The law on using force

Most people who ever have to use force on someone do it in a second or two, frightened, with no time to think about law. The law does its thinking afterwards, and it asks the same few questions almost everywhere: was there a threat, was it happening now, did you believe force was needed, was what you did in proportion, and could you have got away? This lesson sets out those questions as the statutes and the judges' own guidance put them, in England and Wales, in Scotland, and in three US states, so that you know what they are before you ever need to. It doesn't tell you what you may do in your own situation. Nothing on a page can.

Every section of this lesson that states a legal rule opens with the sentence lesson 1 promised, and each table carries it too: this is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Three more things first. The US has no single law of self-defence: each state has its own, so this lesson shows three contrasting state statutes (New York, Florida and Texas) and the Model Penal Code, a model drafted by the American Law Institute in 1962 that US law schools teach and many state codes drew on, but which is not law anywhere by itself.⁵ Northern Ireland is different again, and the lesson says the one thing this course read about it. And judges' words here come second-hand, as the prosecutors' guidance or the Scottish judges' manual quotes them; this course did not read the judgments.

One idea underneath all of it

This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The plainest statement of the idea in this lesson's sources comes from a 1971 case called Palmer. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which prosecutes crime in England and Wales, quotes it in its legal guidance: "It is both good law and good sense that a man who is attacked may defend himself. It is both good law and good sense that he may do, but only do, what is reasonably necessary."³ That guidance has since gone from the CPS website; this course read an archived copy from July 2024.

The Model Penal Code says much the same in American drafting. Force is justifiable "when the actor believes that such force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting himself against the use of unlawful force by such other person on the present occasion" (§3.04(1)).⁵ That bracket is how lawyers cite a statute by its numbered parts: §3.04(1) is section 3.04, subsection (1), and US texts write § for "section" and §§ for "sections". English statutes write it as s.76(4)(b), meaning section 76, subsection (4), paragraph (b). Read the Code's sentence slowly and four ideas fall out of it, and they are the four this lesson follows through every jurisdiction:

• Necessity: force was needed at all.
• Proportion: the force matched the threat.
• Imminence: the threat was happening now ("immediately", "on the present occasion"), not tomorrow and not already over.
• Belief: the law judges much of this as the situation looked to the defender, within limits that differ from place to place.

The CPS turns the first two into the two questions its prosecutors ask: "was the use of force necessary in the circumstances, i.e. Was there a need for any force at all?; and was the force used reasonable in the circumstances?" Both are answered on the facts as the person honestly believed them to be, and then comes what the guidance calls "an objective element": "whether, on the basis of the facts as the accused believed them to be, a reasonable person would regard the force used as reasonable or excessive."³

The law covers more than defending yourself. In England and Wales, section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967 says: "A person may use such force as is reasonable in the circumstances in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders or suspected offenders or of persons unlawfully at large."² And the statute that now governs how "reasonable force" is judged there, section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, says in its definitions that self-defence includes acting in defence of another person.¹ New York's and Florida's statutes also name defending a third person, and so does Scotland's model direction.⁴⁶⁷ Lesson 9's bystander is inside this law, not outside it.

The belief: honest, or reasonable?

Suppose someone you're arguing with reaches quickly into a jacket, and you're sure he's going for a knife. He was reaching for his keys. Every jurisdiction here judges you at least partly on what you believed. They differ on one question: does the belief have to be a reasonable one?

In England and Wales, section 76 says the question of whether force was reasonable "is to be decided by reference to the circumstances as D believed them to be" (s.76(3)), D being the defendant. A genuine belief counts even if it was mistaken, and even if the mistake was not a reasonable one to make (s.76(4)(b)). Unreasonableness still matters, though, in a different place: "the reasonableness or otherwise of that belief is relevant to the question whether D genuinely held it" (s.76(4)(a)).¹ As the CPS puts it, the less reasonable a belief, the less likely a court is to accept that it was honestly held.³ There is one exception. The honest-mistake rule "does not enable D to rely on any mistaken belief attributable to intoxication that was voluntarily induced" (s.76(5)).¹

In Scotland, which has its own common law (law built up from judges' decisions rather than a statute) and no section 76, the belief must be reasonable. The Judicial Institute for Scotland's Jury Manual, the model directions Scottish judges give juries, says: "Self-defence will be made out if the accused believed on reasonable grounds that the danger was imminent, even although that belief was founded on a mistake of fact. Any mistaken belief must have had an objective background and cannot be purely subjective, or of the nature of a hallucination."⁴ In other words, something real in the situation has to support the belief.

