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When Deadly Force Is Involved: A Look at the Legal Side of Stand Your Ground, Duty to Retreat and Other Questions of Self-Defense
Self-defense, as a legal concept, is easy to describe but difficult to apply. Generally, a person who is without fault may use reasonable force or defensive force for the purpose of defending one's own life or the lives of others, including, in certain circumstances, the use of deadly force, provided there is no reasonable alternative to avoid it. When someone begins to parse the words of this description, however, he or she runs immediately into a maze of self-defense laws that appear to be at odds with each other.
Bruce Lawlor clears up the confusion by identifying the major issues that surface in most self-defense cases and by describing how the law has dealt with them historically. Its purpose is not to provide legal advice, but to illuminate the path that must be taken to decide whether a claim of self-defense is valid. It examines a variety of issues, including the duty to retreat and stand-your ground laws, what is a deadly threat, when is fear of mortal danger reasonable, and even what happens when a person mistakenly shoots some in self-defense.
When Deadly Force Is A Look at the Legal Side of Stand Your Ground, Duty to Retreat and Other Questions of Self-Defense brings a bit of order to the confusion behind self-defense.
Bruce Lawlor clears up the confusion by identifying the major issues that surface in most self-defense cases and by describing how the law has dealt with them historically. Its purpose is not to provide legal advice, but to illuminate the path that must be taken to decide whether a claim of self-defense is valid. It examines a variety of issues, including the duty to retreat and stand-your ground laws, what is a deadly threat, when is fear of mortal danger reasonable, and even what happens when a person mistakenly shoots some in self-defense.
When Deadly Force Is A Look at the Legal Side of Stand Your Ground, Duty to Retreat and Other Questions of Self-Defense brings a bit of order to the confusion behind self-defense.
286 pages, Hardcover
Published March 17, 2017
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June 24, 2019
I found this book to be an excellent primer on self defense that every gun owner should be aware of. It was shocking to me how many layers there are to this topic and how almost none of them were covered in my CCW class. This book covers the general topics of self defense in a high enough level that it doesn't dive into the nitty gritty of state laws but still allows you to practically understand the broad topics that apply.
Each chapter starts with a story that illustrates the topic of the chapter which I think was a good way of doing it. My only complaint about the book is the accuracy of the stories. The intro states that some of the stories are embellished a bit to make them more readable as opposed to court documents which is reasonable but some of the stories are wildly changed from what happened in reality.
The story from the Duty to Retreat chapter involves a case where the 'shooter' never actually had a gun and instead punched someone. The appeal was based on how much force is reasonable to use (not his duty to retreat). The author completely changed this story to say the guy had a gun and the court ruled he should have retreated. I'm sure the author is knowledgeable but I completely lost faith in the stories and rulings after looking that one up. Still very educational on what factors play into or nullify a self defense case.
There also felt like some bias coming from the author. The book leaves you feeling like if you fire a weapon in self defense you're 95% likely to go to jail. There were several stories that left you saying 'why would that not be considered self defense??' Maybe that's the reality, I don't know, but that's the impression the book gives.
Despite the complaints I still highly recommend gun owners read this book. I took copious notes which I plan to review frequently. Since reading this book I've found myself thinking through hypothetical scenarios and considering how to handle them within the laws of self defense.
Each chapter starts with a story that illustrates the topic of the chapter which I think was a good way of doing it. My only complaint about the book is the accuracy of the stories. The intro states that some of the stories are embellished a bit to make them more readable as opposed to court documents which is reasonable but some of the stories are wildly changed from what happened in reality.
The story from the Duty to Retreat chapter involves a case where the 'shooter' never actually had a gun and instead punched someone. The appeal was based on how much force is reasonable to use (not his duty to retreat). The author completely changed this story to say the guy had a gun and the court ruled he should have retreated. I'm sure the author is knowledgeable but I completely lost faith in the stories and rulings after looking that one up. Still very educational on what factors play into or nullify a self defense case.
There also felt like some bias coming from the author. The book leaves you feeling like if you fire a weapon in self defense you're 95% likely to go to jail. There were several stories that left you saying 'why would that not be considered self defense??' Maybe that's the reality, I don't know, but that's the impression the book gives.
Despite the complaints I still highly recommend gun owners read this book. I took copious notes which I plan to review frequently. Since reading this book I've found myself thinking through hypothetical scenarios and considering how to handle them within the laws of self defense.
Displaying 1 of 1 review