Of course it's self defense. When someone has a deadly weapon in your face and has threatened lethal force, forcing you into a position where you have to unholster a secured side arm one handed under a table withot looking, an expection of also being expected to change the weapon's setting in that scenario is not even remotely reasonable.

An expectation of self-defense would start with the weapon always being in stun setting unless the user selects otherwise.

That also assumes stun is equally useful against all potential threats, which given canon examples of different disabling weapons for organics and droids isn't true or reasonable.

Of course it's self defense. When someone has a deadly weapon in your face and has threatened lethal force, forcing you into a position where you have to unholster a secured side arm one handed under a table withot looking, an expection of also being expected to change the weapon's setting in that scenario is not even remotely reasonable.

An expectation of self-defense would start with the weapon always being in stun setting unless the user selects otherwise.

I'd say that depends on where you are at any given time. On a "civilized" world like someplace in the Core or Colonies you could definitely make an argument that someone would have their weapon (if they even carried one) set to stun as a default. In a wretched hive of scum and villainy like Mos Eisley? Clearly a location that warrants a permanent kill setting, because you know that anyone gunning for you sure isn't going to bother with niceties like stun settings and warning shots.

However, I am arguing against Solo's actions being justified as self-defense. Lucas wanted to play up the scum and villainy angle, and Solo fed right into it in the original version through preemptive use of lethal force against what appeared to be an incompetent fool playing at bounty hunting.

Judging this by realworld standards (as we have been), it's obviously self-defense. Even if Greedo is considered a "fool" (not agreeing that is justified by the little we see on screen), a fool can still easily pull a trigger at that range and make Han's head go bye-bye. As soon as Greedo pointed the lethal weapon at Han, lethal force was justified. He didn't need to wait for Greedo to make a statement that he was about to kill Han, and even so Han did wait showing even more patience then is needed. Self-defense does not require you to wait for the other person with lethal force to actually use it first since that would be non-sensical. If so we would only be allowed self-defense vs. lethal force when the victim somehow survives the first attack?! A.i. you're pointing a gun at me, but I have to dodge that first shot or hope it doesn't hit me in a vital place before I can shoot you with my gun? Or, you've got a knife, so let me stand here and you take a free swing at me once before I can try to stab you back?

All in in all, an example of (sort of) getting a villian monologuing.

So...

We've confirmed that the only thing worse than SW Nerds arguing over if Han shot first, are SW Nerds arguing over wether or not he shot in self-defense.

Great work guys!

My wife now calls me a 'Double SW Nerd' - once for the films, then the various SW RPG's