Cornhusker State lawmakers are seeking to expand self-defense rights by introducing a Stand-Your-Ground measure last week.

The measure, Legislative Bill 1269, was introduced on Jan. 17 by Republican state Sen. Brian Hardin with 14 co-sponsors for the measure. While Nebraska law currently recognizes the right of citizens to defend themselves with a firearm at home or on the job, according to Sen. Hardin, Nebraskans “have a duty to retreat” if threatened in a motor vehicle or anywhere else in public.

“We’re talking about changing the philosophy to match the majority of the other states in the country,” Sen. Hardin said.

The legislation strikes the portion of the law stating that the “actor shall not be obliged to retreat from his dwelling or place of work,” and replaces it with language making clear citizens are protected anywhere they find themselves endangered.

“Except as required by subsections (3) and (4) of this section, a person employing protective force may estimate the necessity thereof under the circumstances as such person he believes them to be when the force is used, without retreating, surrendering possession, doing any other act which such person he has no legal duty to do, or abstaining from any lawful action,” the law will read if passed and signed by Republican Gov. Jim Pillen.

Thirty states currently have stand-your-ground laws on the books. They include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa. Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. Eight other states—California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia and Washington—have case law/precedent or jury instructions providing SYG protections.

Of course, anti-gun lawmakers and gun-ban organizations hate SYG laws, often referring to them as a license to murder rather than an extension of the natural right of self-defense and the Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms. So-called Everytown For Gun Safety puts it this way: “Stand Your Ground laws give people a license to kill, allowing those who shoot others to obtain immunity, even if they started the confrontation and even when they can safely de-escalate the situation by walking away. Stand Your Ground laws are inherently dangerous because they change the nature of gun violence in a state by encouraging escalation of violence and, according to research, do nothing to deter overall crime.”

We’ll keep TTAG readers updated as this measure is considered in the Nebraska legislature.

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30 COMMENTS

  1. They say SYG laws “do nothing to deter crime”. All of the other laws also do nothing to deter crime.
    This law is not about deterring crime, but rather about giving law abiding citizens leeway when a crime is being committed against them. This law gives good citizens the right to self defense when a crime is being committed against them. The thug is committing the crime and we all know how thugs like to obey laws.

  4. “Considering?” Stand your ground is a common sense part of Victim Rights so stfu and pass it.

  5. “duty to retreat”

    Just a few notes:

    None of the states with a duty to retreat require that a person retreat in their own home. This concept is commonly referred to as “castle doctrine” but may not be outlined that way in a states law.

    None of the states with a duty to retreat actually require that a person retreat if they can not do so safely. This ‘duty to retreat if you can do so safely’ concept was written for a different era and today poses a significant problem because today’s criminals are more aggressive and willing to ‘stand their ground’ and inflict harm in a lot of cases and will only flee if they are met by the threat if application of deadly force by ‘standing your ground’. In reality today if the threat is right there its really extremely rare that a victim can retreat safely (in today’s world sometimes 1 out of 200 victims are able to retreat somewhat safely vs. a bygone era of 30 years ago where 60 out of 100 were able to retreat safely). But still today an over-zelous anti-gun prosecutor will come up with all sorts of ‘what if’ examples as if they were actual options to retreat safely to sway a jury and make them seem plausible when in reality had the defender retreated they would have not been able to do so safely because the threat was intent upon inflicting harm and was not going to let you get away. (for example, we see this in domestic assault and robbery and sexual assault and home invasion cases today, victim with capability to effectively defend via firearm or some other means tried to escape instead of defending and are subdued by their attackers while victim defender trying to flee in over 90% of those cases where the defender victim did not defend but rather tried to flee).

    Nebraska already takes this a step further saying that there is no duty to retreat when a person is at their place of work, coupled with no actual duty to retreat if in your home or can’t do so safely. So a ‘Stand-Your-Ground’ law in Nebraska would effectively nullify ‘duty to retreat’ in all other cases, and is something that’s needed and overall actually save lives.

    • That duty to retreat thing? I’m just too damned old to retreat. Fat SOBs who have never run 100 yards in their life can catch me these days. Time was, when I decided to make myself scarce, you had to be a track star to catch me. Not any more. So, any healthy male, and maybe healthy female, who approaches and threatens me today is fair game for target practice.

      What? I might face 50 years in prison? I’ll cheat them out of that when I croak anyway. Fek ’em all.

      • If you can’t retreat due to ‘physical limitations’ (including bodily, ‘environmental’, location, structural, age related, illness/injury/health/, out-numbered/surrounded, blocked paths, timing, exposure-to-threat, etc…) then you can not safely retreat.

      • I’m not a ‘short one liner for short attention spans’ kinda person. I write what I want.

    • .40 cal,

      Not so fast, Kemosabe. There is NOT a right to SYG in come states (KKKalifornia being a good example). There are numerous cases of homeowners/rightful occupants being CONVICTED after shooting in their own property, in self-defense, because they could have “exited the property”, or their response was deemed “disproportionate”.

      One of the reasons I GTFO of that socialist sh*hole.

      • “it ain’t old dyno sores.”

        That author has some things right, petroleum isn’t created (the vast majority of it, anyways) from dinosaurs.

        The bulk of it is suspected to come from tiny ocean critters collectively known as plankton. Plankton is a critical food source for cold-water fish to this day.

        A few hundred million years back, a couple of super-volcanoes erupted (creating the Indian ‘Deccan Traps’, and the Russian ‘Siberian Traps’.) Massive, MASSIVE eruptions, covering a half-million square kilometers (in the case of the Deccan Traps, and 6,000 feet thick basalt rock floods) :

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_Traps

        Along with the flood basalt rock came a LOT of carbon dioxide. CO2 for plants is like oxygen for us. As it dissolved into the oceans, algae blooms exploded. Since algae is food for the plankton, their populations exploded, as well. Plankton converted the algae they ate into literal body fat, and their exoskeletons into calcium carbonate. As they died and fell to the ocean floor, they built thousand foot deep layers. They were eventually covered with mud and crap and exerted tremendous pressure and heat on those lower layers. That heat and pressure literally ‘cooked’ the plankton body fat into petroleum that we use millions of years later.

        Piss of a Leftist Scum ™ by explaining that petroleum is literal stored solar energy. It was that cycle that stripped the majority of toxic to us CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestered it away under rock.

        That CO2 stripping happened on land as well, that’s where coal comes from. Now, imagine another super volcano erupting where coal can be found. Fun, fun, fun ’till daddy takes the T-Bird away…

  7. “Stand Your Ground laws give people a license to kill, allowing those who shoot others to obtain immunity, even if they started the confrontation…” Um, I don’t think so sports fans. If you are the aggressor initially, the other person has a right of self defense, and the aggressor cannot rely on a clam of self defense against a person exercising their right of self defense.

    • They conveniently leave that pesky detail out. Lying by omission… 🙁

  11. Where I live your vehicle is considered an extension of your home or “domicile”. If you are out and about and things jump off you’re good to go.

  12. Anti-gun politicians prefer to provide criminals with job protection built into the law. They are basically related and feel for the poor violent criminals not being able to do their jobs safely.

  13. WTF, does that bill really say??? Whoever wrote that bill needs to go back to school to learn how to communicate in prose.

    Should merely read something like…”Warning: FAFO!!!”

    There fixed it for you, Nebraska.

  14. In New York State we have a law (Penal Law 35.05) which governs the use of force. While you are supposed to be able to defend yourself in your own home with no duty to retreat, I would not advise you to shoot at someone who is fleeing from your home with your valuables.

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