Op-Ed: Let people defend themselves within the law

February 3, 2006
Atlanta Journal Constitution

By Dave Workman

Professional doomsayers are preaching paranoia in Georgia because lawmakers are considering a so-called "stand your ground" law that expands and protects an individual's right of self-defense.

Predictably, opponents are conducting a campaign of hysteria. In their latest tirade against such legislation, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence warns: "The Shoot First legislation is an invitation to reckless use of guns in the streets of our cities and towns."

To paraphrase a famous movie line: "Show me the bodies."

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

Let's see the stacks of corpses in neighboring Florida, where a similar law was passed last year. Where are the mass graves in Washington state, where "no duty to retreat" is so well established that it has been affirmed by at least two state Supreme Court rulings in recent years?

Opponents are falling back on very tired, thoroughly discredited rhetoric about "Wild West" violence. Historian and career journalist Richard Shenkman, author of "Legends, Lies and Cherished Myths of American History," wrote that in 1878 — the heyday of cattle drive boomtowns — Dodge City recorded just five homicides. In a February 2004 essay, Colorado writer Ryan McMaken noted that "All the big cattle towns of Kansas combined saw a total of 45 murders during the period of 1870-1885. Dodge City alone saw 15 people die violently from 1876-1885, an average of 1.5 per year." Wouldn't it be nice if Atlanta's streets were that safe?

Why shouldn't law-abiding citizens, who are in a public place where they have an absolute right to be, not be allowed — make that not be expected — to defend themselves and others from vicious criminal attack? This "duty to retreat" philosophy only encourages predatory criminals who will eagerly shoot, stab or club a victim from behind when they try to run away.

Self-defense is not taking the law into your own hands. Rather, it is acting within the law in the face of imminent and unavoidable danger of grave bodily harm or death. Arguing otherwise, with unsustainable predictions of bloody lawlessness, will ultimately prove just how wrong the hysteria merchants have been.

Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week magazine.