Lynn La | CALmatters

Los Angeles Assemblymember Rick Zbur says he wants to narrow the standards for justifiable homicide. Critics say he wants to make self-defense illegal. 

Assembly Bill 1333 has provoked a great deal of debate since its introduction in late February. 

In response to several states’ “stand-your-ground laws,” which permit people in certain cases to use deadly force in self-defense, Zbur’s bill seeks to codify certain circumstances when homicide “is not justifiable.” Those circumstances would include when the person was:

  • Outside their home and knew that using deadly force could have been avoided by safely retreating;
  • Engaging in mutual combat or knowingly provoking a person (though this provision has some exceptions).

Zbur, a Democrat, told me his proposal doesn’t run afoul with California’s “castle doctrine,” which allows people to use deadly force to defend themselves in their own home. Rather, it seeks to address gun violence, and the rising instances of armed vigilantism in the U.S. 

  • Zbur: “What this bill is focused on is someone who goes out in public, picks a fight — and when the victim responds — they shoot them and claim self-defense.”

There is evidence — including from a 2020 study by the research and policy think tank RAND Corporation and a 2022 analysis by the University of Oxford — that link stand-your-ground laws with increases in firearm homicides. 

The bill would be similar to laws enacted in nearly a dozen states, including Nebraska, Minnesota and Hawaii, which require people to “disengage or deescalate” in lieu of taking lethal action, said Monisha Henley, senior vice president for government affairs for Everytown for Gun Safety, a sponsor of the measure.

Republicans, however, slammed the proposal: Assemblymember David Tangipa of Fresno told me the bill encroaches on the Second Amendment, and that it would allow the state to punish victims if they don’t “exhaust all options” and act within “the parameters of what the state wants them to do.”

  • Tangipa: “We have situations where police have to react in the moment, and those are trained individuals. Now we’re asking people who are untrained to make decisions that could cost them their lives. … It doesn’t matter the (bill’s) intentions, it’s the implications at the end of the road.”

Assemblymember Tom Lackey of Palmdale, a former California Highway Patrol officer, called the proposal “ludicrous, dangerous and deplorable.”

Zbur said he is adding more “nuanced language” to the measure. A hearing has not yet been set for the bill.