Why do I get this strange feeling that the last laugh could easily be from this ‘intruder’, when he wins a multi-million-dollar defamation suit against all the media, and Ford, for portraying him as a ‘guilty home invader’ instead of the victim, because we really do not know all of the facts - what happens if it turns out the facts establish that he was actually invited in, and the home-owner attacked him first, then tried to invoke his innocence by declaring ‘self defense’? Perhaps a drug deal gone bad?
The police refer to an ‘intruder’, and ‘break-and-enter’, but these claims are ‘alleged’ and have not been established in a court of law. Apparently, according to one article I read, the two knew each other.
‘It’s not over until it’s over’, and even then, it is not always over.
Police took the rare step of issuing a statement after they said that news of the arrest “generated significant public interest and emotional responses” as well as “unjust and inaccurate” commentary about the officers involved.
They said investigators examined all information and evidence that was available to them before laying any charges, adding that only a limited amount of information is being released to the public at this time about this incident as to both protect the investigation as well as ensure the right of the accused during their court proceedings.
“The role of the police is to investigate impartially and present findings to the justice system, which ultimately determines the outcome,” the statement notes.
“We encourage you to follow this matter as it proceeds through the justice system.”
Most of the alleged ‘facts’ presented to the public so far are, at best, fabrications of the public imagination. Did Ford even once use the term ‘alleged’, or similar? His statements were made in public, not covered by parliamentary privilege.
He has revealed his rue colors - just like Trump, he wants to be judge, prosecutor, police commander, jury, and executioner. Ford wants to be the only Law that exists.
The police also indicated that the non-resident individual was charged with offences related to home invasion, is known to police, and had an active arrest warrant out.
Considering that farmer guy got away with shooting the native kid in the face a few years ago, I don’t think these charges will stick if it’s just “stabbing is fine, but he stabbed too much.”
A good defense attorney will turn everything you just said against the prosecution. Everything you said was conjuncture, not supported by facts. That the police charged both men means the facts are undetermined, and they are leaving it up to a court of law to sort through. Break-and-enter is not home invasion. It is a broad catch-all.
Good thing I’m not an attorney, solicitor, or barrister, but rather some random on the internet commenting on what information is available to us and referencing a previous case where violence was used by someone claiming defense of their home.
Thankfully, this is Canada and we have a history of not taking the law into our own hands. It is, in our country, still up to the court and a judge to determine guilt and administer judgement and punishment.
Does a store owner get to cut off the hand of a person who just steals a single candy from a bulk food bin?
The law is clear - in Canada, the courts determine the punishment, not the individual citizen. That is what ‘Common Law’ is all about - one common law for all, uniformly and consistently applied.
It appears that the general public has gotten ‘punishment’ confused with ‘defending property’.
We just don’t know enough yet. Like, did he cut off his fingers after knocking him out? Did the invader and invaded know each other? I hope more details are shared soon because I imagine most of us are going to side with the invaded here.
So let’s review the difference between:
“You broke into my house and I am going to teach you a lesson you will never forget” which is against Canadian law (it is the Courts that met out justice),
and
“You broke into my house and I am going to stop you from doing further damage or injury” which Canadian law allows, and is the meaning of 'Self Defense" in Canada.
If Ford disagrees with this, he should run for governor of an American state, not the premiere of a Canadian province.
Let’s review the difference between charged and found guilty of.
Charged means we’re going to see if he acted legally or not.
Found guilty of means he acted illegally.
Hot take: anyone who hospitalizes someone else with life threatening injuries should be required to defend that action in court. “I was defending myself” is a valid argument, but one that should be heard by a judge at trial. Nobody should be allowed to skip trial entirely just by claiming self defence.
That’s literally how the law works. Reasonable force means you can hurt them (pretty badly) but once they stop being a threat you have stop hurting them.
Nobody gets a free pass.
Reasonable force means you can hurt them (pretty badly) but once they stop being a threat you have stop hurting them.
So, dead?
It’s almost unreasonable for the courts to believe that someone experiencing a home invasion would be in anything but survival mode, and would have the capacity to simply “calm down” once the threat has been stopped. Because to them, they don’t know if the threat is over, or if someone else is going to bust in to kill them, or if the original attacker will fight back, or if they have a weapon, etc.
