Kevin Berger – Leader Staff
Two items in this week’s RCMP Report about residents being injured while confronting thieves reminds me of a rural crime forum I attended in Lac La Biche.
This was back in March of 2018, and I was temporarily holding the fort at Lac La Biche while the publisher, Rob McKinley, was on vacation. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss solutions to the rural crime issue, though few real solutions were actually reached.
Mostly, people advocated for the right to use lethal force in defending their property. Keep in mind that just two months prior to the meeting, charges had been dropped against an Okotoks farmer who had fired shots at suspected thieves on his property — that he was charged at all inspired a lot of anger.
If only farmers and folks living on acreages were allowed to shoot at the people breaking into their yards to steal stuff, one man argued, that would fix your crime problem.
Of course, the cooler heads hosting the panel advised against the idea. So-called “castling laws” in the U.S. that made it legal for homeowners to shoot trespassers certainly hadn’t eliminated crime down there — in fact, it had led to a couple of occasions where totally innocent people had been killed.
Expanding on that point, a First Nations man pointed out that, if his car broke down on a rural road and he walked to a nearby farmyard, he was in danger of getting shot even in the absence of “castling laws”. Openly allowing rural vigilantism certainly wouldn’t help matters.
The most valid point, however, was expressed by the RCMP officer in attendance, who pointed out that gunfights with property thieves don’t generally have good endings.
“You don’t want a bullet in your belly, or a bullet flying through your home and, God forbid, hitting one of your children,” he said.
I go to court enough to know that the people who are generally responsible for thefts of property are motivated by drug addiction and/or poverty. In short, they’re desperate.
Shooting at these folks isn’t going to deter them — it’s just going to send the message that they need to start arming themselves.
Also, while every man imagines turning into Billy Badass when we’re placed in a dangerous situation, I think that’s pretty far from what happens in reality unless you’ve been actually trained to handle that scenario.
The RCMP report kind of backs that up. In both of the instances where local residents tried confronting thieves, they ended up getting hurt. Two folks got beat with a crow bar.
I know that in Alberta, the whole idea that “my home is my castle and I shall die to defend it” has a certain appeal. But despite the abundance of cowboy hats and boots, this ain’t actually the Wild West, pardner.
