NO DUTY TO RETREAT? LEGITTIMA DIFESA E POLITICHE CRIMINALI DI «RICONOSCIMENTO IDEOLOGICO»

The Italian law of self-defense(after the 2006 reform of some relevant regulations within the criminal code) is analyzed, especially in its socio-political roots and implications. The new determination of the limits of the right of defense, albeit presented by the lawmakers as an enlargement of "citizens' liberty", reveals a will by government to renounce some of its traditional sovereign prerogatives, resulting in a serious discrimination among people having different abilities to actually defend their rights. Some parallels are drawn between this reform and the evolution in the American legal system and judicature (including the Supreme Court)of the "no duty to retreat" principle as well as of the related right to bear arms. The legal analysis is complemented with a criminological and sociological analysis of new and old expressions of the "ideology of vigilantism", as epitomized by the history of collective violence and lynchings.