A reader emails – “The article is practically a parody of itself. Naturally the Globe has forbidden comments on this gem.”
Brian Minchin said his son, Michael Langan, was as healthy as a horse, and used to walk four or five miles a day in pursuit of aluminum cans, trying to scrounge together enough money for some beer and marijuana.
He said his son may have been drunk or high on marijuana when he was confronted by two police officers in an alley close to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg’s downtown core. Police say they ordered Mr. Langan to drop a knife, and when he refused they were forced to taser him.
[…]
“He was asked to drop the knife or something and he didn’t do it. I guess they asked him several times. Maybe he was drunk. He probably was drunk because he gets kind of crazy and brave when he’s drunk,” he said. “People think they’re Superman when they’re drunk, even adults.”
[…]
He said he doesn’t have many memories of his son, but will always cherish the thought of the day they spent together when the Grey Cup was last in Winnipeg. Mr. Minchin scalped half a dozen tickets and then went into the stadium to watch the game with his son. They smoked joints and drank beers at halftime, he said.
Mr Minchin is obviously not the most organized or responsible fella on the planet, and he’s grieving the loss of his son.
As far as the lawsuit goes, I’ve known others to make similarly, well…let’s use the term exaggerated, statements about retaliation or compensation after severe losses, in similar types of emotional situations; so I’ll cut him some slack and wait to see how things actually play out.
Besides, there’s nothing I could say or do that would exact a more fitting reality for him than the simple unfortunate consequences of his past decisions as a parent.
Anyone who thinks Mr Minchin (or his son, or other family members, or his culture) needs or deserves more criticism or disrespect right now is the kind of bully who kicks a man when they’re already down and well out, and possibly the kind of bully who enjoys it.
So, whatever else, to Mr Minchin: I’m really sorry for your loss,and there’s no way I’m going to allow myself to take *any* cheap shots or personal pleasure in your situation. I do, however, gently suggest you drop the lawsuit; no good will come of it.
And, no, of course: the police did not cause this situation, at all. They tried to make the best of an already bad situation. My respect to them.
Oh…John V: there’s enough irresponsible losers in any culture that you didn’t have to get all racially pointy-fingered about it; although by doing so, you do kinda prove the point I’m making right now.
And, John V, about this: “I know for some, it’s difficult to see a life spent walking 4 or 5 miles a day collecting cans and bottles with which to get money for dope and booze, snuffed out so young, but to decent sensible people that is the sort of thing that happens to that sort of person and … who cares!”:
My grandfather picked cans and tins every week for spare cash till the week he died. At least when Mr Minchin’s son was doing that he was working and not stealing. There’s nothing dishonourable, indecent, nonsensical or disrespectful about picking up tins and bottles, and shame on you for making it part of your intended insult.
I also don’t exactly respect that you don’t find the loss of Mr Minchin’s son difficult at all, and I don’t respect at all that you’re so obviously proud of not caring.
And how the press seems to have calmly taken down and printed his POV without apparently any editorial comment.
Actually, objective reporting of what folks say is what reporters are supposed to do in news articles.
You’re only surprised because such objectivity away from the op-ed page is so darn rare these days 😉
if some people here think they could do better then the cops, go for it, and hope you don’t run into people like some of those from my youth, because you will go home bloody sore, when you leave the hospital. There are a lot of losers out there that have no repect for society, themselves and especialy cops!!!
and as someone suggested, ride shotgun witha cop for a couple shifts, you’ll get the drift real quick
Oh, sf, yeah, there are some cops who are real pricks, but there were times that I deserved the thumping in the back room of the pohleece station:-))))))
Lev, I would say the problem with this young man is he grew up by the wishes of his parents.
Actually Ron, we should not be surprised.
These days the media only editorializes when they can criticize the police or the conservatives.
If it’s the other side of the coin they are quite happy to leave out as much relevant information and opinion as they can.
I do have to agree that sympathies have to be extended to the family of this kid.
I will however not do so at the expense of the “men & women in blue” who protect me daily.
If I cannot support them first and foremost, I do not deserve their protection.
