What Are the Self-Defense Laws in Oklahoma?
In today’s world, it can feel more and more like we need to protect ourselves. While statistics show that Oklahoma’s violent crime and property crime rates dropped in 2022, they’re still higher than the national average. And regardless of the numbers, many residents have a feeling of uneasiness, especially in cities. If you want to be prepared to protect your home and your loved ones, you should know about self-defense laws in Oklahoma.
What Is Self-Defense?
Self-defense is a legal concept that allows a person to protect themselves from harm. Individuals are allowed to use self-defense to prevent great bodily injury or to prevent themselves from being a victim of a forcible felony, like robbery, assault and battery, or rape.
Under Oklahoma law, “great bodily injury” includes bone fractures, disfigurement, loss or impairment of a body part (including the brain), or an injury with a substantial risk of death. If the action of another person is likely to cause these injuries, you’re allowed to use force, including lethal force, to defend yourself.
Self-defense is closely related to justifiable homicide. According to Title 21, Chapter 24 of the Oklahoma legal code, homicide is justifiable (which means reasonable or defensible), if the person using force is:
- Resisting a murder attempt or an attempt to commit a forcible felony against them
- Resisting an attempt to commit a felony in their home
- Lawfully defending themselves or another person against death, great bodily injury, or a forcible felony
- Attempting to lawfully apprehend someone for committing a felony
Under the law, a "forcible felony" involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any person. As we’ll see, self-defense laws in Oklahoma apply to many different situations – but not to others. Let’s dive in.
What Are Oklahoma’s Self-Defense Laws?
Every state in the U.S. recognizes the right of an individual to use self-defense to prevent serious harm or death. However, the elements that someone needs to fulfill in order to claim self-defense differ from state to state, and Oklahoma has some unique laws of its own.
Most self-defense laws in Oklahoma are spelled out under the Firearms Act of 1971, especially the section on “Physical or Deadly Force Against Intruder.” This section has been amended several times since 1971 and now covers all of the following legal concepts.
Castle Doctrine
Under traditional self-defense laws, using force is not justified if the person could have avoided the conflict by retreating or stepping away. The Castle Doctrine, which most U.S. states follow, modifies this standard so that it doesn’t apply to your home.
Put simply, under the Castle Doctrine, a homeowner is allowed to use force against an intruder if they believe they’re in danger. If someone breaks in, they do not have to retreat or flee from their own home.
The specific part of Oklahoma law that recognizes the Castle Doctrine says that homeowners are justified in using force when:
- Someone has made an unlawful entry into the home, and
- The occupant has a reasonable belief that this person might use physical force, no matter how slight, against anyone in the home.
Oklahoma’s Castle Doctrine also clarifies that the simple fact someone is breaking into your home is enough for you to “reasonably believe” they intend to harm you. They don’t need to show any specific intent, like threatening you or carrying a weapon. You can legally defend yourself and you’ll be immune from both criminal and civil action.
Make My Day Doctrine
One weakness in the original Castle Doctrine is that it only applied to homeowners within their own homes. That means that if you had guests over, or went out for the night and left the kids with a babysitter, those people wouldn’t be protected if they needed to defend your home. The Make My Day Doctrine extends the Castle Doctrine to apply to anyone who is legally in a home, as well as people who are in their place of work or their vehicle.
Oklahoma’s Make My Day Doctrine was established by the 1998 case State v. Anderson. In that case, an invited guest in a home shot two would-be robbers, killing one of them. The state argued that the Castle Doctrine didn’t apply, because Anderson wasn’t a resident of the home. But the trial court agreed with Anderson’s argument that he was protected by self-defense laws, establishing the Make My Day Doctrine.
Stand Your Ground
In 2011, self-defense laws in Oklahoma changed again, expanding to cover anyone who is legally present at any location – a doctrine known as Stand Your Ground. This additional section of the law states that a person can claim self-defense:
- When they’re attacked in any place they have a right to be, and
- They’re not engaged in unlawful activity, and
- They believe force is required to prevent death, great bodily injury, or a forcible felony.
Oklahoma’s Stand Your Ground law specifically states that a person who meets the above requirements “has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force.” It also limits the ability of law enforcement to arrest someone who claims self-defense. With this language, Oklahoma’s self-defense laws go beyond many other states’ laws.
