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Does the United States have a right to self-defense?
Is self-defense a fundamental right?
What is self-defense in the United States?
Is self-defense a legal justification for using force in armed conflict?
Was self-defense a justification of the right to bear arms?
What are the concepts of self-defense?
In the U.S., most states apply instead the stand your ground doctrine of self-defense; whereby an otherwise law abiding individual, while in any location they have a legal right to be, enjoys an extremely broad right to self-defense, being under no legal obligation to retreat from an agressor regardless of ease or ability to do so.
In the United States, self-defense is an affirmative defense that is used to justify the use of force by one person against another person under specific circumstances.
- Some Preliminary Observations on Context
- In The Final Analysis
- Endnotes
Let me say at the outset that it is critically important to distinguish between the law of self-defense (that is, statutes and court rulings) and the means to defend oneself (that is, weapons and firearms). There is, of course, plenty of room to debate the precise contours of U.S. self-defense and gun laws—both in public policy and in ethics. Never...
As this brief journey through U.S. and foreign self-defense law has hopefully illustrated, common claims about U.S. self-defense law’s “exceptionalism” and “inhumanity” crumble under closer scrutiny. One possible explanation for this wholesale misreading of the law by those who should know better is that, in addition to an overreliance on uncritica...
* Markus Funk, Ph.D. (Oxford), is a former federal prosecutor (Chicago) and US State Department Section Chief (Kosovo) who has taught criminal and comparative law at, among other law schools, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, the University of Colorado, and Oxford University. He is the author of the book Rethinking Self-Defence: T...
Aug 17, 2024 · The Second Amendment recognizes self-defense as a fundamental right. Throughout history and into modern times, the right to keep and bear arms aligns with the principle that individuals have the inherent right to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Mar 9, 2021 · Article 51 of the U.N. Charter recognizes the inherent right of States to engage in self-defense in the face of an “armed attack.” This article does not address the jus ad bellum self-defense.
Jun 26, 2008 · District of Columbia v. Heller: Private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia.
The core holding in D.C. v. Heller is that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right intimately tied to the natural right of self-defense.
