If You Shoot Someone From Your Car In Self-Defense In Arizona, You Get Away With Murder

Nationwide, overly-generous self-defense laws take judgment out of the loop, and threaten mayhem:

Appleton tells New Times much the same thing, saying he simply didn't think to drive away when the unarmed man attacked him.

Yet, even if Appleton's version of the events is accurate, it appears that he should've done just that — driven off. Appleton had the keys in the ignition, the engine running. He could've put the Toyota, weighing more than two tons, in gear. In front of him, the parking lot was clear.

He was, in a sense, safe.

Under Arizona law, though, there's no "duty to retreat" if you're threatened. And your car, like your home, is your castle — a place in which you're presumed automatically to be justified in killing an intruder unless prosecutors can prove otherwise.

...Rathner's take on the situation echoes that of many experts: If you have to shoot someone, this is the state to do it in. Statutes governing when deadly force can be used tilt strongly in favor of the person making a self-defense claim.

Not all cases of self-defense involve guns, of course, but the state's robust gun culture and the right to defend yourself go hand in hand. The same political forces that shaped Arizona into one of the most gun-friendly states in the country ("'Til Death Do Us Part," February 14) have tried to give every benefit of the doubt to law-abiding people who display or use their firearms against others.