In the US statutes read here, New York's §35.15, Florida's chapter 776 and Texas's chapter 9 all say "reasonably believes".⁶⁷⁸ The Model Penal Code is the odd one out. Its §3.04 speaks of the actor's own belief, and its §3.09(2) then takes the defence away from someone whose belief was reckless or negligent, for some crimes.⁵ That is a model, though, not the law of any state.

This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Of the texts read here, only section 76 speaks to drink.

Why the law allows for the moment

Lesson 10, "What fear does to you, and the robbery decision", described two small experiments with police officers; in the second, split-second decisions about whether a suspect held a gun went wrong under threat and stayed wrong after three weeks of practice. The law doesn't expect a frightened person to measure.

In England and Wales, section 76(7) tells the court to take into account "that a person acting for a legitimate purpose may not be able to weigh to a nicety the exact measure of any necessary action", and that doing only what you "honestly and instinctively thought was necessary" is strong evidence that the force was reasonable.¹ The CPS notes that the subsection "adopts almost precisely the words of Lord Morris", one of the judges in Palmer, who said, as the CPS quotes him, that "a person defending himself cannot weigh to a nicety the exact measure of his defensive action."³ Scotland's model direction tells jurors to allow for fear and the heat of the moment and not to judge the accused's actions too finely.⁴ The link to lesson 10's experiments is this course's, not the law's: the statute and the manual give no reason beyond the moment itself.

The allowance has an edge. In England and Wales, outside a householder case (lesson 14), force is not reasonable "if it was disproportionate in those circumstances" (s.76(6)).¹ In Scotland, "There must be no cruel excess of violence in the accused's retaliation."⁴ The Scottish model direction gives a plain example: a punch would not normally justify a knife in reply, though it leaves room for very exceptional cases, and says whether they exist is for the jury.⁴

Escape: five jurisdictions, four answers

This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Here the jurisdictions really do part company, and it's the difference most people have heard of, usually in a garbled form. The neutral names for the positions come from the research group RAND's summary: traditionally, self-defence carried a duty to retreat before using force where safe retreat was available; castle doctrine removes that duty in your own home; and stand-your-ground laws remove it in some cases outside the home.¹³ Stand-your-ground is the proponents' own term. Opponents call them "shoot-first" laws; RAND notes they are "referred to by some as shoot-first laws".¹³

Two of the US rules turn on deadly force. The Model Penal Code defines it as force used "with the purpose of causing or that he knows to create a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily injury", and Texas's chapter 9 defines it in similar terms, adding force that is capable of causing death or serious injury in the way it is used.⁵⁸ New York defines it in a section this course did not read, and Florida's chapter defines it only for police and prison officers, as force "likely to cause death or great bodily harm".⁶ Where a lesson question turns on whether force was deadly, that is a question for the state's own definition.

This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

A few things in that table are easy to misread. England and Wales's retreat rule was added in 2013 and applies in England and Wales (and to service offences, the amendment notes say).¹ The CPS's older wording makes the same point from the other side: "Failure to retreat when attacked and when it is possible and safe to do so, is not conclusive evidence that a person was not acting in self defence."³ Scotland's escape has to be "of a kind the accused can reasonably be expected to adopt", and it does not arise at all when you're defending someone else: the manual says the question then is whether violence was used only as a last resort.⁴ New York's duty sits inside its rule on deadly physical force, and that rule also lists crimes, robbery and forcible rape among them, where it lets deadly force be used without the retreat condition.⁷ Its text says nothing about retreat before lesser force.

The chance to escape comes up again and again in this lesson, in its quiz and in its exercise, because the law asks about it. That isn't a judgement on anyone who did not take a way out, or did not see one: the law asks its question afterwards, and even Scotland asks only about an escape a person could reasonably have been expected to take.

