California isn't a particularly friendly state for gun owners, but it's not as bad as it could be. For example, it's actually a Castle Doctrine state. There is no duty to retreat from a criminal who you reasonably believe intends to kill you even outside the home, either. Those are laws you typically see in pro-gun states.
But a lawmaker is trying to change that. He says it's to prevent vigilantes and such, but one publication in the state isn't afraid to call him out.
See, there are massive problems with the bill. They were pointed out to Assemblyman Rick Zbur.
His response wasn't exactly heartening to the Orange County Register:
At this early stage in the legislative process, it takes an unusually bad bill to spark a statewide backlash.
Assembly member Rick Zbur, D-Los Angeles, nevertheless managed this feat with his introduction of Assembly Bill 1333, which seeks to clarify when a person may legally use deadly force to protect themselves. It has no title yet, but it should be called “You Can’t Defend Your Home from Invaders Act.”
“This bill would eliminate certain circumstances under which homicide is justifiable, including, among others, in defense of a habitation or property,” per the Legislative Counsel’s Digest. Zbur said it was not “intended to limit a crime victim’s right to defend yourself, your family, or home” but to “prevent wannabe vigilantes like Kyle Rittenhouse from provoking violence & claiming self defense after the fact.”
However, a legislator’s after-the-fact justifications are not as important as the specific language. For instance, the bill states specifically that “homicide is not justifiable” if “the person used more force than was reasonably necessary to defend against a danger.”
We look askance at bills that respond to national news events, as this one does. But our main concern—and the reason for so much pushback—is that such language will muddy the waters during any incident involving home defense.
And let's understand that one of the issues is that many people don't understand what force is "reasonably necessary to defend against a danger" in the first place. How many times have knife-wielding attackers been shot, only for people to get outraged because a gun is somehow a disproportionate response in their eyes? What about the times someone driving toward police officers or others get shot, only for the media to describe them as "unarmed" in the first place, despite the two-ton missile they were operating at the time?
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Of course, Zbur invokes the name of Kyle Rittenhouse in his defense of this bill, and the OC Register didn't get into that case, but let's remember what Kyle Rittenhouse was dealing with that night. A mob threatened him, then chased him for some distance onto private property. Once they had him cornered, one of the members of the mob tried to disarm him--an act that was justifiably interpreted as a threat to his life considering everything else--and he shot that person. Then he was assaulted with a blunt instrument (a skateboard), so he responded with a corresponding level of force. Then a third pointed a gun at him, at which point Rittenhouse shot again.
At every point, he used the appropriate level of force. He was acquitted in a court of law, where the only person he shot who survived admitted he pointed a gun at Rittenhouse.
The bill is absolute BS. It's not about preventing so-called vigilantes. It's about restraining law-abiding citizens to such a degree that many will be killed. The muddying of waters, as the editorial board framed it, will make people second-guess themselves at a time when they can't really afford that kind of hesitation. Others will act appropriately but be forced to endure lengthy prosecutions because some DA thinks that someone being attacked with a baseball bat isn't a lethal threat.
I see a lot of editorial and all of them are down on the act of self-defense, gun ownership, or anything that makes us better than other Western nations on the issue or protecting ourselves. It's nice to see someone not lose the plot so readily for a change.
