Boston Athenæum

June 7, 2018 at the Boston Athenæum. Today the United States represents about 5% of the world’s population but possesses approximately 40% of its guns. We also experience the highest number of mass shootings, which represent only a small fraction of our annual gun deaths. Perhaps ironically, the spread of guns and naturalization of gun deaths is linked to a widespread acceptance of self-defense, the right to fight back with lethal force when one feels threatened. Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair With Lethal Self-Defense explores the complex path by which the English common law “duty to retreat” from threat was transformed into a selective right to kill. Caroline Light will discuss how our nation’s history influences contemporary understandings of vulnerability and threat, and how appeals to race, gender, and class difference shape the adjudication of self-defense cases. In the process, Light seeks to illuminate a history hidden in plain sight, by showing how violent self-defense has bee