History Main / KillingInSelfDefense

!!Since this is a DeathTrope, expect unmarked spoilers ahead!

* ''Series/TheWalkingDead'', [[EvilFormerFriend Shane]] murders a hostage named Randyl in order to lure [[TheLeader Rick]] into the forest to kill him and [[ComfortingTheWidow claim Lori and Carl as his own family]]. But Rick manages to kill him in self-defense just in time for Carl to shoot Walker!Shane in the head.

* In 1988, actor Gianni Russo (best known for his role as Carlo Rizzi in ''Film/TheGodfather'') got into an argument, which quickly escalated into a fight, with a man inside a Las Vegas inside a nightclub he owned, after he intervened to stop him from harassing a female patron. During the fight, the man stabbed Russo with a broken champagne bottle, and in response Russo drew a gun and shot him, which ended up killing him. Due to the circumstances of the killing, no changes were made against Russo as the Nevada District Attorney's Office ruled it a justifiable homicide.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'': The Season 1 episode "The Quality of Mercy" has a BackAlleyDoctor who uses an alien device from a lost civilization to transfer her own life energy to her patients, healing them. At the end, an escaped killer takes her and her daughter hostage, demanding she heal a wound he got from security, but she eventually realizes he intends to kill them both anyway and reverses the flow, killing him and curing herself of the syndrome she was SecretlyDying of (apparently the ''actual'' purpose of the device: executing criminals in a painless way while using the execution to save someone terminally ill). The courts decide that she acted in self-defense and drop any charges, on the condition she turn the device over to station personnel. It will go on to be used in extreme circumstances in episodes of Seasons 2 and 4.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'': The episode "The Quality of Mercy" has a BackAlleyDoctor who uses an alien device to transfer her life energy to her patients. At the end, an escaped killer takes her and her daughter hostage, demanding he heal a wound he got from security, but she eventually realizes he intends to kill them both anyway and reverses the flow, killing him and curing herself (apparently the ''actual'' purpose of the device: executing criminals in a painless way while using the execution to save someone terminally ill). The courts decide that she acted in self-defense and drop any charges, on condition she turn the device over to station personnel.

Enter Killing in Self-Defense, where an assailant is killed by whoever they were trying to harm. This can come in a variety of ways. Maybe the would-be victim managed to fight back and manages to kill their assailant in the ensuing struggle, or perhaps the would-be victim knew in advance that they would be targeted and took steps to {{outgambit|ted}} the attacker. There are even cases where the victim had no intent to kill at all, and the death was purely accidental in nature. In fiction, and in real life, this sometimes results in a sentence for the CrimeOfSelfDefense.

* ''Series/Forever2014'':
** Detective Jo Martinez is confronted by a serial killer, and shoots him when he tries to draw a gun on her.
** Henry has been stalked by another immortal, Adam, since the start of the series. Adam has killed himself in front of Henry, proving he is also immortal, and has just killed two people and tried to frame Henry for their murders. The evidence shows that the stalker's real identity is Clark Walker, a psych patient who just escaped them at Bellevue. Henry arrives home to find his son nowhere to be found and Clark Walker waiting for him. [[ActualPacifist Henry refuses to fight him]], until [[PapaWolf he hears his son coming home upstairs]], [[spoiler: at which point a desperate struggle ensues. Henry ends up stabbing Walker with a letter opener, killing him, but when Walker fails to vanish upon death Henry realizes, to his horror, that the other man isn't Adam, isn't immortal, and is actually dead. Henry would never have killed, even in self defense, if Adam hadn't [[BatmanGambit manipulated him so thoroughly]].]]

* ''Fanfic/HonokasBizarreAdventure'': After defeating Fuhai with her Stand [All Star], Honoka Kousaka considers killing him so he won't come after her family again, and [[LiterallyShatteredLives breaks him apart right when he's about to kill her. Though unaware that [[spoiler:Fuhai is still alive [[AndIMustScream but in literal pieces]]]], Honoka is rather shaken at her decision, but both Kotori and Umi assure her that she only did so to protect herself and her family from a dangerous killer.

