Originally Posted by
jtarver
Threatened, you can't just hit someone for threatening something. How is that defending yourself. Walking away is defending yourself and more likely to prevent violence. I thought I gave a thorough explanation of my reason for not pressing charges, did you read it?
I'm sure everybody read it; however, your statement above is probably not accurate, at least from a legal standpoint. If someone announces their intention to harm you, in many (most? hard to say, self-defense law has a gazillion local variants) situations you do have a right to respond with force appropriate to defend yourself. That doesn't mean it's always the best course of action, but you don't always have a legal duty to retreat when explicitly threatened.