Un-armed Ohio Man Shots Carjacker

Star, age 29, gets back into his car and drives away. He sees a gun come out from behind his seat. He wrestles the gun away after being shot. In defense he uses lethal force on an unarmed man. Buckeye Firearms Association adds this.

This is an interesting story, because the victim, Starr was not armed. Against the odds, he struggled with his attacker, after being shot, while driving a car, and won. After taking the gun from his attacker, was he able to return fire, killing him. Most stories I read about an unarmed man trying to take a criminals gun end far worse than this one. Congratulations to Starr for winning this battle. He never quit.

It is further interesting, because the carjacker was inside the vehicle before the victim. So under Ohio law, if Starr had been CHL and was carrying, he is required to make sure his gun is in ???plain sight??? of his attacker to be legal. The OSHP claims this is for ???safety??? reasons, though no other law enforcement agency in the country agrees, and the OSHP has never advanced any evidence for their argument.

For some reason the Ohio Senate Republican leadership seems to agree with this twisted line of thinking, as they recessed for the summer and are now claiming will not consider passing HB347 until after the fall elections. If your Senator claims to support your self-defense rights, ask him/her why they will not vote on the good bill the House sent to the Senate on March 8 of this year.

This story also points to the need to pass HB541 and SB308, the self-defense modernization bills, sometimes referred to as ???castle doctrine??? or ???victims bill of rights.??? Twenty percent of the country has passed similar legislation in the past year, but once again, Ohio has a hard time keeping up with common sense improvements other states pass with almost unanimous consent of the legislature.

In Ohio, Starr could be arrested and prosecuted for defending his life from a man who carjacked him and then shot him in his own car. Even if found innocent of all charges, he could face civil lawsuits by the family of the man who tried to kill him. That is wrong.

With current law it may still be possible for the victim’s family to sue Starr for wrongful death. Why? Once the gun was removed the intruder no longer had deadly force. So Starr used deadly force on the intruder who was now ‘defenseless’.

Just another reason Ohio needs the Castle law. Anyone of us would have done the same thing. Better yet just make the intruder a felon for not having his gun in plain site. The only thing more ironic would have been Starr being charged for illegal possession of a stolen weapon, illegal discharge of a weapon and using deadly force on an unarmed man. What are the odds the boys in Columbus will act on the Castle law?

Tags: Ohio