Courts should be very lenient towards homeowners deafening their life, family, and property. And if the jackass who decided to commit this crime is still alive, they should have severe consequences laid on them, with additional compensation to the homeowner for the trauma they caused.
The term ‘home invasion’ was never mentioned in any article. Stop making up your own ‘facts; and then treating them as truth, making up your facts’ to suit the position you want to proselytize.
The term ‘home invasion’ was never mentioned in any article.
By definition, the unlawful entry of a residence while the residence is still inside is a “home invasion”.
But it’s also in the title of this post, and the homeowner’s lawyer rightfully also refers to it as a home invasion.
Various news outlets use the term “home invasion”, too, including CTV: “Premier speaks out after Ontario resident charged with assault following home invasion” , the Toronto Star:“How much force is reasonable? Lindsay home invasion sparks debate over self-defence laws”, CBC: “Alleged home invasion leaves intruder injured, homeowner facing charges”, and others.
So, yeah.
The comment released by the police does not refer to it as a home invasion. That is my point. I should have clarified my comment “was never mentioned in any article by the police”
The media is the main culprit in pushing the ‘descent into lawlessness’ proselytizing. Despite what is in the media, I have not seen any evidence that this was anywhere near a ‘home invasion’. Even the body of the articles describes the person as an ‘intruder’. which is the most accurate description that fits the available facts. But you also over-reach. CTV’s headline has been corrected to “Ont. man charged with assaulting home intruder used knife, court docs say”. A home intruder does not constitute a ‘home invasion’.
An alleged fact not mentioned in many other articles is
Kalabic says he recently spoke to McDonald, who is “pretty upset about the whole thing,” adding the two men, while not friends, knew one another. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/ont-man-charged-with-assaulting-home-intruder-used-knife-court-docs-say/
The comment released by the police does not refer to it as a home invasion. That is my point. I should have clarified my comment “was never mentioned in any article by the police”
Fair point. I’m not sure police would use that language, as it’s not a legal term as far as I know.
Despite what is in the media, I have not seen any evidence that this was anywhere near a ‘home invasion’.
To add to the above point, the guy was charged with break-and-enter, possession of a weapon with intent, and a few others. He was also already wanted by police. But the fact that the homeowner was in the residence, makes it a “home invasion”.
The fact that those two also knew each other adds complexity of the story, for sure. It may even help the defence.
If the only evidence the police have is that the ‘home owner said he broke in’, without any physical evidence of a break in, there is not enough to convict the alleged intruder. If the alleged intruder said ‘he was just visiting to chat about say money or a loan or a mutual lover, and the owner let him in, and a fight ensued’ the police would naturally charge both parties and let the courts decide. If he was let in, there was certainly no ‘home invasion’ until he was asked to go. So far, the general public has zero evidence-based facts to go on. Just back and forth accusations, and a very injured person. And the media concentrating on the vague statements of only one participant (actually, it appears they are depending on the statements of a third party who was not even present, but ‘just herd that…’).
A lot of posters here are putting words into the mouth of police that the police never stated. What we do have is the official statement of the police as cited in this article. Everything else is media hype.
So, dead?
In some contexts, yes. However you’ll still likely have to defend charges of manslaughter. You’d have to demonstrate that the actions you took could reasonable be expected to not result in the death of the subject; and that those actions were necessary to prevent receiving grievous bodily injury or death.
and would have the capacity to simply “calm down” once the threat has been stopped.
Lots of people defend themselves without turning their unconscious assailants into pin cushions. You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding how reasonable force is determined. I suggest you read my other comments.
they don’t know if the threat is over,
If you can remove yourself from the situation the threat is over. It’s factually wrong to suggest that people can’t tell when they’ve won a fight.
or if someone else is going to bust in to kill them,
Continuing to inflict damage on an incapacitated assailant logically does nothing to prevent another potential unknown assailant from attacking you.
or if the original attacker will fight back, or if they have a weapon, etc.
Those factors will determine what level of force is reasonable. Unreasonable force generally comes into play after the assailant has been incapacitated.
Courts should be very lenient
You should be thankful you have right to defend yourself at all. Not all countries grant that to their citizens. The logical limitation of that right is that defending yourself does not permit you to “counter-assault” others.
