Hero or Homicide? Space Force Sergeant Learns the Hard Way You Can’t Shoot Teenagers Running Away

Hero or Homicide? Space Force Sergeant Learns the Hard Way You Can’t Shoot Teenagers Running Away By Jeffrey Straub Sponsored by 2A Self-Defense Law Because when freedom is on trial, you better know the rules before you’re the headline. Orest Schur thought he was saving the neighborhood. Instead, he’s saving a bunk in prison for the next five decades. He’s 29, a former Space Force sergeant, and in 2023 he caught two teenagers messing around his car. Instead of calling the police like a sane person, he grabbed a pistol, jumped into his Hyundai, and went full vigilante. He chased them down in another car, lit it up with eleven rounds, sent them crashing into a fence, and when they bailed out on foot he kept shooting. One 14-year-old boy ended up dead. Another, just 13, got shot in the back but lived. Schur’s story was that he was “fired upon first.” Problem: the police didn’t find so much as a BB gun, let alone a pistol. Not one casing, not one shred of evidence anyone shot back. Just Schur’s bullets and two kids who had been running away. The jury didn’t buy it, the judge didn’t buy it, and now Schur is doing 54 years in Colorado state prison. The DA called it “vigilante violence at its worst.” Translation: you don’t get to play Clint Eastwood with kids running away from your car, no matter how badly you want to teach them a lesson. Here’s the part too many gun owners still don’t get: self-defense law is not about protecting your ego, your pride, or your car. It’s about imminent danger to life and limb. Imminent means happening right now. A kid sprinting away from you doesn’t qualify. Innocence? Gone the second you decide to become the pursuer. Proportionality? Shooting someone in the back for stealing your Hyundai is the definition of disproportional. Reasonableness? Let’s just say no jury of normal people is going to nod along with “Yeah, totally reasonable, I emptied my magazine into a car full of kids.” And don’t even start with Castle Doctrine. California, Colorado same deal. That only covers people breaking into your house. The law presumes an intruder in your living room is a deadly threat. Outside? On the street? Chasing a car? That presumption is gone. It’s not automatic, it’s rebuttable, and prosecutors will happily shred it if you abuse it. People v. Ceballos already told us decades ago you can’t kill someone just for stealing stuff. Tennessee v. Garner told us even cops can’t shoot a fleeing suspect unless there’s a real deadly threat. If the police can’t do it, neither can you. This wasn’t “stand your ground.” This was “leave your ground, chase someone down, and shoot them in the back.” The law doesn’t care that you were mad. The law cares whether you were in real danger of death or great bodily harm. And when the evidence shows you weren’t? Congratulations, you just bought yourself a prison term measured in decades. Now here’s a little puzzle for you: take the first letters of these next lines and see what they spell. Killing kids isn’t self-defense. Nobody thinks chasing suspects is reasonable. Only fools confuse ego with law. Wasting your life in prison isn’t heroic. Put it together and you get the lesson Schur ignored: KNOW. THE. LAW. This case isn’t about guns or politics. It’s about stupidity. Schur thought he was defending freedom. Instead, he lost his own. A 14-year-old is in the ground, a 13-year-old has a bullet scar for life, and a former Space Force sergeant will be collecting commissary ramen until he’s old and gray. The takeaway for the rest of us? If you really want to protect your car, buy a club for the steering wheel. A $40 hunk of metal beats a $400,000 murder trial every time. So yes, stand your ground if you’re in genuine danger. But don’t confuse “danger” with “my car alarm went off and my pride is hurt.” That’s how you end up like Orest Schur another cautionary tale we’ll be teaching for years. Because when it comes to self-defense law, you either learn the rules ahead of time, or you learn them the hard way. And trust me, orange jumpsuits are a lousy classroom. ⸻ Sponsored by 2A Self-Defense Law We don’t avoid nuance, we weaponize it.