‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws And Classic Westerns

Stanley Fish: “In fact, ‘stand your ground’ is more than a declaration of a right; it is an injunction – stand your ground, be a man. Retreating in order to avoid violence is not the commendable act of a prudent man, but the act of a coward, of someone who runs away. It is this aspect of the [laws] … that links them to the novelistic and filmic representations of the old west.”