Why this lesson gives no count of states

The sources disagree on how many US states are which. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which serves legislators of both parties, gives an "at least" count and lists one state in two of its own categories; NRA Women, a site of the National Rifle Association, a gun-rights group, gives a count of duty-to-retreat states that doesn't match it; Giffords Law Center, a gun-control group, frames it a third way; and some states reach a rule through their courts rather than a statute.^9101213 So this lesson teaches the categories and sends you to your own state's law.

Northern Ireland: different again

Section 76 extends to Northern Ireland, but without the subsections on householders and on retreat, which were added for England and Wales (and for service offences).¹ Northern Ireland has its own Criminal Law Act of 1967 for preventing crime and making arrests, which section 76 names.¹ That is all this course read. It did not read Northern Ireland's case law or any guidance written for it, so it cannot tell you how a court there treats the chance to escape.

Getting away first, in practice

Put the table away and one thing is left, and even the page written for people who carry guns says it. Jo Deering, writing for NRA Women in 2024 against duty-to-retreat laws, still says: "if you are able to leave a situation without having to use force, I highly recommend you do so".¹⁰ Scotland makes escape close to a condition, England and Wales counts it, and New York requires it before deadly force against deadly force outside the home. Florida and Texas remove the legal duty; they don't stop anyone leaving.

This course's own inference, sensible and untested in its labels, is simple: every question in this lesson is asked about force you used. If you got away, none of them is asked about you. That is lesson 1's order of options, with leaving allowed at every rung, as lesson 8 put it, in the law's terms.

Dale in the queue

This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. What follows asks which questions a court would ask. It gives no verdict, because a verdict depends on facts a page can't know.

It's late on a Friday in Lowestoft, and Dale is in a queue at a takeaway counter. A man behind him, angry about the wait, shoves him in the back. Dale turns. The man has stepped between him and the only door, and he lifts a glass bottle as if to swing it. With the counter behind him, Dale pushes the man hard in the chest with both hands. The man staggers back into a table.

In England and Wales, where Lowestoft is:

• Necessity and imminence. Was there a need for any force at all, and was the threat happening now? A bottle lifted to swing is about as immediate as a threat gets, and nobody has to wait to be struck.³
• Belief. The circumstances are judged "as D believed them to be" (s.76(3)). Did Dale genuinely believe the man was about to hit him?¹
• Escape. Could he have retreated? It's a factor only (s.76(6A)), and the man was between him and the door.¹
• Proportion. Was a push disproportionate to a raised bottle, allowing that Dale couldn't "weigh to a nicety" what he did (s.76(6) and (7))?¹

In Scotland, if the same queue were in a Scottish town:

• Imminence and belief. Was Dale attacked, or in imminent danger, and did he believe it on reasonable grounds with an objective background?⁴
• Last resort. Were there other ways he could reasonably have avoided the attack? Was there "a safe means of escape"?⁴
• Proportion. Was there any "cruel excess"?⁴

In New York:

• Belief. Did Dale reasonably believe the man was about to use unlawful physical force, and that his push was needed to defend himself (§35.15(1))?⁷
• Escape. New York's retreat clause sits in its rule on deadly physical force. New York defines deadly physical force in a section this course did not read; if a push isn't deadly force, and on the facts as given it doesn't look like it (this course's reading), the text read here puts no escape question about the push.⁷
• Who started it. Who was the initial aggressor? On the facts as given, the shove and the bottle came from the other man.⁷

In Florida the questions are yours to set out. Try it before you open the answer.

None of the four sets asks whether Dale was a good person. They ask what he faced, what he believed, whether he could have got out, and whether what he did matched the threat. And the escape question changes shape: a factor in England and Wales, close to a condition in Scotland, and in New York and Florida, on the texts read, not asked about a push at all.

When it stops being self-defence

This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Self-defence protects force used to stop a threat. Four things take a person outside it, and the jurisdictions treat them in recognisably similar ways.

Starting it. In England and Wales, the CPS quotes a case called Balogun: "a man who starts the violence, the aggressor, cannot rely upon self-defence to render his actions lawful".³ Each US statute read has a rule for the person who started it, and each gives that person a way back in some cases, though not in all.

