I am a bit troubled by the fact that there are millions of people licensed to carry firearms for self-defense in public but only hundreds of views of Andrew Branca’s Law of Self Defense University videocasts.

I’ve written before about my experience taking Branca’s live seminar, which was well worth the money and highly recommended, as well as his videocasts and other information Branca makes freely available on his website. The fact that he is making this information available free to the public is commendable and I hope more people will view all of the videocasts, including this one that covers self-defense immunity vs. stand your ground and also self defense insurance.

In the first part, Branca makes the point that self defense immunity and stand your ground are often conflated because Florida passed both laws at the same time. But he noted that states can have one or the other, both or neither. In Branca’s view, self defense immunity is the more valuable of the two laws, since in a civil case, one can be held responsible by only the preponderance of the evidence (rather than beyond a reasonable doubt as in a criminal trial) and because being held responsible for only a portion of an overall award could be financially devastating for many people. (Not to mention the simple cost of a civil defense.)

In the second part, Branca compares different types of self defense “insurance,” and you can see his views yourself. But he makes an excellent general note which is that none of the options out there right now are actually “insurance” in the sense that they are not regulated as insurance providers. One thing that insurance regulations do is ensure that a company selling insurance has sufficient resources to pay claims. No such regulations apply to self defense insurance claims. So, if a company is guaranteeing to pay your legal fees if you are acquitted in a self defense trial, can they actually do so? Consider that George Zimmerman’s legal defense cost several hundred thousand dollars.