Assault in Canada doesn’t require them to hit you first. It includes threats with the ability to follow through. So you may preemptively strike to end an altercation without being charged for assault. HOWEVER, the average male is 28,000% less effective in combat than they think they are. So it’s generally a poor option for untrained individuals… as shit gets out of hand. Pre-emptively striking to end the fight early only works if you can actully do that.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate in my response. I will acknowledge that every case should be evaluated on their own merits, including this one.
In some contexts, yes. However you’ll still likely have to defend charges of manslaughter. You’d have to demonstrate that the actions you took could reasonable be expected to not result in the death of the subject; and that those actions were necessary to prevent receiving grievous bodily injury or death.
To a trained person, this may be possible if they are entering a situation where they have an overview of the situation and know what they are getting into. For example, armed police stopping an unarmed thug.
However, a regular civilian, who has been woken in the middle of the night to an armed invader has no clue what to expect. And then their fight-or-flight response kicks in and they no longer have rational thought.
I think it’s completely reasonable to assume that the homeowner in this case felt that his life was in immediate danger, as the attacker did enter the home with a weapon.
Lots of people defend themselves without turning their unconscious assailants into pin cushions. You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding how reasonable force is determined. I suggest you read my other comments.
And lots more kill them. Like this guy from Milton, who was found to be not guilty after shooting a home invader to death.
If you can remove yourself from the situation the threat is over. It’s factually wrong to suggest that people can’t tell when they’ve won a fight.
It’s a mistake to think that people don’t misjudge the use of excessive or lethal force. Hell, even trained officers are more likely to use lethal force just for having a high heart-rate. And it takes biofeedback training in order for them to reduce (not eliminate) these errors in judgment. (link to study)
Someone broke into someone else’s house in the middle of the night with a weapon (intention to hurt or kill the occupant and/or their family). As quite a few home invasions involve more than one person, how would the homeowner know that someone else isn’t waiting outside, making it a 2 vs 1?
In hindsight, it’s easy to say “the threat was over”, but not so much when you’re in that situation.
Continuing to inflict damage on an incapacitated assailant logically does nothing to prevent another potential unknown assailant from attacking you.
I totally agree, like if someone is running away from you and you shoot them in the back. I’m not aware that this is what happened in this situation.
However… you have to consider the human element: someone was attacked by someone else who intended to cause them harm. Adrenalin, and very likely “sleep inertia” could have also played a role in impairing judgment, making it difficult or even impossible to think logically in a life-or-death situation.
And the reality is, we have trained, armed officers who find it difficult to know when enough force has been applied to an unpredictable situation. I think the courts may be asking too much to think that regular citizens being put in these situations would all of a sudden think and act perfectly.
Damn as an American whose frame of reference is, “if someone breaks into my home in the middle of the night and I shoot them dead it’s likely going to be called justifiable - period” it’s wild to see this.
Like, I’m not saying it’s good that we basically have a mentality of “yo if someone comes into your house you can blast em” as a people … But it’s interesting how divergent the views are.
Yeah that’s how American children get killed “breaking” back into their homes after sneaking out.
I hear my back door kicked in at 3 in the morning, I put on my glasses and load my pistol. My bedroom door opens, there’s a man with a knife. I fire one round. That round pierces his heart and he dies on the spot. Justifiable force.
Instead, I fired two or three rounds in quick succession, because one round might miss or fail to stop him. Very likely justifiable force. Like any person wouldn’t pull the trigger a couple times in that scenario, right?
Instead, I fire one round. It hits him in the chest and does serious damage to one lung. He drops the knife, staggers into my living room and collapses. If I shoot him again to finish him in that state, that’s murder.
I recommend against breaking into houses on this continent.
We actually had an octogenarian here in the States just get charged for doing something almost exactly like this. Two people, guy and woman, and the woman was pregnant. He waited in the garage, where they broke in last time, waited in the dark, shot them while they were running away and the pregnant woman was so alive pleading for her and her unborn’s life when he shot her again. He freely admitted this and was not arrested at first until public outcry, which should have been completely unnecessary given the confession. Cops in America are a special breed of stupid.