• New York. The initial aggressor can rely on the defence (New York calls it justification) again only if he "has withdrawn from the encounter and effectively communicated such withdrawal" and the other person carries on. But a separate clause gives no way back to someone who provoked the other person's force "with intent to cause physical injury to another person", and another shuts out a "combat by agreement".⁷
• Florida. Section 776.041 gives no way back to someone committing a forcible felony. A felony is the US word for a serious crime, and Florida's list of forcible felonies (§776.08) includes murder, robbery, burglary, kidnapping and aggravated assault. Someone who provoked the force has a way back only after a good-faith withdrawal made clear, with the other person carrying on, or in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm with every other reasonable means of escape used up.⁶
• Texas. The way back is abandoning the encounter, or clearly saying so when it can't safely be abandoned, with the other person carrying on. Texas adds that force is not justified "in response to verbal provocation alone".⁸
• Scotland is the one to watch. Its manual says it is not accurate to say that someone who started a quarrel can never plead self-defence. If the other person's reply is so out of proportion that the starter is in real danger with no other way out, the starter may be entitled to protect himself, and the model direction says "self-defence can be claimed by the original attacker or the person attacked", depending on the circumstances.⁴

Revenge. Scotland's model direction is blunt: "if he acted in revenge, retaliation or anger, that would be a criminal assault, not self-defence."⁴ In England and Wales the CPS notes a case, Rashford, holding that going somewhere to take revenge did not by itself rule out self-defence in whatever violence followed; what rules it out is seeking the fight, which is where Balogun comes in.³

Excess. Covered above: disproportionate force in England and Wales outside the home, "cruel excess" in Scotland, and in the US statutes force beyond what the defender reasonably believed was needed.¹⁴⁶⁷⁸ Scotland's model direction says that force beyond what is reasonable, "if a defensive act became an offensive one", is assault.⁴

After the threat has ended. Every formula in this lesson is tied to the present: force "immediately necessary" against force used "on the present occasion" in the Model Penal Code, "imminent" in the New York and Florida statutes and "immediately necessary" in Texas's, and in Scotland an assault that "must have started or be on the point of starting", with a danger that is "immediate, not in the future". In England and Wales, Balogun as the CPS quotes it speaks of "A man who is attacked or believes that he is about to be attacked".³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸ Once the threat is gone, the defence that depended on it goes too. That reading of the texts is this course's; it read no case on force after a threat has ended, and applying Scotland's "offensive" line to it is this course's reading as well.

Two minutes later

This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. As before, the question is which questions a court would ask, not what it would decide.

Go back to the takeaway. At 11.02 Dale pushes the man with the bottle away, and the man staggers into a table. He drops the bottle, turns and runs out of the door. At 11.03 Dale, furious, runs after him, catches him on the pavement and punches him in the face.

At 11.02, everything in the last section's four sets applies, and Dale is the person defending himself. At 11.03 the questions change in every jurisdiction read, because the thing the defence rests on, a threat happening now, may be gone.

• In England and Wales, the CPS and National Police Chiefs' Council leaflet answers a householder who chases a fleeing intruder: "you are no longer acting in self-defence and so the same degree of force may not be reasonable". It says you may still use reasonable force to make a citizen's arrest, that "A rugby tackle or a single blow would probably be reasonable", and that "Acting out of malice and revenge with the intent of inflicting punishment through injury or death would not."¹⁵ That leaflet was written for householders about intruders; applying it to a street is this course's step, though the arrest rule it relies on is section 3, which applies anywhere in England and Wales, not only in a home.² So a court would ask: was any threat left at 11.03? If not, was Dale preventing a crime or making an arrest, and was his punch reasonable force for that? Or was it punishment?
• In Scotland, the danger must be "immediate, not in the future", and "revenge, retaliation or anger" makes it assault. Was there any danger left at 11.03, and if not, what was the punch for?⁴
• In New York and Florida, both statutes need a reasonable belief in the "imminent" use of unlawful force. What was the running man about to do to Dale at 11.03?⁶⁷

There's a second turn. If the man who ran fights back against Dale's punch, his force may now be the one judged as defence, though a court in England and Wales would ask whether starting the fight rules that out (Balogun), and one in Scotland whether Dale's reply was out of proportion.³⁴ The same person can be the defender at 11.02 and not at 11.03.

