I think part of the frustration fueling all of this about the SYG law is the applications that we’ve seen so far.

Black woman firing a warning shot at someone who has abused her in the past, in her own home: SYG is somehow not applicable. Maybe her mistake was not aiming at him?

White guy in a car who thought the black kids in the car over had their music turned up too loud and so fired 10 times on a carload of unarmed kids: self-defense intertwined with the concept of SYG. And he isn’t convicted of the actual murder in the first trial, just the attempted murders. The takeaway again: have better aim.

There’s a lot of aspects to this that make it a difficult discussion, not the least of which is the racial disparity observed in the application of and willingness to entertain self-defense as a reason to let gun violence pass. But we have now twice seen situations where a white man has played a pivotal role in creating the conflict that allowed him to claim “self-defense” in situations outside of the home and the end result thus far has been very little in the way of legal consequences for the murder itself.

I agree with whoever said that you should forfeit the right to claim self-defense outside the home if you don’t at least call for help, even if it is afterwards. If you’re that terrified, get to a safe place and then call. But call. Pretending nothing happened does not speak to self-defense.