What You Need To Know To Stand Your Ground In Montana

Lets talk Montanan to Montanan for a minute.

Did your parents give you the Stand Your Ground talk when you were younger? As a member of Generation X, I was given that talk at a very young age. The talk went something like this:

"Tammie, if someone comes in and threatens you and your brother, get the shotgun. Turn off the safety, cock it and hold it at your waist. If they're still there after you cock the shotgun shoot them and aim for the belly. If they're not in the house, drag them in." I'm 100 percent serious about that. (I'm not saying commit murder and drag them in the house. I'm just telling you what ole Rog said.)

Your dad had that talk with you too? You must be a Montanan.

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What Is Stand Your Ground In Montana?

Stand your ground is a lot more complicated then dragging the bad guy into your house. (And by the way, DAD, what about the blood trail?)

The Western Producer had a great article about it back in 2018 and I think they explain it pretty well.

Is There A Difference Between Stand Your Ground And Castle Doctrine?

Stand Your Ground is NOT the same as Castle Doctrine. Basically they're both about self protection. It's a matter of where you're protecting yourself and what your state's law says.

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Stand Your Ground basically says you can defend yourself against an imminent threat no matter where you are with no duty to retreat.

Castle Doctrine gives you the same basic rights but ONLY in your home, car, garage or somewhere like that. It depends on where you are if you have a duty to retreat.

Do We Have Stand Your Ground Or Castle Doctrine In Montana?

It's a pretty savvy combination of both the Stand Your Ground And Castle Doctrine.

What’s generally called Castle Doctrine, in Montana it’s called defense of an occupied structure …. (but) we are not dependent upon that statute to be able to exercise that principle of self defense,” he said. In Montana, we changed the law basically to say that a person may use force to defend themselves, anywhere that they legitimately are.” That means if people are in a public park, recreation centre or elsewhere, they can use lethal force to defend themselves if another person threatens to cause them serious bodily harm or kill them.--Western Producer

So, that makes it clear as mud, right?

Actually, I think it's pretty simple, if you are in imminent danger, Montana gives you the right to defend yourself.

Make no mistake about it, people have been jailed for trying to use this to get away with murder in Montana.

Sources: Montana Code Annotated, Wikipedia SYG, Wikipedia CD, The Western Producer

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