Edit: we are so fucked. This actually happened in LA California, and he was never arrested. Happened in 2015
If I shoot him again to finish him in that state, that’s murder.
That’s how our laws work to, just you’d need a license to have that gun. You can beat someone’s ass in self defense but if you lay the boots in after they’re out cold that’s its own crime.
Guarantee that’s the situation here. The fact that the RCMP are withholding details indicates they have a serious case against the guy.
just you’d need a license to have that gun
There is no legal way to have a gun and ammunition that accessible in Canada. In the time it would take you to retrieve both and then load a legally stored gun your home invader could have had a coffee.
Also keeping some other weapon nearby, like a bat by the door, constitutes some kind of premeditation to using it as a weapon.
Self defence laws in Canada are extremely restrictive given the increase in car jacking and home invasions to steal cars.
Yea in Canada we’d just prefer if nobody was shot dead. /s
Americans also don’t see a problem with cops shooting people for simply running away
I definitely have a problem with that.
fair, many of the people might, but the prevailing culture is one that doesn’t really value human life, especially criminals (even suspected ones).
IMO an important fact is the intruder was charged with possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
That raises the threshold of reasonable force quite a bit in my eyes, including “life threatening injuries”
Now he shouldn’t keep beating him when he’s down and out but I’m sympathetic to the invadee so far.
That’s what judges are for, I’m curious how it comes out.
Exactly. Canadian laws are design to incentivize de-escalating the level of violence. Unlike American laws which incentivize jumping straight to lethal force.
“I feared for my life and the lives of my fellow officers.”
Why are individuals held to stricter rules? It should not be legal to shoot someone who is stealing your lawn gnomes but an armed thief inside your house is a thread of unknown magnitude.
I agree that’s BS but that’s also more in the USA where everyone has guns. In Canada cops can’t pull that as easily because statistically people aren’t carrying guns here.
Give homeowners the same benefit of the doubt cops get when they kill someone that threatens them. Probably more because they aren’t trained to deal with immediate threats and evaluate the options like a cop would.
Asking some poor bastard whose never had an altercation and that’s scared of being killed or their family being harmed to evaluate a proportional response in seconds is pretty unrealistic. And then making them go through months of legal hassle and cost to prove that what they did in that moment was correct is cruel and unreasonable.
Give homeowners the same benefit of the doubt
Plenty of people defend themselves without getting charged. Guarantee this guy could have stopped but didn’t. That’s 99% of what constitutes unreasonable force.
Everyone who thinks he was automatically charged for fighting back and winning is misinformed.
Canadians have a legal right to defend themselves. But logically that doesn’t grant you the right to counter-assault or murder others.
The fact that the RCMP are not releasing any details indicates they have a real case against this guy. For all we know he punched him out than laid the boots on his unconscious body.
If it weren’t for the fact the burglar got charge with a weapons offence, I’d be inclined to agree. That bar of “reasonable” should go pretty high when someone’s in your house with a weapon. Now who knows what it was, and maybe the homeowner did beat him after he wasn’t a threat anymore.
I probably wouldn’t go around “guaranteeing” anything. I just hope the definition of reasonable matches the circumstances because there’s a reason people in Canada don’t think you have a right to self-defence, as they’ve recently updated the self-defence laws because of murkiness, and it’s still not clear.
The fact that you think there is a single definition is the root of your fundamental misunderstanding.
(2) In determining whether the act committed is reasonable in the circumstances, the court shall consider the relevant circumstances of the person, the other parties and the act, including, but not limited to, the following factors:
(a) the nature of the force or threat;
(b) the extent to which the use of force was imminent and whether there were other means available to respond to the potential use of force;
© the person’s role in the incident;
(d) whether any party to the incident used or threatened to use a weapon;
(e) the size, age, gender and physical capabilities of the parties to the incident;
(f) the nature, duration and history of any relationship between the parties to the incident, including any prior use or threat of force and the nature of that force or threat;
(f.1) any history of interaction or communication between the parties to the incident;
(g) the nature and proportionality of the person’s response to the use or threat of force; and
(h) whether the act committed was in response to a use or threat of force that the person knew was lawful.
https://lois-laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-34.html
Hypothetical of the day, if you’re forced into sudden fight or flight situation and you decide to fight can you determine reasonable use of force on the fly without hesitation?
