Harper taking flak from legal experts over rural gun-justice remarks
Ontario’s former attorney general is accusing Prime Minister Stephen Harper of irresponsibly counselling Canadians to commit a crime by using guns for their own security.
In an interview Tuesday with the Citizen, Michael Bryant said the prime minister has completely “misstated” the truth about Canada’s laws by linking gun ownership with the right of rural Canadians to use firearms for their own safety if police forces aren’t close enough to respond.
Bryant’s assessment of whether Canadians have the automatic legal right to use a gun to defend themselves was echoed by other legal experts and a spokesman for the Canadian Bar Association.
Those experts threw cold water on the so-called “castle doctrine” that some people say allows Canadians to protect their homes. Moreover, they noted that unlike in the United States, where there is a constitutional right to bear arms, Canadians have no such right.
“It’s not Canadian law,” said Bryant, who was attorney general in the provincial Liberal government from 2003 to 2007.
“It’s vigilantism. People are going to find themselves facing the criminal justice system and being charged with serious crimes if they decide to follow what the prime minister is suggesting.”
READ MORE: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/harper-taking-flak-from-legal-experts-over-rural-gun-justice-remarks
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