“Stand your ground,” one of the better known yet poorly understood self-defense policies, has received a lot of media and legal attention since its inception—most of which has been inaccurate or misconstrued.
In reality, stand your ground doesn’t do something as much as it removes the prerequisites that have understandably been called into question as unreasonable in real-life self-defense scenarios. Whether you’ve heard these laws referred to as shoot first, no duty to retreat, make my day, or stand your ground, join us on a deep dive into the background, meaning, and application of this much-maligned legal standard and how it has been notably used—or not used—as a legal defense in American self-defense cases.