What would you do?
Whatever it takes for me to be able to get away and nothing beyond that. That could be a single punch, it could be a gun shot. All depends on the circumstances at the time. The point is “only what is necessary for me to escape”.
I found this interview by CBC to have a good amount of detail, see around 8:00 for your question
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7gbMJCW2xY
Reasonable force doesn’t mean planning it out perfectly in a stressful situation. It means doing what a reasonable person would do in your shoes.
- someone comes at you with a knife and it looks like they’ll hurt you -> deadly force is more warranted
- someone is standing back while holding a wrench and telling you not to come closer -> deadly force is not as warranted
Like the video describes, there’s still lots to this case that we don’t know and to me it doesn’t seem like this is setting any new precedent
What would you do?
Well first off I live in a province where our Trespass Act permits me to physically remove trespassers. If that person assaults me during that removal, I will defend myself. But I used to do that for a job so I’m much more adept at navigating confrontation and responding to violence than the avg person.
Ultimately in a home invasion situation, I just want to avoid my house getting trashed. I do have “whacking sticks” staged throughout my house. I also have flashlights with strobe function (GOAT self defense tool fyi).
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De-escalation. “Hey man. You Okay?” “This ain’t your house” “Can you please leave”
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Assertive that I will not victimized. "There’s the door. Leave now or else tonight is going to end very badly for you.
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Attempt to remove them while creating a tactical advantage such that I can preemptively strike as to end the altercation with minimal damage to all parties.
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TKO them. People with concussions cannot provide reliable testimonies.
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Call an ambulance/police. 50/50 They wake up and assault the police officers. Makes things suuuuper easy for you.
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I’ve been assaulted and defended myself multiple times. Our laws are specifically designed to account for the unique the context of every situation.
Forced into sudden fight or flight situation and you decide to fight can you determine reasonable use of force on the fly without hesitation.
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If you were forced to defend yourself than you had no choice. So regardless of the damage you inflict, the first bar to reasonable self defense is to prove that you were deprived the ability to alternative choices.
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Determining reasonable force is as simple as proving that you once the assailant stopped being a threat, you stopped inflicting damage on them.
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If someone breaks into my house, that’s locked up and secured in the evening, and while I’m asleep starts ransacking my house, scaring or terrorizing my kids and wife, or causing harm, if their face happens to meet the end of a baseball bat, so be it. Reasonable force or not, I’m protecting.
The fact is, if that person wasn’t breaking into my house, there’d be no need for me to introduce a bat to their face, and they wouldn’t be injured.
This protecting perpetrators is nonsense especially when it’s on my own property. They’re the ones doing illegal activities.
Removed by mod
We really don’t know the details here, and I think that’s key. There are scenarios where charging a homeowner make sense. Like you see an intruder with a knife. You whack them with a bat. And you knock them to the ground. And then you just…keep doing it. The guy is literally on the ground, skull half caved in, just begging you to call a fucking ambulance, completely at your mercy…and you’re still whacking him. Force can easily escalate well past what is needed for any reasonable level of self defense. Just because someone breaks into your home does not give you legal permission to torture them or murder them in cold blood. Maybe the homeowner tied the intruder up and literally tortured him.
A prosecutor knows how unpopular prosecuting a homeowner for attacking a break-in victim would be. It would be an obvious political lightning rod. I’m inclined to believe that if they’re willing to go to all that trouble, the homeowner likely did something that went well beyond what any jury would consider reasonable self defense. This is the kind of case you do not as a prosecutor make unless you can be damn sure you’re getting a conviction.
You break into a house, threaten the people inside, you get what you deserve. If they break your bones or end your life, THAT is the risk YOU take. Fuck this holding the VICTIM responsible. Not much I like from US law, but stand your ground and castle doctrine really ring true for me after being home invaded, robbed, and beaten by 3 invaders. What did the cops do? fuck all. Next fucker breaks intro my house will be dealing with trauma for the rest of their lives.
edit: Thank you to all who up AND down voted, and engaged in conversation, I appreciate it, and it was cathartic. I won’t be responding to any more of this post as I have said all I will on this. Remember to not get too mad at dissenting opinions and try to have a great day.