Stand your ground or a duty to retreat

This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Whether the law ought to require a person to retreat before using deadly force, when they safely could, is a value question. It weighs the defender's freedom, the danger that a retreat was not, in Deering's words below, "safe or reasonable in the moment", and the risk of being second-guessed later, against the attacker's life and a confrontation ending without a death. Evidence can inform it but can't settle it, so this course describes it and takes no side. Beside it sits an empirical question, whether the laws change how many people are killed. RAND points out where the disagreement bites: because the traditional rule already allows force where safe retreat isn't possible, the laws mainly matter where someone could safely retreat or where that is unclear.¹³ Each side is given in its strongest form, the rule Logic and Argument lesson 7 set.

For stand your ground, in its proponents' words

Deering's case at NRA Women is about the moment and about hindsight. A duty to retreat, she writes, is "one more thing to have to think about in what might be the most stressful moment of your life". And: "Who's to say a withdraw option was 'reasonably safe' to attempt? ... It's very easy for a prosecutor to, with the benefit of hindsight, point out all kinds of ways you could have retreated that you didn't notice at the time or which weren't safe or reasonable in the moment."¹⁰

NRA-ILA, the National Rifle Association's legislative arm, puts the principle underneath it on its right-to-carry page: "Self-defense is a fundamental right", and "while law enforcement personnel provide protection generally, they are not required to protect individuals."¹¹

For a duty to retreat, in its proponents' words

Giffords Law Center, on its stand-your-ground page, says the laws "allow a person to use deadly force in public, even if they know they could safely avoid any need for violence by simply stepping away", and that "these laws too often allow individuals to use lethal force as a first step, rather than as a last resort." Its conclusion: "As a result, these laws encourage the escalation of violence in everyday conflicts." It also objects to immunity, which some of these laws give, as "tying the hands of law enforcement and depriving victims of remedies by providing blanket immunity from criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits to individuals who claim they were acting in self-defense."¹² And Giffords argues that the race of the people involved affects whether a killing is found justified under these laws. This course didn't read the research it cites for that, so it gives the argument as Giffords', with no figure.

Where each side meets the law read here

Each side's case has a match in the texts earlier in this lesson, and both matches are this course's, not either side's. The retreat duties read here are written the way Giffords describes a duty to retreat: New York's and the Model Penal Code's apply only where the defender knows retreat is completely safe, Scotland's only to an escape the accused "can reasonably be expected to adopt", and Scotland's model direction uses Giffords' own phrase, violence "as a last resort".⁴⁵⁷ And Deering's point about hindsight is the one section 76(7) makes about proportion: a frightened person can't weigh things "to a nicety".¹

What the evidence says, as RAND grades it

RAND's review, updated in January 2026, grades evidence as "inconclusive, limited, moderate, or supportive".¹³ Its methods page gives "supportive" to an effect found in the same direction by at least three studies without serious methodological weaknesses, using at least two independent data sets.¹⁴ On that scale, RAND finds: "There is supportive evidence that stand-your-ground laws increase total and firearm homicides." Its count behind that: "Fifteen studies evaluated the relationship between stand-your-ground laws and homicides or murders. The six higher-quality studies found effects consistent with stand-your-ground laws increasing homicides; two of those studies showed statistically significant increases and one found a suggestive effect." For defensive gun use, mass shootings, police shootings and suicide, its grade is inconclusive.¹³

Four things belong beside that finding, each from RAND.¹³

• Two possible mechanisms, both conditional. "By reducing the threshold for the justified use of lethal force for self-protection, stand-your-ground laws could increase defensive gun use and, if a deterrent effect exists, may reduce rates of crime and violence." And: "Alternatively, by lowering the legal risks of using deadly force, these laws could escalate aggressive encounters, resulting in more firearm homicides or injuries." The first is the deterrence the laws are intended to bring; RAND grades defensive gun use inconclusive. This course claims no more about why than that.
• A limit, with its counterpoint. Almost all the research RAND reviewed considers "only state statutes, not case law", so states with a similar rule through their courts may sit in the comparison group, which RAND says may shrink the measured effects. It adds: "It is possible, however, that stand-your-ground statutes have different effects on public behavior than case law, in which case the focus on statutes might be justified."
• What the ideal studies would separate. RAND says "the ideal analyses would distinguish between the effects on criminal violence and the effects on violence committed in self-defense", and that most existing data sources lack the detail to tell defensive gun use in the home from defensive gun use elsewhere, where the laws newly apply.
• A weak measure. RAND calls the data for measuring defensive gun use extremely weak.

