I think this is simply the result of favoring a "pacifist" mindset to the point where fighting for any reason is considered repugnant as well as detrimental to everybody involved. In principle, some dream of a society where the vast majority of people are unwilling or unable to fight anymore, and the few who still do will either be criminals or enforcers, with emphasis on "the few." There are those who even abhor violence against criminals no matter how evil their acts or intended acts, which is definitely an extreme case of fearing and therefore hating violence in the most general sense and as a life philosophy. Note that some elected officials who support such laws exempt themselves from them--they'll gladly take our guns and stuff their own holsters. I guess that makes them enforcers, and they can be very practical when it comes to defending themselves, unlike all of us peons who are compelled by law to be helpless.
That's what I think is going on in some people's heads, and there are definitely many things wrong with such a mindset, in my opinion--just as wrong as those who would attempt to use violence to solve every problem. I doubt that I need to go into great detail on this forum about what's wrong with anti-violence (and anti-gun) philosophies and "duty to retreat" laws, but generally the latter places too much of a legal burden as well as danger on the victims of human predators. The bottom line is that people should have the right to decide whether it is better for them to flee or fight from the outset, as attempting to flee can be unnecessarily dangerous for those who can fight, and those who choose to fight should not face unnecessary legal consequences for harming an assailant, as if they owed them something.
Some politicians who put such a legal burden on victims or potential victims of violent crimes may mean well for society as a whole, but are totally wrongheaded in focusing on avoiding violence itself--even against criminals--rather than understanding the real problems and solutions. The same sort of strange abstract thinking is what makes them consider firearms themselves a problem--they think they can reduce gun violence by taking away guns from anybody they can and making violence illegal (or less legal, anyway) for self-defense. In short, they're nuts because in reality there is good violence and bad violence, as well as good uses for guns and bad uses for guns. They don't look at individual people as being responsible for their own actions, and instead blame inanimate things.
Then of course there's the issue of power. Obviously the more helpless and dependent a government's subjects are, in general, the more power a government will have over them.
