Self-defense

Self-defense is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm.

• He knew from experience that “self-defense” could mean whatever a person or group wanted it to mean.
  • Philip José Farmer, The Dark Design (1977), Chapter 19

• Self-defense is the clearest of all laws; and for this reason - the lawyers didn't make it.
  • Douglas William Jerrold, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).