Self-defence in Canada

[oldjones]

Sure. In the meantime, there were four masked men trying to burn down a house, and his family were inside that house. Would you have stood waiting for the police? I bet you would have used whatever means were at your disposal to try and chase the attackers away before they killed your kids. I think anyone would. He happened to have a firearm at his disposal.

Perhaps so, if my house was under attack. But striving to build a functioning peacable society with your neighbours has a lot more promise than assuming they—and the government—are out to get you, and that your only hope is to be armed against them.

In fact the back story to this particular incident suggests it was the latest in a string of hot-head confrontations amounting to a feud. At this point, with arson and weapons charges flying about, it's clear the armed response/castle doctrine lead these guys into trouble instead of protecting them.

 

[KBear]

...Thomson ... in order to stop him when he was killing their livestock.

Did not know Thomson killed any livestock. Searching this, and found that the livestock was free ranging and was on Thomson property. Don’t know how you can let livestock (chickens and goats) wander around onto other people's property and think that is somehow ok. If this is the case, after some warnings, would not have a problem with Thomson killing the livestock/pests that were damaging his property, while on his property. The supposed farmers would/should have no right to protect the livestock with deadly force or retaliate.

When cops use their guns there is an investigation. Think Thomson went through the same thing, in that he was charged and run through the courts, so that the courts could investigate and make a decision. Good Thomson was found not guilty.

 

[afterhours]

What a strange article. It does not name the judge, or the crown involved.

the judge was Tory Calvin; I don't know who the Crown was

interestingly, Mr. Thomson racked up about 60,000 dollars in legal costs during the trial. However much of that sum was paid by donations from members of the National Firearms Association, the Canadian Sports Shooting Association and readers of the popular pro-firearms online message board, CanadianGunNutz.com. Social media played an important role in funding.

 

[frankcastle]

Many sides to this story.

What did he do to get neighbours so made that they were going to burn down his house?

Another big issue is people who claimed this was self defence (or someone mentioned the right to self defense).

This is going back to high school law class so I might have foggy recolection but I thought htat you had to demonstrate that you feared for your life and that you had no other recourse.

But the courts went after him for storage of the gun. I was told by a hardcore gun enthusiast..... when I asked him about his opinion on guns for home defense and he basically said you have to think long and hard about going to get a locked gun and killing an intruder with it because you could easily end up the one in jail. I'm not saying his opinion is any stronger due to his interest in guns more just a statement of the context.

 

[fuji]

Another big issue is people who claimed this was self defence (or someone mentioned the right to self defense).

Among the people who claimed it--the prosecution, in withdrawing the charges OTHER than safe storage. A mob of people throwing firebombs at the house your kids are sleeping in gives you reasonable grounds to fear that the well being of your family is in danger.

The actual case was not about self defense, as the court/prosecution accepted that it was self defense. It was about safe storage--they claimed his firearms were readily accessible, using, among other things, crazy arguments like his safe was too close to his bedroom. This is the sort of insanity that any gun owner has to worry about in Canada. I have a gun safe... is it too close to my bedroom? What would be the definition of too close? I live in a condo. Everything is pretty close.

His case was straight forward for self defense with a firearm, or with anything else. The cases that get far more difficult are when someone has perhaps valid reasons to believe there is an unfolding threat to their life, goes and loads a firearm to meet it--and then discovers that they were mistaken. Even if they don't shoot anybody, even if they never even point the gun at anybody, but instead just unload their gun and put it away, they face a challenging legal argument as it is otherwise illegal to load a firearm in a place where it cannot be lawfully discharged. So what's the legal status of a false alarm? Very hard to say.