When Victims Become The Prosecuted

Ian Thomson's isolated farmhouse located at Port Colborne, appears not to be considered his castle, by Crown prosecutors. We certainly do give lip service to the accepted need and the right under the law for people to defend themselves and their homes and those whom they are responsible for, from intruders to the home whose intention is to do harm. But when it comes to actually having the law and the justice system recognize that need and that right, we've been treated to another reality altogether.

Ian Thomson knows how to safely and responsibly use firearms. He is, after all, a former firearms instructor, expert at what he knows well. And it's also obvious that he's no shrinking violet. His response was immediate and to the point when he awoke one wee-hours-of-the-morning day to the realization that his property was hosting unwanted intruders who did, in fact, mean to do him and his harm.

Masked, and none too stealthy, three men were approaching his house and hurling fire bombs. It was, in fact, the sound of explosions that had awakened him from a sound sleep at 6:37 a.m., on August 22, 2010. He heard one of his unwanted guests greet him warmly with the question: "Are you ready to die?", and he responded in the negative, swiftly gathering a firearm out of its locked cabinet, and loading it.

Adrian Humphreys/National Post Ian Thomson leaves the Welland, Ont., courthouse Monday, Jan. 30, 2012, after testifying in his own defence as he fights criminal charges for shooting at masked men who were firebombing his rural home.

Then he returned the compliment, shouting a warning, as, in his underwear, he presented himself outside his home to fire one shot into the ground and two in the direction of the trees where he knew the men who had invited him to die had decided to do what cowards do best; emulate rats by scurrying away into the underbrush. In the meanwhile, his porch was on fire, as well as his companion dogs' house.

He dialled 911, and while awaiting the eventual arrival of police made use of his garden hose to put out the flames left in the wake of the Molotov cocktail attack. When police did arrive, some ten minutes later (which must have seemed like an eternity), they busied themselves surveying the scene, and decided that Mr. Thomson was deserving of arrest, and laid charges of four gun offenses.

The episode that he had dutifully recounted to them, believing that he was a victim, seemed to matter little; that he was merely defending himself and his property from a violent assault mounted by unknown intruders with murder and mayhem on their minds. As it happened, the charges of dangerous use of a firearm and pointing a firearm were dropped by prosecutors who realized the absurdity of their case.

But they forged on nonetheless with the lesser two charges, determined to apply the letter of the law, to prove that he had not properly stored his firearms under lock and key, with the ammunition stored separately, and secured. A closed circuit video had validated his claims of violent intruders, and another video, presented at court in Welland, Ontario, demonstrated Mr. Thomson's facility with firearms loading, pretty well destroying the prosecutors' theory.

But the trial has been adjourned as Justice Tory Colvin has instructed that a search of case law be embarked upon to assist in the precise and appropriate and relevant understanding of of the gun law in question. It seems that Mr. Thomson is far better served by his lawyer, Ed Burlew, one of Ontario's principal gun-law lawyers, than is the Crown with their stumbling attorneys who have little idea of the fine details of the case they're prosecuting.

In the end, it can only be hoped that reason and rationality will prevail, and the judge, finding for the accused, will suggest to the Crown that an apology is in order directed toward Mr. Thomson, and that the proper authorities (the federal government) begin to take steps to amend a law whose purpose and true legitimacy leaves much to be desired.