The fact that the state of Tennessee is charging an 88-year-old woman with aggravated assault, after she shot a man who was robbing her store, is evidence that the “Castle Doctrine” doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the great state of Tennessee.

According to the state of Tennessee, the lil ol’ woman, whose real name is Mary Bell Boyce, committed a crime when she took out her gun and shot a robber who “lunged at her” and then ran out of the store with the goods he had just stolen.

It clearly says right there in 39-11-611 code, Section (b)(1), that a person doesn’t have to flee her home or place of business if she feels her life is in danger:  “Notwithstanding §39-17-1322, a person who is not engaged in unlawful activity and is in a place where the person has a right to be has no duty to retreat before threatening or using force against another person when and to the degree reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect against the other’s use or attempted use of unlawful force.”

Ms. Boyce wasn’t engaged in an unlawful activity because all she was doing was selling goods out of her liquor and wine store. She was in a place that she has a right to be, which is her liquor and wine store that she owns.

Ms. Boyce didn’t have a duty to retreat before threatening or using force because she was attacked by a person who admitted to the police that he had been drinking and using cocaine. Alcohol and cocaine are a deadly concoction that leads people to rob and or steal.

Therefore, the alleged assailant’s violent act of attacking Ms. Boyce made her actions of threatening or using force against him in order to “protect against” his “use of unlawful force” justifiable.

The state, though, doesn’t see it this way. They think the lil’ ol’ 88-year-old woman had no reason to fear a man who attacked her and admitted to the police that he was high on cocaine and drinking throughout the day.

The state also doesn’t believe that the police coming out to Ms. Boyce’s store , every week during the last month, to break up fights and to investigate thefts and shootings is evidence that Ms. Boyer had anything to fear.

As far as the folks over the great state of Tennessee are concerned, fighting, stealing, and shooting is what happens at liquor and wine stores. It’s the South! Everybody got a right to own a gun. It’s an occupational hazard that all proprietors of liquor and wine stores have. “Deal with it,” is what the state that gave us Stonewall Jackson will say.

The way the folks over the great state of Tennessee see it is that the threat had ended after the robber had left with the stolen goods. Let the state tell it, there was no need for Ms. Boyce to shoot the robber who had just assaulted her and stolen her goods. The robber was leaving. All Ms. Boyce had to do was call the police, give them video footage of the robber committing his crimes, and then leave it at that. And if the robber came back to commit more assaults and steal more goods, then so be it. Ms. Boyce isn’t the law. She’s a proprietor of a liquor and wine store business down in the ‘Dirty South.’

Therefore, according to the folks over the great state of Tennessee, Ms. Mary Bell Boyce’s 2nd Amendment Right to protect her 1st Amendment Right to life ends where the right of the cocaine and alcohol filled assailant’s right to rob and beat the hell out of her begins.