It took two and a half years, but Port Colborne, Ont., resident Ian Thomson is finally done defending himself. First he fought the men who tried to murder him. Then, his own government.
Early one August morning in 2010, three masked men shouting death threats began hurling firebombs at Mr. Thomsons home. One of his pet dogs was injured; several fires in and around his home were set.
Mr. Thomson, an experienced firearms instructor, called 911 immediately. He also armed himself with a .38 calibre revolver, stepped outside his home and fired three shots one into his lawn, and two into a stand of trees. His attackers fled. So ended the first threat against Mr. Thomson.
The next began immediately thereafter.
Mr. Thomson was charged with four crimes: careless use of a firearm, pointing a firearm and two charges of careless storage of a firearm, one for each of the pistols he had removed from his gun safe (the second, a 9mm pistol, was never fired during the incident). The first two charges were dropped its hard to imagine a more cut-and-dry case of lawful self defence than firing on men trying to burn down your home while youre inside it. But the Crown insisted on pursuing the charges of careless storage.
On Friday, an Ontario judge acquitted Mr. Thomson of both those charges.
The Crown had pursued two avenues of prosecution. First, it contended that Mr. Thomson kept at least one of his guns in his bedside table, not in a legally mandated secure locking container. As evidence, they pointed to the fact that when police arrived, they found the guns in his bedroom, as well as a box of ammunition in the bedside table.
Nonsense. The guns were out because hed just been fighting for his life. And a box of ammunition in his bedside table is proof only that Mr. Thomson kept a box of ammunition in his bedside table. If we accepted the Crowns logic, I would apparently be in the habit of parking my car in my bedroom because I drop my car key onto a shelf there every evening.
The judge found that video surveillance captured by Mr. Thomsons security cameras offered convincing evidence that Mr. Thomson did not have easy and immediate access to his firearms. There was a gap of a minute between the attack beginning and Mr. Thomson opening fire time during which Mr. Thomson claimed he was opening his gun safe to arm himself. The judge accepted this.
But the Crown had also tried a novel argument they contended that Mr. Thomson was guilty of unsafe storage because his ammunition was not stored in a securely locked container.
Canadian law notes that, Every person commits an offence who, without lawful excuse, uses, carries, handles, ships, transports or stores a firearm, a prohibited weapon, a restricted weapon, a prohibited device or any ammunition or prohibited ammunition in a careless manner or without reasonable precautions for the safety of other persons. (Emphasis mine.) But there are no further references to what would constitute careless storage of ammunition one reason Canadian gun owners have long complained that the Firearms Act is a poorly written mess.
The law specifies that firearms must not be readily accessible to ammunition, but also notes that firearms and ammunition can be stored in the same locked container. OK, then. And no definition of readily accessible is provided, either.
The judge ultimately ruled that the exact details of where or how the ammunition was stored did not matter. It only mattered that a loaded firearm not be readily accessible at any time, and since Mr. Thomsons guns were stored in a locked container, that was the case. The judge rejected the Crowns suggestion that Mr. Thomsons bedroom was too close to his guns, noting the law says nothing about proximity of firearms and ammunition. Having rejected both of the Crowns arguments, the judge acquitted Mr. Thomson.
Theres all kinds of good news here. First and foremost, Mr. Thomson did nothing wrong and should never have been charged in the first place. But an acquittal on all counts will have to do. Second, there is further clarification of Canadas sloppy gun laws, and a reasonable one, at that.
And best of all, a message has been sent to overreaching Crown attorneys. Canadians have the right to use firearms to defend themselves and their homes. Mr. Thomsons victory will hopefully spare the next Canadian who defends themselves with a lawfully owned firearm the expense and ordeal of a long legal battle against their own government.
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