Lesson 2's five questions ask what a figure measured; RAND's grades answer a different question, how strong the studies behind a finding are. They are RAND's judgement, and they are not this course's advice labels.

So the evidence, as RAND grades it, points one way on homicides, with the limits RAND itself sets out. The value question stays open, because someone can accept RAND's finding and still hold that the law should not make a person under attack weigh a retreat, and someone else can hold that a duty to retreat is right whatever the homicide figures show. Both positions are consistent with this course's one value commitment, that responsibility for a crime lies with the person who commits it.

What stand your ground doesn't change, and what it adds

Here, too, the proponents and the text agree. Deering writes that "while Stand Your Ground laws remove any obligation to retreat, you are still required to meet the other elements of self-defense".¹⁰ Florida's statute removes the duty to retreat before deadly force only for someone who "reasonably believes" deadly force "is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony", and only if that person "is not engaged in a criminal activity and is in a place where he or she has a right to be".⁶ Necessity, imminence and a reasonable belief are all still required.

Florida's chapter does add something, and it is part of what Giffords objects to. Section 776.032(1) says a person whose force the chapter permits "is justified in such conduct and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use or threatened use of such force", and that criminal prosecution "includes arresting, detaining in custody, and charging or prosecuting".⁶¹² Whether a law should give that immunity belongs to the value question above, and this course leaves it open.

After force is used

This is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Lesson 16, "Afterwards", covers what happens next, and this lesson says only two things about it. The householders' leaflet for England and Wales says police "may need to conduct a forensic examination and/or obtain your account of events".¹⁵ In England and Wales, GOV.UK says that someone arrested has the right to free legal advice, and notes that the law on arrest is different in Scotland and in Northern Ireland.¹⁶ This course didn't read the US rules on questioning, so it states none. Everywhere, the one piece of advice this course gives, sensible and untested in its labels, is to get a lawyer's advice. What to say to police is legal advice, and it depends on where you are.

What people get wrong

Each of these is general information, not legal advice. The law differs by state, and between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

"You have to wait to be hit first." Not in England and Wales, Scotland or the US statutes read. The CPS says there is "no rule in law" to that effect; in Scotland the assault "must have started or be on the point of starting"; the US statutes speak of force that is imminent or immediately necessary.³⁴⁶⁷⁸

"The UK has a duty to retreat." The UK isn't one jurisdiction here. England and Wales treats retreat as a factor only (s.76(6A)); Scotland, in effect, requires a safe, reasonable escape where one exists; Northern Ireland wasn't read on the point.¹⁴

"Stand your ground means you can use deadly force whenever you feel threatened." It removes the duty to retreat; it doesn't remove the other requirements. Florida still requires a reasonable belief that deadly force is necessary to prevent imminent death, great bodily harm or a forcible felony, and its supporters say so too. (Florida's chapter also gives immunity from arrest, prosecution and civil suit to someone whose force it justifies, which is part of what its critics object to.)⁶¹⁰¹²

"A drunken mistake still counts." Not in England and Wales: section 76(5) excludes a mistaken belief caused by voluntary intoxication.¹

"The US has one law of self-defence." Each state has its own, in statutes and court decisions, and New York, Florida and Texas alone give three different answers on escape.⁶⁷⁸

"The Model Penal Code is the law." It's a model drafted in 1962. It has shaped state codes, but it is not law anywhere by itself.⁵

Practice

Connections

Back. Lesson 8, "Talking it down", put leaving at every rung; here the law, in different ways, gives leaving weight: as a factor in England and Wales, close to a condition in Scotland, and a duty before deadly force in New York. Lesson 10 showed what threat does to judgement, and section 76(7) and Scotland's model direction make room for the moment. Lesson 9's bystander is covered by the same law. Lesson 2's questions about a figure sit beside RAND's grades, a research group's judgement of how strong the studies are, and Logic and Argument lesson 7 set the rule for the stand-your-ground section.

