Just when was Ian Thomson guilty of unsafe storage of a firearm? Mr. Thomson is the Port Colborne, Ont., man currently standing trial in a Welland, Ont. courtroom after he and his home were attacked by firebombers in August, 2010. (That's correct, in the topsy-turvy world of Canadian criminal justice, Mr. Thomson and his home were the ones attacked and yet he is the one on trial.)
Having dropped other more serious charges - such as dangerous use of a firearm - because they concluded there was no reasonable chance of winning a conviction, Crown prosecutors have nonetheless bullied ahead with unsafe storage charges against Mr. Thomson.They go on to explain that three masked men, yelling threats, attacked Thomson's home with Molotov cocktails that actually came through the windows of his home. Thomson retrieved two handguns from his locked gun safe, and returned fire. The prosecutors are apparently arguing that there was no way that Thomson could have retrieved and loaded his firearms quickly enough to have used them, so he must have had them out of the safe and unloaded when the attack began. Is this crazy enough for you?
There are many things about Canada that I like very much. As near as I can tell, the population is well to the right of their government, but the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (sort of NPR/PBS with a funny accent) pretty well runs the place. But that a prosecutor would even consider filing such charges tells me a lot about who is running things there.
I hate that Mr. Thompson will be a test case, but this is the perfect kind of case to show the public how dumb the law is so it can be changed. It is ridiculous for The Crown to pursue a case like this since it is so obviously black and white. I spend a lot of time up there, so I know that it will take a high-profile case that is very obvious to convince the general public that guns aren't evil.
ReplyDelete