From:
Colby Cosh: No thief, no cops, no lawyers, no problem - Full Comment
Several people have heard the story of farmer Brian Knight — who shot and
captured a thief who stole his all-terrain vehicle — and responded with a sneering,
“Only in Alberta.” I would like to repeat this message, so that the actions of Mr.
Knight in defending his property can help protect mine, too.
So pay attention, thieves: Only in Alberta are homeowners armed, and ready to
shoot straight. Only in Alberta will you find a whole community closing in on you if
you try to steal the equipment of a family business. Only in Alberta are we not
content to sit quietly and wait for the police to arrive and copy serial numbers. You
are much safer plying your trade elsewhere. Preferably in one of those places
where the nice people would think it barbaric to shoot you.
Brian Knight, 38, runs a farm near the hamlet of Tees, east of Lacombe; its rodeo
venue is home to an annual donkey and mule show. Last Wednesday morning,
Knight heard some noise and confronted three men outside his home. Two made
the smart choice to hop into their truck and vamoose, but the third, hoping not to
leave empty-handed, had jumped on a nearby four-wheel ATV and sped off on it.
Knight got in his own truck, chased down the stranger on his ATV, and rammed it
off the road. When the suspect fled, Knight fired a shotgun at him. No details of
the ammunition have been provided,
but buckshot or road salt would be good
guesses; in any case, it amounted to distinctly less lethal force than a policeman
might have used in the same circumstances. (No word on whether any staplers
were found on the perpetrator.)
The lightly injured thief kept running, but was eventually rounded up by Knight’s
neighbours and kin. In a moment of deranged inspiration, he even tried to make
off with another truck in which he was left to bleed while the cops were called.
Knight now faces seven criminal charges, including assault, criminal negligence
causing bodily harm and dangerous driving.
The thief was taken to Edmonton,
bandaged up and released by police without bail after being charged. The RCMP will
not name him, but a local spokesman warned:
“Don’t take the law into your own
hands. Contact the police as soon as possible, because all you’re going to do is
get yourself into trouble.”
Perhaps only in Alberta do people still understand that this is nonsense —
that the
police’s privilege of investigating and punishing crime is derived from our primary
right of self-defence, which we delegate but do not abandon, and that property is
an extension of ourselves, and may be defended in the same way and for the same
reasons we are allowed to defend our persons. No RCMP officer is transferred to an
aboriginal community without abundant cultural-sensitivity training. Maybe
something similar, perhaps involving a careful reading of John Locke’s philosophy,
should be done before assigning them to the Alberta countryside.
(If Mr. Knight is
found guilty, do you suppose he will get the benefit of a “sentencing circle”
made up of other farmers from around Tees?)
The RCMP sergeant’s schoolmarmish lecture will probably do as much to inflame
local anger as the charges against Knight, which have ignited a prairie fire on
Alberta talk radio.
Farmers who live far from the nearest RCMP detachment know
that, in practice, the law really is in their own hands. If they don’t act to protect
the expensive equipment they use to earn a livelihood, they will be at the mercy of
professional predators. At stake here is the very possibility of a safe, productive
rural life. Whatever the RCMP’s view of Knight’s actions, the insurance companies
who serve the area should feel perpetual shame if they let this man face a judge
without displaying a gold medal struck at their expense.
And let us remember that deterrence cuts both ways. The RCMP might not be
afraid to discourage self-defence, but they should be afraid of inadvertently
encouraging farmers to deal with thieves by following a shotgun blast with a coup
de grâce. Brian Knight (for whom donations are being accepted at
brianknightlegalfund.com) willingly invited the “trouble” he is now getting from the
Mounties by calling them in on his citizen’s arrest.
This is not vigilantism, though
some semi-literate reporters have reserved desk space in Hell by using that term. A
vigilante would have fed a thief to the pigs, or dressed him in chains and cinder
blocks and taken him for a swim in Buffalo Lake. No cops, no lawyers, no problem.
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