For the past several years, various states have been passing Stand Your Ground laws to protect their citizens’ right to self-defense. Most of these laws have one thing in common: If someone breaks into your home and attacks you, they do away with the duty to retreat before using deadly force to stop an attack.
As most gun owners know, this is simply common sense. How can an older, weaker, slower person try to run away from an attacker who is younger, stronger and faster? The result is usually disastrous.
Still, various gun-ban organizations seem to hate Stand Your Ground laws even more than concealed carry deregulation. As so-called Everytown for Gun Safety likes to put it: “Shoot First laws—also known as Stand Your Ground legislation—are deadly, reckless, and extreme. They give people a license to kill, allowing them to shoot first and ask questions later, then claim self-defense.”
A measure currently under consideration in the California legislature would impose a “duty to retreat” on Californians, stipulating: “When the person was outside of their residence and knew that using force likely to cause death or great bodily injury could have been avoided with complete safety by retreating.” It is Assembly Bill 1333, and the synopsis of the bill states, “This bill would eliminate certain circumstances under which homicide is justifiable, including, among others, in defense of a habitation or property.”
And, of course, Everytown is ecstatic over the possibility of protecting violent criminals while at the same time endangering lawful gun owners.
“This legislation builds on California’s gun safety legacy and lays the blueprint for the rest of the nation,” Monisha Henley, Everytown senior vice president for government affairs, said in a news release praising the measure. “White supremacists and other extremists have hidden behind self-defense laws to fire a gun and turn any conflict into a death sentence. Now, lawmakers have an opportunity to help stop that and save lives.”
Despite the decidedly anti-gun nature of California’s state government, there are plenty of people working to put an end to the legislation—including some high-profile law enforcement officials. In fact, Tehama County Sheriff Dave Kain told Action News Now that the proposal is “ridiculous.”
“We are swinging so far outside the realm of what is reasonable by telling people now that under certain circumstances, they can’t protect themselves in their own home against a criminal element is probably one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard of,” Sheriff Kain told the news outlet.
Kain said current laws are sufficient, and the DA’s office already has a procedure for determining whether or not a person involved in an alleged self-defense episode has committed a justified homicide. He also said that he and California’s 57 other county sheriffs plan to discuss the matter at their next meeting.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is also speaking out strongly against the measure.
“Sacramento Democrats have spent the last 15 years tying the hands of law enforcement and coddling criminals, using and abusing ordinary Californians in their attempt to make criminals the real victims,” Bianco told the California Globe. “Now, they’re actively trying to tie the hands of our residents, who have had to defend themselves against re-released career criminals far too often.”
The bill is scheduled to be considered in committee on March 24.
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