* ''Series/BreakingBad'': DEA Agent Hank Schrader ends up killing most of the Salamanca crime family in self-defense situations.
** While tracking down Walt, who has been kidnapped by Tuco, Hank stumbles upon a bloodied Tuco with an M16 rifle. After Tuco opens fire, Hank takes cover until Tuco has to reload and puts him down with one carefully-aimed shot. He embellishes his handling of the situation a bit in his DEA debriefing to make what happened look better on paper (such as identifying himself as an police officer, which he was actually too startled to do), but it was still clearly self-defense.
** His encounter with the Salamanca Twins is a [[ViolenceIsDisturbing lot messier]]: desiring revenge on Hank for killing their cousin, they ambush him in a parking lot, shooting him several times over and [[MurderByMistake murdering several bystanders]] in the process. Thanks to a tip-off, Hank knows they're coming and runs over one of the twins, Leonel, with his car. The other twin, Marco, shoots him again before grabbing an axe to [[CoupDeGrace finish the job]]. Hank succeeds in loading his gun in the nick of time with a spilled bullet to put Marco down.

* Many times, the murderers in ''Manga/CaseClosed'' will claim they killed their victims (generally of the Asshole kind) only to defend themselves. 99% of the time said claims won't be validated by Conan and the other detectives; a police inspector even delivers one of these killers a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech where he basically ''recited the whole Japanese law about self-defense from memory'' to disprove his claims.

* ''Fanfic/ALeafOfTheTree'': Sugishi takes advantage of this when assigned to take care of Juzo. Juzo already holds a grudge against her for how she [[MarkOfShame scarred his cheek]] during a previous encounter; when they see each other again, she taunts him, then heads off on her own, luring him out and getting him to attack him in front of one of the servants of the daimyo of Noodles. Said servant testifies to their lord and to the Kiri delegation that Juzo went after her first, resulting in her being found innocent on these grounds.

** Used as a form of TheReveal in the second case of ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney''. The (relatively) spoiler-free recap is that the victim, Pal Meraktis, strangled the culprit, after which he tried to dump the body into a river. Said culprit was NotQuiteDead, however, and killed him shortly after regaining consciousness.

* Invoked and parodied by ''WebVideo/HydraulicPressChannel'' via [[TheStinger the "extra content" segments]]. Lauri's wife Anni sculpts cutesy little creatures out of clay, for the sole purpose of placing them on her husband Lauri's hydraulic press platform. Lauri always "rationalizes" the destruction of these cute figures this way by arguing that ''all'' of them "can a-ttack at ANY time, [[OnceAnEpisode so we must]] [[CatchPhrase deal with it]]." Cue the piston coming down and comically squashing the clay sculpture. The more harmless the creature would actually be if it were real, the better.

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[[quoteright:350:[[Series/BreakingBad https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hank_dean_norris_in_one_minute.png]]]]

[[folder:Films]]

* ''Webcomic/BeyondTheEnd: In the original version of chapter 23, End killed one of the demons in self-defence. This was written out in the rerelease, where the demon instead miraculously survived.

Compare AssassinOutclassin, which encompasses all instances of foiled assassination attempts, and GuiltFreeExterminationWar when this applies to large groups or entire species. Compare also CounterAttack, especially for VideoGames. Also see InconvenientlyVanishingExoneratingEvidence.

** Invoked again in the final case of ''VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigationsMilesEdgeworth'', where the culprit claims he killed an interloper who was hired to steal something from him in self-defense. It's heavily implied to be a lie and it ultimately becomes a moot point seeing as he committed ''another'' murder that night that ''wasn't'' self-defense. The sequel’s final culprit makes a similar argument about killing the victim, since [[spoiler:Simon]] otherwise made it a point to [[ManipulativeBastard never kill anyone directly]][[note]]Unlike the first Investigations game, this argument may actually hold. Considering the final culprit was [[spoiler:in a hot-air balloon]] at the time, the victim was proven to be armed, and had attempted fire upon [[spoiler:the balloon]] at least once, an argument could be made that both escape and diplomacy were impossible, especially since [[spoiler:a fleeing hot-air balloon is still a very easy target for a gun]].[[/note]].