Bibliograph

Stand your ground, a history of America's love affair with lethal self-defense, Caroline E. Light

Type

Label

Stand your ground, a history of America's love affair with lethal self-defense, Caroline E. Light

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Stand your ground

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

950004008

Responsibility statement

Caroline E. Light

Sub title

a history of America's love affair with lethal self-defense

Summary

Stand Your Ground explores the development of the American right to self-defense and reveals how the original “duty to retreat” from threat was transformed into a selective right to kill. In her rigorous genealogy, Light traces white America’s attachment to racialized, lethal self-defense by unearthing its complex legal and social histories—from the original “castle laws” of the 1600s, which gave white men the right to protect their homes, to the brutal lynching of “criminal” Black bodies during the Jim Crow era and the radicalization of the NRA as it transitioned from a sporting organization to one of our country’s most powerful lobbying forces. In this convincing treatise on the United States’ unprecedented ascension as the world’s foremost stand-your-ground nation, Light exposes a history hidden in plain sight, showing how violent self-defense has been legalized for the most privileged and used as a weapon against the most vulnerable

Classification