Fatal Columbus-area carjacking prompts New Year's Resolution

by Ken Hanson

The Christmas season is usually a time of joy and happiness for families. A time to take a short break from work, spend quality time with extended family and "pay forward" the magical experience of Santa to the young children in your lives.

Just as sure as joyous, lasting memories being created, there is bound to be unfathomable tragedy in the lives of a few families, in a season that was expected to bring nothing but joy. Personally, I buried my father on December 23, 1995, so I know what it can be like to turn the season upside down.

This tragedy from Scioto County is simply too sad to retell. I cannot imagine the burden that this family has been asked to shoulder, and if it is within your means, I am certain that a donation to the benefit fund set up for the family will be well used.

Closer to my personal home is the occurrence of a fatal carjacking that occurred Sunday night.

Reading the story, my initial shock and sorrow slowly gave way to a boiling rage. All of the explanations I have heard from students, all of the excuses from citizens, all the lame editorials over the past eight years...they recycle and recycle through my head.

For those of you unfamiliar with the location of this crime, Tuttle Mall is a "nice" area - south Dublin or extreme northern Hilliard, depending upon your bias.

It is one freeway exit past Muirfield, where the Memorial Golf Tournament is held. In fact, during the tournament, many golfers, staff and guests stay at the hotels right across the street from Tuttle. It is a good, safe area, one where you would never expect this sort of thing to happen. My wife and daughter were here shopping five days prior to this happening.

And then I realized my thinking had slipped into "sheep mode." In the last week, editorial boards rallied against SB239, with the common refrain of "no one NEEDS to carry a gun in a restaurant that serves alcohol." The same editorial boards that have fought against every attempt to make Ohio's car carry consistent with 47 other states.

The same editorial boards that opposed Ohio's Castle Doctrine, which established the legal presumption that a person is acting in self-defense when someone attempts to invade your occupied vehicle. The same editorial boards that opposed the original HB12 and the provisions allowing carry of a gun in a car to begin with, fearing that traffic accidents would end in gun fights. In the words of then-Ohio State Highway Patrol Captain John Born, who has been appointed by Governor-elect John Kasich to head the OSHP, if there is a car-jacking, just "drive off."

So here I was, in looking at this incident at Tuttle, and after silent prayers for the widower and orphans, my first thoughts were "Who would have thought that it could happen at Tuttle?"

Shame on me. I know better. You don't get to pick when and where car accidents happen, so you can be sure to buckle up. You don't get to pick when house fires happen, so you can be sure to have fresh batteries in the smoke detector and freshly charged fire extinguishers. You don't get to pick when your peanut-allergic child is accidentally exposed and goes into anaphylactic shock, so you can be sure you have the epi-pen on hand.

I don't get to pick when and where I will be a crime victim, and I know this better than most. Yet I allowed myself to slip into that "sheep mindset."

So my New Year's resolution this year is recommit myself to the correct mindset, and, on risk of offending others, to continue to aggressively lecture others on the err of their ways when I catch them saying "Baaaaaa."

I also promise that I will continue to call out editorial boards and politicians anytime they start talking about "need" and "reasonable restriction" in the context of our Constitutional right to self-defense. The bright light of scorn and ridicule needs to burn away the jackassery/asshattery masquerading as political leadership and editorial consensus in Ohio.

Ken Hanson is a gun rights attorney in Ohio. He serves as the Legislative Chair for Buckeye Firearms Association, and is the attorney of record for Buckeye Firearms Foundation, which filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the Heller and McDonald Supreme Court cases. The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) has awarded him with its 2008 Defender of Justice Award and 2009 Jay M. Littlefield Volunteer of the Year Award. He is the author of The Ohio Guide to Firearm Laws, a certified firearms instructor and holds a Type 01 Federal Firearms License.