Simply put, if the invader is immobilized and no longer a threat, but you continue to beat them, it’s not self-defence anymore, it’s vengeance. That’s the law in Canada and I’m okay with that.
So, you must not let the adrenaline flow to help you out, got it. I am not a very large man (was an even smaller kid) compared to the average, I have been victimized many times. When I did win a fight in grade school, I almost chocked the kid out completely, he didn’t get up right away when I did finally come back to myself, after he hit me once I only saw black shapes in a red haze I had no idea what I had done. I got in shit, he who started it got to leave with no punishment. So yeah… sure
I only saw black shapes in a red haze I had no idea what I had done
and you want guns and castle doctrine like in Murica? glad this is not the case
Where did I say guns? If I had a gun I wouldn’t have been in the seeing red space, he woulda had a hole in him, one hole more than factory. I don’t own guns (for obvious reasons) and don’t want one personally, I like our gun laws, I don’t like our legal system as there is no justice for the wronged. If the intruder survives their idiocy then they should be punished. If you break into someone’s house you are a threat to their existence and should be dealt with accordingly, if they leave when confronted then they leave, if not they deserve everything they get until you regain control.
If I had a gun I wouldn’t have been in the seeing red space, he woulda had a hole in him
this is the kind of asshole that shoots kids on halloween for kncking on the wrong door
Ok, gotta answer this…
No, I am the kind of asshole that gives kids the good candies and chocolates on Halloween and asks them whats up the rest of the year, cause you know, ringing my door bell or knocking is not a threat ffs
until you “lose” it and then tragedy ensues
I’m physically unable to control myself and don’t see anything wrong with that.
Sounds like you should work on that before you end up hurting someone
So…someone else doing something bad, means you get a pass to do something even worse?
“He tried to steal from me, so I get to murder him”?
Does that really make sense to you?
You break into a house, you have nefarious intentions. You made a choice to cause physical harm, you pay the price. The victim didn’t choose to be broken into, with a weapon to be used against them. The victim doesn’t know if that weapon is for intimidation or action.
See, this is the problem, victim is held responsible then bleeding hearts feel bad for the aggressor when he gets what’s coming to them. In the moment, you don’t have hours to reflect on your actions and adrenaline is one HELL of a drug but yes, keep protecting the aggressors, when they do serve a small amount of time the bleeding hearts try to get them released even when the victims fear their release
You break into a house, you have nefarious intentions. You made a choice to cause physical harm
You tie a man up, and beat him to death…then, you also have “nefarious intentions”. If you didn’t intend to do any harm, then you wouldn’t.
You stop being a victim when you choose to keep going, after the point where it stops being necessary. If that’s simply because you lack any kind of self-control…then it’s manslaughter. But if you knew what you were doing, and did it anyway…then it’s murder.
It’s not fucking hard, dude. It doesn’t matter how much you think they “deserve” to die. Murder is still murder.
The guy you’re replying to appears to have some PTSD from being burgled and assaulted. I don’t think they’re really arguing here so much as emoting.
Fair point. You’re probably right.
I have been assaulted and defended myself multiple times in Canada. It’s not how you’re describing it where you have some duty of care for the person you’re actively defending yourself from. Your right to defend yourself logically does not include the right to counter-assault or murder others. Guarantee this guy could have stopped but didn’t. That’s 99% of the time what constitutes unreasonable force.
Plenty of people hospitalize their assailants and don’t get charged. This story is rage-bait.
Yes, hindsight is 20/20. When you are calm you can realize you went too far. In the moment, you are more concerned with survival, the Adrenalin is flowing and if there is no way to escape ie; physically running is not an option, the fight gets overwhelming. Like I said, break into my house and I will defend myself, if it costs you the use of limbs, brain function, or life, that is a choice YOU made breaking into the house. When I was younger I tried the CORRECT thing, assault, loss of more than I could afford to lose as I liked eating at least enough to live, the cops were totally useless and did nothing, several times. Now I am at the stage of, get the thief to leave but there are very useful objects all over the house, can you say trauma???, and I will NOT be a fucking victim again.
