You are walking to your car in a dimly lit parking lot off Lankershim Boulevard. A stranger approaches aggressively. Do you have to try to run before you defend yourself?
In California, no. You never have. And despite a 2025 bill that would have changed that in some circumstances, you still don’t.
That bill was Assembly Bill 1333. If you have heard that California was about to weaken stand-your-ground protections, here is what actually happened.
What the law is today
California has no “duty to retreat.” The rule is not written into a single statute — it comes from long-standing court decisions and the jury instructions judges read aloud in criminal trials. If you reasonably believe you are in imminent danger of being killed or seriously injured, you may defend yourself, and you are not required to run first.
Penal Code section 197, which sets out when a homicide is justifiable, was not amended by AB 1333. The law protecting you today is the law that was in place before the bill was introduced.
What AB 1333 would have done
The bill was authored by Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur and sought to amend Penal Code section 197. As amended in March 2025, it would have:
- Imposed a duty to retreat in some circumstances. A person outside their home or property could have lost the justification defense for failing to retreat where retreat was safely possible.
- Restricted the amount of defensive force allowed. A homicide would not have been justified where the person used more force than a reasonable person would have used in the circumstances.
- Restricted initial aggressors. Someone who started the fight generally could not have claimed justification unless they first withdrew from it under specified conditions.
- Removed a statutory justification for a homicide committed while lawfully suppressing a riot or keeping the peace.
An earlier version went further and would have eliminated certain justifications involving defense of habitation or property. That language was taken out in the March 2025 amendment.
Why it failed
The bill drew immediate controversy over its effect on self-defense rights. On March 12, 2025, Zbur announced publicly that he would withdraw it. It never advanced. The bill died on January 31, 2026, and was formally filed with the Assembly Chief Clerk on February 2, 2026.
What this means for you
Nothing about your right to defend yourself changed. Penal Code section 197 reads today exactly as it did before AB 1333 was introduced.
What has not changed either is how these cases are actually fought. Whether a killing or an injury was lawful self-defense is rarely decided by reading a statute. It is decided by what a jury believes about who the aggressor was, whether the fear was reasonable, and whether the force used matched the threat — and those questions turn on evidence, witnesses, and how the case is investigated in its first days.
If you are facing charges after defending yourself, the law being on your side is the beginning of the argument, not the end of it.
