SCOC says threat to use gun is firearms offence

[CBC News]

Threatening someone with a gun may be enough to warrant being charged with a firearms offence, even if one isn't being carried, Canada's top court ruled Friday.
In a unanimous ruling, the nine-member Supreme Court of Canada upheld a court decision in B.C. that convicted a man of gun possession, even though he argued he never had the weapon on him during a break-in four years ago.
According to court documents, 25-year-old Andre Omar Steele and three accomplices warned the residents inside, "We have a gun," and repeatedly told one another to "Get the gun, get the gun."
The four men fled minutes later, but police stopped their getaway car shortly after and found several weapons, including a loaded handgun under the driver's seat.
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[MikeyDB]

Make perfect sense to me...

Can anyone please supply a rationale for accepting the slaughter of Afghanis or Iraquis as being somewhow different? Hasn't the walk softly but carry a big stick simply migrated onto the streets of our nations?

For those unwilling to entertain this idea I have another question I'd appreciate an answer to...

If a man already worth (as in owns and exhibits) enormous amounts of money and real estate, chooses to defraud everyone and ignores video tape evidence of his willingness to forego a legal order...isn't hungry...not like the man who steals to pay the rent or feed his family or even feed the substance abuse condition that he or she finds themselves living through...this wealthy person isn't a fool, he's a well educated intelligent human being....decides that the laws of the land don't apply to him....who's more guilty the person who steals for some "reason" some "justification" from poverty or ignorance....or the man who knows the difference between right and wrong.....

Is the "guilt" of an individual who threatens the use of a firearm against anyone else not exactly the same as the Canadian or the American preparedness to use the same negotiation tactic with nations to prevent them from atomic power...to support a criminal and terrorist regime when "necessary"...who's more guilty?

 

[#juan]

Sounds to me like they had a gun and are just trying to squirm out of charges. I wouldn't believe them for a minute. Even if the cops didn't find any gun, in the car or anywhere, they are still guilty of armed robbery because they said they had a gun. What victim is going to demand proof that his assailant has a gun?

 

[MikeyDB]

Juan

I have many guns and I have as yet never threatened anyone with their use. I'm not guilty of this behavior but the thinking behind "gun-control" is exactly this....

If a person threatens use of a gun in the commission of a crime, that's far more heinous than putting a knife to someones throat ...right?

And yet we all have no difficulty with doing exactly the same thing with the Canadian Van Doos...or the U.S. Marines or cruise missiles and carpet bombing.....

If our justice system is prepared to jail people for what they think as opposed to what they do, we've taken a huge step backward.....to right where we belong.

I've stated before here at CC that unless you can prove a legal and rational use for having a firearm, and you're found with one.....at a minimum.....five years in prison.

But when we translate the morality from the small-scale of a street heist or a mugging, our notions of morality change.....

Why is this do you suppose?

 

[tracy]

Making a threat isn't a thought, it is an act.

I don't feel sorry for these people and I find the notion that their actions have anything to do with foreign policy ridiculous.

 

[MikeyDB]

Tracy

I agree with you, but is that "act" of the same seriousness if a person doesn't actually have a gun but implies that if you don't hand over the XYZ...I'll use it....

Is the lie that you're going to do something when you're campaigning to be elected ....invest in hospitals or housing for the homeless, etc. etc. a less heinous crime?

No it's not a crime because no one comes to harm right?

Double standards abound.

 

[MikeyDB]

Tracy

Re-red your post. How a society behaves isn't germane to the structure of laws and actions they're prepared to inflict on other societies is meaningless.....

When a Moslem says kill the infidels is that OK?

When a nation practices regime-change that turns into civil war....because "we" need to "protect" our access to petroleum.....

The behavior of the people shouldn't be entertained as exemplar in examining the large paradigm of justice?

Please anwer my question, why does the moral standards of a society permit what the same moral standards of that society prohibits domestically...

Who were those thousands of troops rallied to the Nazi cause....Who are these people who walk into shopping bazars and detonate explosives....

Aren't these criminals just people who are acting on their convictions?

I'm beginning to understand thanks Tracy....

"If we catch you threatening someone on our streets that's a crime....if we catch you promoting hatred against our "enemy" that's perfectly OK....

Am I close here Tracy?

Where does the argument of social "standards" come from if not from addressing the issues we confront in our own societies?

One society claims it's worth letting one guilty man free against the possibility that ten innocent people are executed....

Your're going to have to help me out with this idea Tracy......

 

[tracy]

No you're not close at all.

To answer this:

Please anwer my question, why does the moral standards of a society permit what the same moral standards of that society prohibits domestically...

Because some people are pragmatic enough to accept reality. I'd love for it to be so simple (there is only one way to behave, just be nice everywhere and everyone will be nice) but it's more complex than that. Different circumstances call for different actions.

 

[tracy]

Tracy

I agree with you, but is that "act" of the same seriousness if a person doesn't actually have a gun but implies that if you don't hand over the XYZ...I'll use it....

Is the lie that you're going to do something when you're campaigning to be elected ....invest in hospitals or housing for the homeless, etc. etc. a less heinous crime?

No it's not a crime because no one comes to harm right?

Double standards abound.

When people point out other bad actions, that isn't a defense of their own. Crying double standard when you can't defend your own actions is a sign of immaturity.

"But Mom! He did it first! He was worse than me"...:roll: Simple answer from Mom: "We aren't talking about him, we're talking about you".

 

[MikeyDB]

So is that the basis for the idea that pre-emptive defense is an honorable strategy?


You still haven't anwered the question.

