OHIO, USA — Should Ohioans have the right to kill, if in fear for their lives, no matter where they are? That’s the new measure signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine, which went into effect on Tuesday.
Ohio is now a 'Stand Your Ground' state.
"Your first priority ought to be to do what’s best to protect yourself and your loved ones, not to figure out how to check off some strange box that Ohio had in its law previously," says Rob Sexton, Legislative Affairs Director of the Buckeye Firearms Association.
That “strange box" in the previous law states that you must be either in your home, place of work, or vehicle in order to use deadly force against an attacker, otherwise you have a duty to retreat. Now, you can shoot to kill anywhere you’re legally allowed to be, without a duty to retreat, as long as you’re in reasonable fear for your life.
"There’s something wrong with that value-wise, morally. What you might think is a reasonable fear, and what I might think is reasonable fear, could be two different things. Anybody that’s a different color, a different nationality, a different religion, you think maybe they do intend to harm me, so I can go ahead and take deadly action," says Toby Hoover, Founder of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence.
Hoover believes the law will give people permission to claim they were defending themselves, when they could’ve retreated and not taken a life.
This new Stand Your Ground law was originally proposed after 24-year-old Connor Betts shot and killed nine people with an assault rifle outside a bar in Dayton. When he signed the bill in January, Governor DeWine said he will continue to push reforms that do not infringe on Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms.
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