No Duty to Retreat Violence and Values in American History and Society |
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Author:
| Brown, Richard Maxwell |
ISBN: | 978-1-280-52338-0 |
Publication Date: | Jan 1991 |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press
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Book Format: | Ebook |
List Price: | USD $31.50 |
Book Description:
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No Duty to Retreat takes as its starting-point the increased popularity in American society of the old English common-law concept that a person under physical attack has the right to stand his ground, defend himself, and even kill his assailant in self-defence in certain circumstances. This doctrine came to public awareness recently when Berhard Goetz took the law into his own hands when assaulted by four youths in a New York City subway train. There is a chapter on the American as...
More DescriptionNo Duty to Retreat takes as its starting-point the increased popularity in American society of the old English common-law concept that a person under physical attack has the right to stand his ground, defend himself, and even kill his assailant in self-defence in certain circumstances. This doctrine came to public awareness recently when Berhard Goetz took the law into his own hands when assaulted by four youths in a New York City subway train. There is a chapter on the American as gunfighter, another on a famous vigilante case in California in the 1870s, when farmers retaliated against the Southern Pacific Railroad trying to move them off their lands, and a long chapter discussing 'crime, law, and society in America since 1930', in which Brown shows that the crime surge since the 1950s has occurred with the emergence of the Post-Industrial Society, which has left many people alienated and looking for quick solutions.