Self-Defense Laws Under Attack
California AB-1333 introduces major changes, all in favor of criminals
This piece is being cross posted here and at 2A Cops.
If you are not from California, you likely assume based on CA’s insane web of gun control laws, that CA also has extremely strict laws when it comes to self-defense. As a former CA cop, I can tell you that is not the case. In fact, CA’s self-defense laws are actually better than those here in my new state of Idaho.
However, that may be a thing of the past. At least one CA assembly member Rick Chavez Zbur, a democrat (shocked face 😲), wants to change that. On February 21st, he introduced Assembly Bill 1333 (AB-1333) which seeks to rewrite the CA penal code section that defines Justifiable Homicide (PC197).
As PC197 currently stands, a person in CA is justified in using deadly force to stop an attempted homicide, an attack likely to produce great bodily injury, or to prevent certain felonies (as defined by case law). It also allows a person to use deadly force to prevent a felonious entry into their home committed “by violence or surprise.”
The first two of those are pretty clear. If you see someone stabbing another person, you are covered. If they are beating them with a bat, no worries. Attempted murder and an assault likely to commit great bodily injury are pretty easy to picture. The part that is not as clear are the certain felonies.
An armed robbery is one of those felonies where, currently, a person is authorized to use deadly force in order to prevent it. A woman defending herself from being raped is covered. Shooting a kidnapper about to flee with their victim, easily justifiable, now. Someone boots open your front door in the middle of the night and bursts into your home and you smoke them – currently, you are good to go.
However, if Zbur has his way, those would no longer be covered. His proposed rewrite of the law limits justified use of deadly force to only attempted murder and commission of an assault likely to result in great bodily injury.
That violent maniac who just smashed his way into your house in the middle of the night, I guess you have to wrestle him or run away and call the cops, hoping they get there in time to help. That guy just kidnapped your 6 year old daughter and is fleeing with her, better hope you can run fast and that he will listen to you when you tell him to stop, because Zbur says you should not to be able to kill him to save your kid.
He even takes a shot at the cops, because he just would not be a good democrat unless he craps on the cops…
Currently subsection (4) of PC197 is pretty well directed at covering cops in the commission of their duties, but it also covers the general public as well. It covers use of deadly force when attempting to capture a felon. His change to this section? Just completely eliminate it.
As if all of that was not enough, he takes it one final step further. In AB-1333, Zbur introduces a duty to retreat for ALL situations not occurring inside your home.
(b) Homicide is not justifiable when committed by a person in all of the following cases:
(1) 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.
That’s right folks, if you are at the park and some maniac comes after you with a knife, you can no longer shoot him in order to save your life. You must first attempt to run away.
Why should you care if you don’t live in CA? History has shown that what starts in CA has a way of migrating to other states. Pro-criminal insanity like what is being proposed by Zbur must be stopped everywhere it rears it’s head. And not just stopped, but smashed into oblivion and ridiculed endlessly.
If you live in CA, get off your butts and do everything you can to get people like Zbur booted out of office. Your lives and the lives of your kids quite literally may depend on it.