Me, The Egoist

I thought that what I was doing was legal. I had been told by the police 4 years ago that it was. I was not prepared to be told over the phone that I was committing a felony all these years.

As I’ve mentioned before, I work in a fairly nice hotel. It’s a fairly large (for the area) hotel which is in an area which gets a lot of drunk, beligerent people. Now, most of these people simply come in an get a room to sleep it off. I’ll take their money just as fast as I will the next person. However, being one of the only male front desk employees, it frequently comes down to me to chase away drunk panhandlers pawing at cabbies for cigarette buts.

In most cases, the people I get to move try to bargin their way out. A tip for dunks out there: don’t try to debate with somebody who’s sober - you won’t win. Some get loud and swear. I’ve heard it all - it doesn’t bother me. However, on occasion there are people who make what I would consider threatening moves. Nobody has (yet) taken a swing at me, but it’s only time.

As I’ve mentioned before, I own a collapsable steel baton. It’s one of the only true weapons you can own in Canada without going through lots of paperwork. Usually it’s enough force for the daily threats which exist, though I’d rather have a concealed carry pistol. I have a belt-holster for my baton so it is readily available and unconcealed. Since I’m required to wear a suit at the hotel where I work, I am unable to use the holster - the suit jacket obscures the view. So I figured that I’d call up the local polce and find out if there would be a problem, given my situation.

After being passed through several layers of people I was transfered to a senior man in traffic who insisted that since the baton was not a dual-use item (ie not a knife) that it was prohibitied. I went into shock. I’d thought for all these years that what I was doing was perfectly legal. Apparently not. It would seem that I had been committing a felony for the past 4 years.

In an attempt to avoid panic, I started reading through the criminal code, trying to find out what was banned and what wasn’t. I was getting information together for an emergency move down to the US - not to avoid charges but to live in a place where I could actually own such a weapon. For some reason, I coulnd not find anywhere that listed such a baton as illegal. Battons which are spring loaded and have flexible shafts are prohibited, but not those with manual releases and rigid shafts. No luck there.

Since the local police couldn’t help, I phone the Ontario Provincial Police. Usually a fair bit smarter and knowledgable I was hoping for clarification to at least find out what section of the law I was breaking. I spoke with a cadet who informed me that what I had been told by the local police was in fact correct. When I asked what section of the law I was breaking, he couldn’t tell me, but offered to get back to me if I left my name and number. I laughed and told him that I’d call him back in a few hours.

I called back just after the end of his shift, causing me to wait another day. I couldn’t stop wondering if the police would show up at my doorstep and cuff me in the mean time. That would certainly hurt my future job prospects. Finally, I woke up this morning and give the cadet a call. He clarified that the baton was legal, but that carrying it in any public place was illegal. Great, so I could own it, but not use it effectively. So I asked what the difference between transporting and carying is (there is a significant difference in Canadian law when it comes to firearms). I was told none. This led to the obvious question “how amd I supposed to buy one if I can’t carry it home?” “You would be breaking the law carring it from the store to your house”, I was told. I asked about a private courier (ie FedEx) but was told that the courier would then be breaking the law.

At this point I knew that the person I was dealing with wasn’t that swift. You can’t effectively allow ownership without the ability to transport. So I looked up the statute. Note that I am not a lawyer and so I’m only going by common sense here.

Section 89 of the Criminal Code states:
(1) Every person commits an offence who, without lawful excuse, carries a weapon, a prohibited device or any ammunition or
prohibited ammunition while the person is attending or is on the way to attend a public meeting.

Fair enough. We don’t want the angry rable carrying weapons. So, what is a lawful excuse. I was told by the cadet (after consultation with his superiors) that lawful excuse meant a police officer, a peace officer or a security officer. Gotta love that power-grabbing people-distrusting government and police.

I hung up and did some more research. I finally hit gold.

From the criminal code:

8.
(3) Every rule and principle of the common law that renders any circumstance a justification or excuse for an act or a defence to
a charge continues in force and applies in respect of proceedings for an offence under this Act or any other Act of Parliament
except in so far as they are altered by or are inconsistent with this Act or any other Act of Parliament.

I take the right of self-defence as a principle of common law. But it gets better:

27. Every one is justified in using as much force as is reasonably necessary
(a) to prevent the commission of an offence
(i) for which, if it were committed, the person who committed it might be arrested without warrant, and
(ii) that would be likely to cause immediate and serious injury to the person or property of anyone; or
(b) to prevent anything being done that, on reasonable grounds, he believes would, if it were done, be an offence mentioned in
paragraph (a).

Jackpot!!! Enshrined in the Criminal Code is the right to use some form of defence for personal protection (thus a lawful excuse). This combined with the unrestricted nature of the baton allows me (I think) to carry the weapon for personal protection.

I can’t wait to move to the US.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 13th, 2005 at 12:23 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.