From Robert Maxwell Brown's book, "No Duty to Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society," 1994
No Duty to Retreat in Law and the American Mind.
"A Man is not born to run away." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1921
As far back as the thirteenth century, English Common Law dealt harshly with the act of homicide. The "right to kill in self defense was slowly established, and is a doctrine of modern, rather than medieval law," wrote one authority. On this issue Sir William Blackstone looked not to the future but to the past in his eighteenth century summation of the English common law of homicide. At the core of Blackstone's view was the centuries-long English common law tradition that supported "the idea of homicides as public wrongs." In England the burden was on the one accused of a homicide to prove his innocence. The plea of self defense was eyed most skeptically.
The presumption against the accused killer stemmed from the fear, as Blackstone put it, that "the right to defend may be mistaken as the right to kill." Before the court in the English common law tradition would countenance killing in self defense two essential tests had to be met: that of retreat or avoidance and that of "reasonable determination of necessity."
But from the nineteenth century on, such authorities as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes rejected this doctrine as unsuited to both the American mind and the age of firearms.
...frontier days are long past... the ethic of no retreat continues to shape everything from our entertainment to our foreign policy... to our politics...
Though challenged as never before by the values of peace and social activism, it remains a central theme in American thought and character.
{end snip}
Brown's book(s) are well researched, good bibliography, even interesting reading if you like historical self defense kinda stories, each making a point, some point, towards intelligent rationale of his title claim, that we, as Americans, have NO duty to retreat from deadly acts against us. How can you "Run" from a bullet? Anyway, they're good educational reads.
I thought that we wanted ZERO Infringment from Congress on this issue, not handing them the golden goose to chop it's head off. The RKBA and the right to self defense must always remain with the people of a free state, that is, the militia, both organized and unorganized. And since we can no longer discriminate due to age or gender, or disabilities (hmmmmm) we broaden the scope and number of well regulated militia members.
Let's keep this issue personal and local.
At the home & grassroots level first.
States, second.
Hopefully, all 50. (THE DREAM)
Feds.
Never. They've already more power than they know what to do with. Or need, I sometimes think.
