http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/13945186.htm

NRA leader urges adoption of "no-retreat" defense act

Feb. 23, 2006

DAVID A. LIEB

Although dubbed the "no-retreat" law by some supporters, some critics claim the proposal amounts to an official "shoot-first" policy.

John Sigler, the NRA's first vice president and No. 2 ranking official, said some laws and courts have whittled away self-defense rights to the point that victims now can face criminal charges or civil lawsuits for lashing back at their aggressors.

"Americans just don't cut and run - it's not in our nature," Sigler told about 100 people at an annual gun rights rally at the Capitol.

Missouri law already allows people to use deadly force when they believe it's necessary to protect themselves or others against physical harm or dangerous felonies.

The legislation states that people have "no duty to retreat" when attacked - so long as they are in a place where they have a legal right to be - and can "use force against force from another person, including deadly force" under the same general set of circumstances spelled out in existing law.

Twenty-five states already have similar laws, Sigler said, and Missouri is one of several states where it is a "pretty high priority" to try to enact the proposal this year.

The proposal puts "the law back on the side of the victim where it belongs," he said in an interview. "So you always have a right to defend yourself, wherever you have a right to be."

When a similar law took effect last year in Florida, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence ran ads and handed out fliers to arriving airline passengers claiming the law made Florida a more dangerous state to visit.

The Washington, D.C.-based group has no similar plans for Missouri, said spokesman Zach Ragbourn, although it also opposes the Missouri bills pending in House and Senate committees.

"We call it the shoot-first law," Ragbourn said. "It just doesn't happen that someone justifiably defends themselves and ends up languishing in prison. So this law isn't going to protect anyone - all it can possibly do is provide a defense for someone who didn't have any reasons to use deadly force."

But Kansas City attorney Kevin Jamison, a gun rights advocate who has written a book on Missouri's weapon and self-defense laws, said there have been cases in Missouri where victims shot aggressors and then got in trouble.

He cited a 1990s case in which of one of his clients shot and killed a home intruder in Carroll County, got charged with murder and was acquitted. Later he was sued by the deceased person's parents, and his insurance company settled for $20,000, Jamison said.