Twenty years ago, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed the first “stand your ground” law, calling it a “good, common-sense, anti-crime issue.”

The law’s creators promised it would protect law-abiding citizens from prosecution if they used force in self-defense. Then-Florida state Rep. Dennis Baxley, who cosponsored the bill, claimed – in the wake of George Zimmerman’s controversial acquittal for the killing of Trayvon Martin – that “we’re really safer if we empower people to stop violent acts.”

I’m a historian who has studied the roots of stand your ground laws. I published a book on the subject in 2017. My ongoing investigation of the laws suggests that, 20 years on, they have not made communities any safer, nor have they helped prevent crime. In fact, there is reliable evidence they have done just the opposite.

In the past 20 years, stand your ground has spread to 38 states.

Then, in September 2025, an appellate court struck down Florida’s long-standing ban on the open carry of firearms.

Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, quickly announced that open carry is now “the law of the state,” directing law enforcement not to arrest people who display handguns in public.

Under the state’s permitless carry law, enacted in 2023, adults without a criminal record also don’t need a permit or any training to carry firearms publicly.

In my view, this combination of stand your ground, open carry and permitless carry is likely to make the Sunshine State far less safe.

Let’s look at the evidence.

Under traditional self-defense law, a person had a duty to retreat – to try to avoid a violent confrontation if they could safely do so – before resorting to deadly force.

The main exception to the duty to retreat was known as the

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