Technically, California law recognizes the right of self-defense, including the Castle Doctrine, which the right to defend oneself and one’s family within the home. However, judging by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s decision to file misdemeanor charges against David Lacey, those laws don’t mean squat to the leftists in charge of California.
Early one morning in March, a Black Lives Matter mob marched onto the front porch of Jackie Lacey, Los Angeles’s first black district attorney. They were angry because Lacey, taking her job seriously, prosecuted criminals. The march on her home came after Lacey had already been stalked and received death threats for doing her job.
Rightly terrified by having an inherently hostile mob on his porch, David Lacey, Jackie’s husband, greeted the mob with a gun and demanded that they leave his property immediately:
I’m front of DA Jackie Lacey’s house for that community meeting she promised with the @BLMLA crew. Rang her bell to invite her.
— Melina Abdullah (@DocMellyMel) March 2, 2020
Her husband pulled a gun, cocked it, pointed it at my chest and said “I’ll shoot you. I don’t care who you are.” @WP4BL @RealJusticePAC @shaunking pic.twitter.com/WtazUWSJIC
David Lacey’s conduct was completely consistent with a citizen’s and homeowner’s legal rights under California law. Calif. Penal Code §197(2) gives a person the right to defend himself when he believes he is facing “one who manifestly intends and endeavors, in a violent, riotous, or tumultuous manner, to enter the habitation of another for the purpose of offering violence to any person therein.” Under §197(3), a defense is justified, as well, if a person is acting on behalf of a spouse, child, or employee if “there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony or to do some great bodily injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished.”
California also has the Castle Doctrine (Calif. Penal Code §198.5), which holds that people in their home can use all necessary force, including deadly force, to defend against an intruder. The state should presumptively hold that a person is reasonable to fear imminent death or bodily harm, justifying a full defense, if an unwelcome intruder (or, worse, a mob) is trying to enter the home.
Most of us understand David Lacey’s viewpoint. He and his family have been stalked and received death threats, and suddenly a mob made up of the same crowd of people threatening him is standing on his doorstep demanding entry. There is only one word for that, and that word is “terrifying.” If you cannot use a weapon to order a mob to retreat from your doorstep, you may have a theoretical Second Amendment right but you do not have an actual one.
Despite the law and the circumstances, California’s Attorney General, the hard-left Xavier Becerra, has charged Lacey with three misdemeanors. The move is manifestly political insofar as Lacey is facing a stiff election for being too hard on criminals and too soft on police officers.
However, the charges are also political in the broader sense: Becerra is saying that, regardless of the law on the books, if you’re a California homeowner, you had better think two, three, or four times before defending yourself against a threatening mob lest you find yourself in the dock. In other words, he is voiding California’s self-defense laws.
California has long warred against guns. It’s gotten to the point at which you need to be a California resident and pass a background check just to buy ammunition. This is on top of limitations on so-called “assault rifles,” magazine capacity restrictions, and the requirement that hunters may not use bullets with any lead in them.
David Lacey did the right thing, which was to defend himself against a threatening mob that was standing on his porch. Every mob has within it the threat of unleashed power. If nothing else, the last two months have proven that. If Becerra prevails against Lacey, not only will that harm the candidacy of a law-and-order DA in LA, it also sends a signal to criminals throughout the state that it just got a lot safer to rob houses.
Image: Twitter screengrab
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