Forward. Lesson 14, "The home and property", takes up the householder rule in England and Wales, castle doctrine in the US and force to protect property, and lesson 15, "Carrying something for protection", takes up what the law says about carrying anything for protection. Lesson 16, "Afterwards", covers reporting, support and what happens after force is used. Introduction to Law, later on the Core, owns criminal law in general.

Go deeper

• Section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, on legislation.gov.uk. Read in full for this lesson on the live page. Short and plainer than most statutes; the householder subsections are lesson 14's.
• The Judicial Institute for Scotland's Jury Manual, chapter "Self-Defence". Read in full for this course. The possible form of direction at its end shows the law of Scotland in the words a juror might hear.
• NCSL, "Self-Defense and 'Stand Your Ground'", updated September 2025. Read in full for this course. A neutral overview for US legislators, with its state lists; read those as approximate, for the reasons above.
• RAND, "The Effects of Stand-Your-Ground Laws", updated January 2026. This course read the summary, findings and the in-depth section. The study-by-study reasons behind the grades.

Sources

1. Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, section 76, "Reasonable force for purposes of self-defence etc.", legislation.gov.uk, extent England and Wales and Northern Ireland, with the 2013 amendments (householder cases, retreat, defence of property) inserted for England and Wales and for service offences. Read: in full, current revised text; re-read on the live page, 25 September 2026, marked up to date with changes in force on or before that day.
2. Criminal Law Act 1967, section 3, "Use of force in making arrest, etc.", legislation.gov.uk; Part I extends to England and Wales only (s.11). Read: in full; re-read on the live page, 25 September 2026.
3. Crown Prosecution Service, "Self-Defence and the Prevention of Crime", legal guidance for England and Wales, marked updated 30 September 2019 and 9 September 2022. Read: in full, as archived July 2024 (Internet Archive capture 20240723174716). The page returns "not found" on the live CPS site, and a search of the site on 25 September 2026 found no replacement. Judges are quoted only as the CPS quotes them.
4. Judicial Institute for Scotland, Jury Manual, PDF version of 3 September 2024, chapter "Self-Defence". Read: the chapter in full, pp. 45.1 to 45.6, including its model direction on a quarrel. Cases are given only as the manual states them.
5. American Law Institute, Model Penal Code, §§3.04, 3.09 and 3.11 (the text adopted in 1962). Read: §§3.01 to 3.11 from a university teaching copy; §§3.04, 3.09 and 3.11 re-read, 25 September 2026, from the ALI's Official Draft and Explanatory Notes (1985), in a copy held by the ICC Legal Tools Database, because the teaching copy's address no longer loads. A model code, not law anywhere by itself.
6. Florida Statutes, chapter 776, "Justifiable Use of Force", the 2026 Florida Statutes. Read: in full; re-read on the live page, 25 September 2026.
7. New York Penal Law, §35.15, "Justification; use of physical force in defense of a person", revision of 2024-09-06. Read: via browser; re-read in a browser, 25 September 2026.
8. Texas Penal Code, chapter 9, §§9.01, 9.31 and 9.32. Read: via browser; re-read in a browser, 25 September 2026.
9. National Conference of State Legislatures, "Self-Defense and 'Stand Your Ground'", updated September 23, 2025. Read: in full.
10. Jo Deering, "What Is a Duty to Retreat?", NRA Women, June 28, 2024. Read: in full. An advocacy page, cited for its position.
11. NRA Institute for Legislative Action, "Right-to-Carry and Concealed Carry". Read: the lines quoted, re-read on the live page, 25 September 2026. An advocacy page, cited for its position; its statistics are not used.
12. Giffords Law Center, "Stand Your Ground Laws". Read: in full. An advocacy page, cited for its position; the study behind its race figure was not read and the figure is not given.
13. RAND, Gun Policy in America, "The Effects of Stand-Your-Ground Laws", updated January 29, 2026. Read: the summary, findings and the in-depth section.
14. RAND, Gun Policy in America, "Methodology". Read: the definitions of the four evidence grades, 25 September 2026.
15. Crown Prosecution Service and National Police Chiefs' Council, Householders and the use of force against intruders, England and Wales, "Revised 2018". Read: in full.
16. GOV.UK, "Being arrested: your rights", England and Wales. Read: in full (updated 2025-01-23); re-read, 25 September 2026.