The courts very much factor in if someone is acting in the moment or if they cognitively chose to do something. That’s like a huge thing. End of the day if someone can’t stop themselves from ground and pounding an unconscious person to death, than they are also a problem. The inability to control yourself or a violent situation are risk factors for anyone who doesn’t train martial arts.
We will agree to disagree
I mean sounds to me like you’re conflating your experience with cops to how judges interpret the law; which is simply not true.
It’s not a matter of clashing opinions.
I despise Doug Ford in general, but I agree with him on this issue. Someone fighting for their lives does not have the time or expertise to have to be considering what is an “appropriate” response, and should not be required to. Also ACAB.
The part I disagree with is that he’s making political statements before more details are released to the public for us to judge what happened, and that he’s misrepresenting what the law is. You don’t need to carefully consider appropriateness and pick the perfect action. The ‘reasonable’ refers to doing what a reasonable person would do in your situation, and not a significant escalation past that.
This interview with a former crown prosecutor dives into it in more depth (around 4:00 minutes in)
I disagree with Drug Fraud (as I almost always do). The reason being that I abhor the fact we have completely adopted the idea that our “stuff” is worth more than someone’s life – whether it be ours or someone else’s.
George Carlin made fun of it, but it’s true.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac&pp=0gcJCf8Ao7VqN5tD
I mean, same argument back. I’m not exactly a castle doctrine advocate, but if they’re breaking into my home they may have decided my stuff is worth more than my life. That’s the thing about actually breaking in, it’s so far past what society deems acceptable that you can’t bet on them not hurting you. I’m not saying a situation like this is acceptable, because end of the day that’s what castle doctrine gets to. But you can’t put it all on our “stuff”, people are also in homes.
When you catch someone in your house, it’s not about your “stuff”. It’s about someone being in your home and all that threat implies. You have no idea how it’s going to end.
Riiight. Because there’s millions of home invasions that happen in Canada on a daily basis. 🙄
I’ve been burglarized, I don’t give a shit about the stuff that was stolen, it’s being fucking sketched out about thinking someone is going to be in there the next time I walk in. That takes years to go away or you just move.
And that isn’t about “possessions”. It’s about violation.
I’m guessing from your dismissive cuntery that this hasn’t happened to you, so why would you understand feeling this way about it, eh?
I have been as well. Money stolen once, and the second time I was laid out on the floor with a shot-gun to the back of my head while they took my tv and stereo (way back in the 70’s so no computers, etc to take).
Hope that answers your incorrect assumptions, eh.
I don’t care what the reason is, if you break into a home - the actual home, you deserve whatever you get, no restrictions.
I agree that they deserve what they get, but there needs to be some restriction to defense so that someone who has no intent on confrontation doesn’t get their fucking head blown off or smashed in.
You shouldn’t be able to just intentionally kill someone because they’re in your home, but if they don’t leave immediately, you should be able to royally fuck them up beyond belief until they decide to bail. If they’ve got a weapon and they don’t leave within 5 seconds of you catching them in the house, that’s a different story.
At that point it should be safe to argue that you were in mortal danger and exacted equal punishment to the invader that they intended to inflict on you. If they don’t leave immediately after being caught, they make a conscious choice to remain in the face of danger. The problem I see is that if someone carrying a weapon in your home is beaten and let go, there’s a chance they hold a grudge against you and come back to exact vengeance.
You shouldn’t have to move and abandon your home just because some fucking degenerate is butthurt about having their ass beat. If they leave without a fight, let them leave. If they stay while you’ve got a bat or a golf club in your hand, you should have full license to revoke their right to personal safety. This is just my opinion.
I love my wife more than anything and the thought of someone even threatening her by breaching into our home while she’s there would make it very difficult to remain sane in the moment. I think it would be foolish to treat that as anything other than a mortal threat.
Everyone here taking the rage-bait is clearly ignorant of the actual Canadian laws surrounding this.
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Canadians have a legal right to defend themselves. Something not every country grants their citizens.
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Several provincial trespass acts permit physical removal of trespassers.
So Canadians are well protected in confronting trespassers, so long as their actions are reasonable, IE conducive to removing the trespasser -or defending yourself.
Our laws work well. A fact that’s evidenced by our relatively peaceful society and the fact that stories like this (double charges) are a rarity.
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