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By Wanjiru Njoya
Mises.org
March 29, 2024
Self-defense is an ancient common law right under which necessary and reasonable force may be used to defend one’s person or property. As Sir Edward Coke expressed it in 1604: “The house of every one is to him as his Castle and Fortress as well for defence against injury and violence . . . if thieves come to a man’s house to rob him, or murder, and the owner or his servants kill any of the thieves in defense of himself and his house, it is no felony, and he shall lose nothing.”
The meaning of reasonable force has always been heavily context dependent, considering the facts of the case including the intentions of the parties. If a trial were to become necessary in the scenario described by Coke, the court would have to establish that the intruders were indeed thieves intent on robbery or murder, or at any rate that the homeowner reasonably believed this to be the case. The use of force to defend oneself from an attack inherently carries the risk of causing the attacker’s death, making it necessary to ascertain that this was not merely a homicide masquerading as self-defense. Otherwise, anyone could shoot another and argue that he thought it was an intruder, as happened in the Oscar Pistorius case.
If the attacker shoots first, it is clearly not unreasonable to shoot back. Difficult cases arise where the attacker is unarmed or armed only with the natural weapons of his own fists. The old common law rule, as reported by the Michigan Law Review in 1904, was that
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