Podcasts

Today’s Law of Self Defense Post of the Day is based on a shooting this past Monday evening in Alaska. The news reports that a homeowner confronted two trespassers. The homeowner was threatened with death by one of them as the two trespassers sat in a car. The homeowner shot and killed the man who […]

If you’ve been around the self-defense community for any length of time you’ve come across some form or another of self-defense “insurance.” I put insurance in “scare quotes” because most of these plans are not, in fact, as a legal matter, insurance policies for the individuals “covered.” Rather than get into a detailed discussion of

Twice in the last few weeks we’ve seen news stories about police officers who unlawfully shot suspects by accidentally deploying their handgun rather than the Taser. One such instance took place in Oklahoma, and the other in Pennsylvania, and if you access the video version of this Post of the Day you can view video

Today’s Post of the Day involves a murder trial that just wrapped up in Alabama, in which the defendant was charged with murder for killing his brother-in-law over a dispute about lawn mowing. A key issue in the case involved the defendant’s subjective state of mind—had he possessed the state of mind required for lawful

Today’s Post of the Day involves a murder trial in Ohio that began with opening statements yesterday, in which the defendant claims he killed the victim in self-defense, believing that the victim was about to shoot him. The interesting facet of this case is that the defendant, however, didn’t actually see the victim’s gun before

There’s a video of an apparent security guard outside a McDonald’s being attacked by two young black men that’s making the internet rounds, and I’m being asked if the guard pointing his gun at the two was a lawful threat of deadly defensive force, on the one hand, or a crime, on the other. So

It may seem counter-intuitive that a person engaged in criminal conduct could kill someone and then be permitted to attempt to justify the killing as lawful self-defense. After all, just yesterday I wrote in the Post of the Day that an armed robber who suddenly finds himself facing his victim’s gun, and who shoots the

The right of self-defense is as old as civilization itself. Self-defense was written about by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and indeed self-defense is arguably older than humanity itself as a form of Natural Law—after all, all wild creatures attempt to defend themselves from attack. That said, it’s also a right that is not absolute,

Judge Benitez yesterday issued an order partially suspending his April 29 summary judgment order finding California’s newest ban on normal capacity magazines (§32310) unconstitutional. That April 29 summary judgment had the effect of suddenly making normal capacity magazines legal in California, and today’s stay modifies that status. (Yesterday’s order is embedded/attached below.) That newest normal

This episode of “Calling the Shots,” as always kindly hosted by Alien Gear Holsters, aired live on April 3, 2019, and is posted up here as a recorded re-broadcast the following day. Questions covered in this hour-long episode of self-defense law insight and expertise include: Explaining the element of reasonableness Using deadly force to stop