I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or evidence of a disturbing cultural trend, but a lot of people seem to be shooting people for really dumb reasons lately. There’s the guy in Kansas City who allegely blasted a kid for ringing his doorbell, the man in Florida who is reported to have opened fire on a six-year-old for chasing a ball on his lawn, the guy in New York who seems to have killed a woman for turning around in his driveway, and probably three more shootings that happened as I wrote this article.
In all of these incidents, the victims are reported to have stepped onto the property of the accused shooters, leading to the question of whether the shooters would have some protection under law if they ultimately claim they were defending themselves or their property.
The laws regarding self-defense of your person and property are complex and vary from state to state, but if these incidents happened as reported, all of the trigger-pullers are likely to be in deep trouble. It seems doubtful that self-defense, “castle doctrine” or any other “get out of crime free” defense would apply, because, put simply, you can’t shoot people just because they’re on your property.
“But when can I shoot someone?,” you may be asking. Well, you maniac, almost never. In general, the only time you might be able to shoot someone is if you’re in reasonable fear they’ll kill or seriously injure you, or if they’ve broken into your home.
How self defense and “stand your ground” laws work
Both state and federal laws allow you to use force or violence to defend yourself in certain circumstances. Broadly, you can legally use violence or force when facing what a reasonable person would consider an imminent threat, as long as the force is proportional to the threat.
This is considered “standing your ground,” and it is either written into the statutes or supported by legal precent in most U.S. states, although in a few, citizens are expected to make an effort to escape before applying lethal force.
Stand your ground is easy to grasp conceptually, but in practice, the nuance of violent human interactions provide so many interpretations of the words “reasonable,” “imminent,” “threat,” and “proportional” that the lawyers who sort it out often buy expensive boats. Critics point out that stand your ground laws are inherently flawed because a one-on-one interaction that ends in a deadly shooting doesn’t give the dead person a chance to to make their case. But, flawed or not, these are the laws we have.
“Castle doctrine” and “standing your ground”
In the broadest terms, “castle doctrine” removes any legal responsibility you might have to retreat from a threat if it comes to you in your home and (in some states) presumes that deadly force is warranted. It’s generally easier to claim self-defense against a guy who breaks into your home than against a guy who bumps into you in a bar because their presence in your house alone could be considered an imminent threat. This isn’t limited to gun-happy red-states either; it works basically the same way in liberal California as it does in Tennessee.
Castle doctrine, however, doesn’t mean you can use force against anyone in your house for any reason. There’s endless nuance there; you generally can’t use force against someone if there’s a good-faith dispute about the ownership of the property, for instance. You likely can’t beat up your roommate for not paying rent and use castle doctrine as a defense either. You can’t invite your arch enemy into your home, attack them, and expect to not suffer legal consequences.
The limits of castle doctrine
Shooting a stranger for knocking on your front door is, legally speaking, likely to have a very different outcome from shooting a stranger knocking on your bedroom door because, in general, castle doctrine only applies within the actual walls of your house: It doesn’t extend to your yard or walkway.
You generally can’t legally shoot someone who is on your property but outside your house even if they’re committing robbery (except, in some cases, in Texas). The law makes a distinction between using deadly force to protect yourself or another person and using it to protect property. You can, however, legally use proportional, non-deadly force to protect your lawn gnomes or other property from theft in many cases, but it’s complicated and depends on innumerable details and state and local laws. So just call the police instead.
People who like to discuss the nuances of shooting people sometimes advise homeowners to take advantage of castle doctrine protection by suggesting that if you shoot a burglar who is halfway through your window or on your porch, pre-thievery, you should drag the body inside. Do not do this if faced with this unlikely scenario. You would be tampering with evidence and it would be obvious.
For sure and for certain—and even in Texas—you can’t shoot or otherwise attack someone for knocking on your front door, turning around in your driveway, or retrieving a basketball from your lawn. If you could, it would be open-season on mailcarriers, Mormons, and Grubhub delivery drivers. Barring a fence or a “no trespassing” sign, the walkway that leads from the sidewalk to your door and your driveway is generally considered open to the public, and again, even if someone were trespassing on your property, you can’t respond with gunfire and not expect to be arrested.
While Missouri shooter Andrew Lester may have told police he believed someone was breaking into his home, this alone is unlikely to provide legal cover—if the reported details are accurate, it’s hard to believe a “reasonable person” would interpret simply ringing a doorbell as an imminent threat. (Caveat: Anything could happen in a jury trial.) The same applies to teenagers turning around in a driveway, kids walking across a lawn to retrieve a ball, or jerks trying to sell solar panels—you can’t shoot any of them.
Can an intruder sue you for defending your home?
If a burglar breaks into your home and you punch them out, you’d most likely be protected from criminal prosecution, but the criminal could sue you in civil court for the injuries they received—but only because anyone can sue anyone for just about anything. The case would almost definitely be ruled in the homeowner’s favor (or thrown out long before that), because, while homeowners generally have a responsibility to protect visitors from injury, this doesn’t apply to trespassers. There is a huge exception though: booby traps.
You can’t set traps in your home
Home Alone is a true classic, but building burglar traps on your lawn or living room is not legal under castle doctrine, self-defense, or any other laws. It’s extremely illegal, unless you are, like, Kevin McCallister, confronting actual bandits in your home at that moment. Man-trapping is not only a crime, it’s by definition premeditated, because you would have known while you were digging a pit trap that someone could be killed by it. You’d have a hard time arguing self-defense too, because you probably wouldn’t be in the area at the time the trap is sprung.
In summary: You will avoid a lot of trouble in your life if you avoid setting any traps or shooting Girl Scouts who want to sell cookies.
