homicides. But the author, the newspaper and us also know that majority of people do not make a distinction between murder (the illegal taking of a human life) and homicides in general and will deduce that all killings are illegal or unjustified including self-defense. Or at least give Self Defense a patina of illegality or immorality.

Tom Knighton over Bearing Arms hits it right in the head on the political side.

In case you’re unable to see where it’s going with this, it’s blaming Stand Your Ground for the increased number of deaths.

This, however, is total male bovine excrement.

For one thing, each of those self-defense killings represents someone who was in fear for their life. That means there’s a good chance that most or all of those situations would have resulted in someone getting killed either way, possibly more than one someones. The fact that Kansas required people to try and retreat prior to 2007 doesn’t mean people would have been successful by any stretch. It actually could have led to more fatalities as people tried to get away in compliance with an arcane and evil law rather than use those precious seconds to defend themselves.

As we have seen in Florida, the hate for Stand Your Ground has no limits. We have seen newspapers fail to mention data collected by themselves but which gives SYG a positive light and to this day, they will not stop associating Stand Your Ground  with the acquittal George Zimmerman even though it had no bearing on the trial, specially when the trial itself proves that SYG was not used.

The appeal of eliminating Stand Your Ground is great. Most of the cases are open and shut: there is a victim and a suspect present with the weapon used also available. Lazy homicide investigators wet their pants for cases like this because if they can make it stick, it goes in the positive side under cases solved and the unit’s rate also goes up. Prosecutors have also the same incentive to pad the number of his triumphs with a case like this which they can determine to be a murder and it is already tied with a big red bow like it was a Christmas gift. And count it as a winning lotto ticket if it can be tied to some minority issue on an election cycle .

So, an article which was supposed to be a plain report on murders during 2018, became a political call to demand a discount on the lives of the citizens of Wichita as they step outside their homes.