Open Carry Laws
Oklahoma also has open carry laws, which are related to self-defense. In Oklahoma, anyone over age 21 (or age 18 if they’ve served in the military) can have both concealed and openly carried firearms in many public places. As of 2019, you don’t even need a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
There are some limits to open carry. Carrying a gun with the intent to shoot someone is a felony that can get you a $5,000 fine and up to two years in jail. In addition, it’s illegal to carry or use guns while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. There are specific laws around guns in airports, and you can’t carry them in certain places, including:
- Bars and other establishments where liquor sales are the main purpose
- Government buildings, including courthouses
- Prisons, jails, and detention facilities
- Schools, unless you have a permit from the district’s Board of Education (for example, armed school resource officers)
- Sports venues and gambling halls, unless specifically allowed
How Do You Prove Self-Defense?
Self-defense laws in Oklahoma are broad, but you still need to back up your claims with specific evidence. Generally, you’ll need to prove that:
- You weren’t doing anything illegal.
- You weren’t the aggressor (the person who started the fight).
- You believed the other person was going to severely harm you, kill you, or commit a felony against you.
- The amount of force was justified to stop this from happening.
Consulting an experienced criminal defense attorney is the best way to build a claim of self-defense, but we’ll also quickly go over each of these items.
You Weren’t Doing Anything Illegal
Under Oklahoma law, you must have a right to be wherever the incident takes place. If you’re in your own home, car, or place of work, you meet this requirement. If you’re in someone else’s home, you must be an invited guest. But if you’re trespassing, you can’t claim self-defense.
Even if you’re there legally, you can’t be doing anything illegal – if you’re in the middle of a drug deal and shoot someone for example, that’s not self-defense. This includes if you’re a felon and you use a firearm - you can’t claim self defense, because it was illegal for you to possess the gun in the first place. You also can’t use force against someone else who’s legally allowed to be there or against someone who is lawfully removing children from your home. These laws are meant to guard against self-defense being used in cases of domestic violence.
You Weren’t the Aggressor
This one is simple: You can’t start a fight and then claim self-defense. The aggressor, or the person who initiates the situation, loses their right to self-defense. There is a caveat to this restriction though: even if a person starts a fight, they can regain the right of self-defense if they withdraw or attempt to withdraw from the altercation and communicates that withdrawal or attempted withdrawal to the other participant in the altercation. If the other participant continues to fight the person who wants to quit, the participant who was not originally at fault becomes the aggressor. Scaggs v. State, 417 P.2d 331 (Okl. Cr. 1966); Townley v. State, 355 P.2d 420 (Okl. Cr. 1960), on rehearing 1960.
You Had a Reasonable Fear of Harm
As we’ve mentioned, you must be afraid that you’ll be severely injured or killed in order to claim self-defense. Under the Castle and Make My Day Doctrines, courts will generally find that someone had a reasonable fear if a reasonable person, in the circumstances and from the viewpoint of the defendant, would reasonably have believed that he/she was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm.
The Amount of Force Was Justified
Oklahoma’s broad self defense laws don’t mean that you can just shoot anyone you want in your home or place of business. You need to prove that the amount of force you used was proportionate to the threat. Oklahoma has a number of interesting cases that have addressed this issue and others under its self-defense laws.
In 2011, Oklahoma jurors found that pharmacist Jerome Ersland’s use of force was not justified when he shot a teenager during a robbery. While he did have a right to defend his business, Ersland then shot the teen five times as he lay unconscious on the floor. Since an unconscious teen poses no threat, Ersland was charged with murder.
In 2019, Frank Reynolds was convicted of murder in the first degree for fatally shooting his daughter’s boyfriend. Video footage showed that although the two were arguing, the boyfriend didn’t make any physically threatening movements toward Reynolds. The court denied his motion to dismiss his case based on the Stand Your Ground law.
In 2022, a Tulsa man who tried to claim self-defense under Stand Your Ground laws was found guilty of assault and battery with a deadly weapon for shooting a process server who came to his house. Video footage and weapons evidence showed the process server was walking away from the home when he was shot.
The Bottom Line
Self-defense laws in Oklahoma protect you in many situations, but they’re not always black-and-white. If you or a loved one has used force and you feel it was self-defense, you need experienced lawyers like the Khalaf Law Firm on your side. We can help you demonstrate that you had a reasonable fear of harm or death, and that your actions truly were self-defense. Contact us today for a free case evaluation and we’ll get started.