On the viability of Stand Your Ground laws pertaining to RKBA and our image.

[petronius]

8. Philosophically, I lean more toward SYG than DTR: while I think the moral and

ethical thing to do is to avoid harming another person (i.e. to retreat) whenever possible, I don't think retreating should be codified into the law for subsequent second-guessing. If a person has a legitimate need to use self-defense - they are facing a genuine and imminent threat of death or harm - then I think they have the right to deploy that defense in the time and manner that best protects them.

However, it seems that having SYG articulated in the law perhaps can lead to problems. On the one hand, it may distract individuals from the actual question of self-defense - there have been news articles in which people who have wounded/killed seem more concerned with their right to stand their ground than with the question of whether self-defense was justified in the first place. Of more concern, it seems to encourage LE to drop investigations too early, on the presumption that a ground-stander must have been defending themselves.

So the point I'm at now is thinking it's better for the law to be silent on both SYG and DTR (as is the case here in CA). Focus entirely on the legitimacy of the self-defense itself: was the putative defender reasonably in fear of imminent and serious harm? (The exception I would keep is that civil suits should not be allowed to use non-retreat as a basis for a wrong-full death claim, in cases where the self-defense was found to be justified...)