 

[MikeyDB]

Sorry Tracy I have a dial up connection and you posted your answer while my machine was digesting the last bit....

So morality is a flexible concept right? If it's acceptable for a nation why isn't it flexible for the criminal?

 

[MikeyDB]

Tracy let me put this into greater focus....

I suspect that the guy down the hall is a terrorist...... I know that the great free democracies of the world have decided already that it's moraly OK and entirely prudent to kill the suspected terrorist...aren't I simply following the consensus the larger philosophical temperament of the society in which I live if I shoot this suspected terrorist?

 

[#juan]

Juan

I have many guns and I have as yet never threatened anyone with their use. I'm not guilty of this behavior but the thinking behind "gun-control" is exactly this....

If a person threatens use of a gun in the commission of a crime, that's far more heinous than putting a knife to someones throat ...right?

And yet we all have no difficulty with doing exactly the same thing with the Canadian Van Doos...or the U.S. Marines or cruise missiles and carpet bombing.....

If our justice system is prepared to jail people for what they think as opposed to what they do, we've taken a huge step backward.....to right where we belong.

I've stated before here at CC that unless you can prove a legal and rational use for having a firearm, and you're found with one.....at a minimum.....five years in prison.

But when we translate the morality from the small-scale of a street heist or a mugging, our notions of morality change.....

Why is this do you suppose?

Robbing someone using a gun, or robbing someone using the threat of a gun, is exactly the same crime. In either case the robber is threatening the life of the victim. If the prospective robber without a gun, threatened a bank teller using his finger in a coat pocket got shot for his trouble by a bank guard, would the bank guard be guilty of shooting an unarmed man? I don't think so. Armed or unarmed, robbing a bank using the threat of a gun is still armed robbery.

 

[MikeyDB]

Juan

You wouldn't happen to be a Catholic would you?

Thinking about hoofing the neigbors wife is the same as hoofing the neighbors wife according to the Chrisian faith as interpreted by Catholicism....

So the agent of criminality is what we think....

If I think I can get the bank teller to hand over the money if she/he thinks I have a gun....

 

[tracy]

Sorry Tracy I have a dial up connection and you posted your answer while my machine was digesting the last bit....

So morality is a flexible concept right? If it's acceptable for a nation why isn't it flexible for the criminal?

Hey, if the criminal can come up with a really good excuse for why he found it necessary to threaten and rob his fellow citizen rather than say get a paying job, then I'll be happy to hear it. Until then, I won't cry for him when he gets sentenced to some jail time.

 

[tracy]

Tracy let me put this into greater focus....

I suspect that the guy down the hall is a terrorist...... I know that the great free democracies of the world have decided already that it's moraly OK and entirely prudent to kill the suspected terrorist...aren't I simply following the consensus the larger philosophical temperament of the society in which I live if I shoot this suspected terrorist?

No you're not. There are different rules for nations than there are for individuals, partly because there isn't any real international laws that apply to leaders like criminal laws apply to citizens. May not be fair, but that's the way it is. You don't get to behave any damn way you please because things SHOULD be different. You have to base your actions on how things ARE or you'll pay the consequences and I don't feel sorry for you.

Why has personal responsibility become some sort of an afterthought? It's society's fault for everything?

 

[#juan]

Juan

You wouldn't happen to be a Catholic would you?

Thinking about hoofing the neigbors wife is the same as hoofing the neighbors wife according to the Chrisian faith as interpreted by Catholicism....

So the agent of criminality is what we think....

If I think I can get the bank teller to hand over the money if she/he thinks I have a gun....

For God's sake. Once the bank is robbed, does it make one whit of difference whether the robber had a gun or only pretended to have a gun.

 

[#juan]

In any case, the Supreme Court of Canada says it is a crime so it is a crime....period

 

[MikeyDB]

Tracy

What difference does or would it make?

Is the promise by Conrad Black or Ken Lay or Jean Chretien or Paul Martin ....all thieves and liars enough to excuse their behavior...

"Well gee I really wanted that Lamborghini so I'll pretend I have a gun in my pocket and hold-up the bank...."

The "I need" seems inadequate when applied to the everyday life of you and me but it's more than sufficient for politicians and businessmen....hence the two tier justice of Canada and all our "democratic" neighbors.....

If there ought not be any consideration of the system of justice as applied to the individual in society that elects to flout the rule of law when those same laws are broken by the wealthy....a diference of morality and the fabric of that justic itself is brought into ill repute....

White collar crimes that cost everyone far more than the local convenience store being robbed by a man threatening use of violence (I've got a gun) deserves a separate and distinct form of justice and consequences....

If there's one law for you and me....(well I'm poor but I hope you're rich...) you're suggesting that this system of justice be allowed to be just as flexible when it comes to bombing some other nation where oil exists or where "necessity" (whether fact or not) demands wholesale slaughter....

 

[MikeyDB]

Juan

The seminal issue under consideration here as outlined in the introduction is the decision by the Supreme court to call the threat of gun-use the same thing as the actual use of a gun in the commission of a crime.....

I don't see any reference to the issue of whether that robbery is successful or not....

If you can jail a man for thretening the use of a gun ...whether the ruse works or not....that person is guilty of the same crime as someone who does use a gun....whether or not the robbery was "successful"....

Am I missing something here?

If a person pretends to have a gun....he knows that the fear and trepidation that statement will inspire in the victim is perhaps sufficient to compel that person to hand over the money....he "thinks" that if he pretends to have a gun things will go as he wants....

If he has a gun he expects that the robbery will go as he wants and he pulls it out from under his coat and the gun goes off killing someone.....

No difference here Juan?