Elijah Schaffer’s proposed bill would force homeowners to retreat before using deadly force, reversing the Castle Doctrine’s standing-ground rule, after his own home invasion trauma. Jaco Booyens warns this mirrors South Africa’s post-apartheid restrictions—where deadly self-defense is banned unless attackers strike first—and ties it to broader rights erosion, like abortion, marriage, and gender identity. Texas, a "bottom-up" society, resists such top-down mandates, with Governor Greg Abbott reaffirming the Castle Doctrine despite initial pushback, while opposing police defunding and Second Amendment rollbacks. Booyens highlights Texas’ shift from accommodation to defiance, from legal battles over statues to cultural resistance against forced retreat, framing it as a bulwark against creeping authoritarianism. [Automatically generated summary]
My bill will do, if passed, would require a homeowner to exhaust the potential of safely retreating into their habitation before using deadly force in defense of themselves or their property.
I filed this bill because the Castle Doctrine, as it currently exhibits, emboldens, I don't know where her other thing is.
What I was going to say is, before I read Greg Abbott's response, I did read this bill myself.
And what it does is it seeks to take away the right to stand your ground in your own property and use deadly force when people are breaking in, basically to exhaust all resources.
I've been a victim of somebody who's broken into my house.
I'm glad Abbott, after getting it wrong in the beginning, which I give every man grace to get things wrong.
And I did oppose his position on coronavirus initially, though he has woken up and he said, let me be clear.
This is where we need real men in our country that say these kinds of words, not fancy talk and weird political language.
Let me be clear.
The Castle Doctrine, this idea of a man or a woman having the right to defend themselves and the property that they own in this country, and I'm clarifying what that means, to stand their ground and to defend the things not only that they own, but on their liberties and their potential safety will not be reduced, period.
Because when you back a dog into a corner, at some point, the dog is going to return to its natural condition, what it was made to do.
It's going to defend itself.
And our default position in Texas, which is still why we're a state where our flag flies the same height as the U.S. flag, our default position in Texas is we stand.
That's our default.
We've drifted from that at times, and now we're backed into a corner here.
And what you're seeing now is people going, finally, enough is enough.
Try to play nice, try to be cordial, try to extend the grace and the mercy that I have to according to the word that I believe.