2/02/2011

Canadian prosecutors offer lighter sentence to criminal in exchange for him testifying against citizen who used gun in self-defense

This is pretty bizarre. Who is the real threat in Canada, the law-abiding citizen who tries to defend himself or the criminal?

Few politicians, Crown prosecutors, judges, law professors and police commanders believe ordinary Canadians have any business using force to defend themselves, their loved ones, homes, farms or businesses.
It seems every time someone repels a burglar or thief, he ends up in court, too.
Consider the case of David Chen, the Toronto grocer who was acquitted last year of assault and unlawful confinement for detaining a career criminal he caught shoplifting from his store. Crown prosecutors had so convinced themselves that Chen's defensive actions posed a greater threat to public order that they offered a lighter sentence to Anthony Bennett, the shoplifter, in return for his testimony against Chen. . . .
About six years ago, Ian Thompson moved to a rural property near Port Colborne to find peace and quiet. Almost immediately, he had a run-in with his neighbour over the neighbour's unwillingness to keep his chickens in his own yard. Ever since, tension between the two has escalated.
Then, early one Sunday morning last August, three masked men showed up outside Thompson's home and started lobbing Molotov cocktails at the house while Thompson was inside. A former firearms instructor, Thompson took a revolver from his gun safe, loaded it, then went outside and fired two or three shots in the direction of the arsonists. Thompson has surveillance cameras around his property. When he gave tapes to police to aid their search for the firebombers, police charged him with pointing a firearm and careless storage of firearms.
Officers also turned up at his home and confiscated his collection of seven firearms and seized his firearms licence. . . .

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3 Comments:

Blogger Harry Schell said...

This fits with the UK mindset of prosecuting people who actively defend themselves rather than be injured or killed by violent criminals.

I guess it makes the police and law enforcement apparatus look wimpy or something, and we can't have that, y'know.

2/02/2011 9:52 AM  
Blogger Chas said...

And the anti-gun rights crowd patronizingly and disingenuously says, "No one is trying to take your guns away".

2/02/2011 6:34 PM  
Blogger Rail Claimore said...

What is with Canada and Australia following the mother country on this issue? There must be some collective complex involved considering the US and now, Ireland, allow for self defense.

2/03/2011 1:58 AM  

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