A couple of years ago a spousal abuser emerged from a house not far from where I live brandishing a knife. He wouldn’t drop the knife on request and two rounds from a Calgary Police .40 Glock were required to deal with the situation. The guy didn’t make it.
What is interesting is that there was a lot of publicity about this incident early on but the police were never widely criticized. And after a day or two nothing more was every reported.
The MSM is sporting a huge obsession with Tasers. It’s almost like the incident in Winnipeg would have been LESS controversial had the officers used their sidearms to deal with this.
Ron Good,
Your noble speech about Mr Minchin and his son and the lawsuit, would have so much more meaning to me … if his son was actually buried before he started to talk about a lawsuit.
But what the heck, have a nice day!!!
reg dunlop, your exact assertion is “lying cops” are using TASERs for practice. You said we should read up on it.
Well, where is your evidence the police are using TASERs on the public “for practice”?
Personally Christoph, I’m hoping he took my advice and is blessing us with his absence.
Not holding my breath though.
Your noble speech about Mr Minchin and his son and the lawsuit, would have so much more meaning to me … if his son was actually buried before he started to talk about a lawsuit.
Yeah, I know. The stages of grief follow such an exact schedule usually. Impolite of him, really.
*
“et moans… He simply wasn’t obeying their request to ‘drop the knife’.”
which, my lib-lickin’ friend, puts him on the endangered species list.
and guess what… it’s not a request… it’s what’s known in the trade
as “your last warning, asshole”.
and what about dear ol’ dad… “he said he doesn’t have many
memories of his son…”
my guess is… pops doesn’t have many memories of the day before
yesterday… which is what happens when you chemically fry all
your synapses from a very early age.
like… i’m guessing… socialist uber-troll “et”.
*
Christoph: “I would say the problem with this young man is he grew up by the wishes of his parents.”
Could be, nobody knows, for all anybody can tell, the parents don’t know what the day of the week and what year it is.
Likely the boy was in the care of some social worker, well meaning though utterly unable to do anything.
There is no excuse for what has happened.
The police are the least culpable. They do what they need to do.
I have no use for police, they are freeloaders in the first place and police in second.
It is not society’s fault; the fault lies with those that came up with all that sociological nonsense and those that imposed the structure on the population only so they have some job guarantee.
You may have come across circumstance where use of common sense would solve a situation, though once someone starts intellectualizing, common sense looses ground, guaranteed.
“Nothing says grief like a lawsuit” – Ron Good
Ron, I respectfully disagree.
Mr. Minchin does not need to be coddled by those who provide emotional support or silence in his ridiculous desire for a lawsuit.
He should be publicly shamed because while it’s too damn late for him, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind who hears this story that poor parenting such as his leads too death. I don’t want people believing the policing lead to death when it clearly wasn’t the problem.
If that’s too tough for Mr. Minchin, tough. He killed his son far than the police did and he’s blaming those good people for his irresponsible and criminal actions.
I would like to see him charged, convicted, and imprisoned for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, specifically doing illegal drugs with one, and drinking. Justice is harsh and Mr. Minchin deserves some. Pour encourager les autres.
Golly gee. A Metis drinks and uses drugs. To support his habits, he steals. Heavens to Betsy.
What next?
Oh, yes. He came from a dysfunctional family, with an absent father. Now, that’s news.
The police who outnumber this little teenager (smaller than most female police constables)are frightened when he threatens them with a knife. These protectors of our property have only two choices: taser him, or shoot him.
The father mourns the death of a son he hardly knew, which is truly amazing.
If any of this is surprising, you’ve been out of the country too long.
gellen, you disgust me. You face a 17 year old male…
… old enough to join the Canadian Forces and become a professional war fighter…
… with a knife whose own father describes him as “crazy” and “brave”… and you insult the police for being, as you put it, “frightened” of him?
You disgusting despicable cowardly puke. I’m so friggin’ glad you’re not telling me this in person. I might have to…
… spit at, but not on, your feet, and turn my back on you after, then give you the finger as I walk away, secure in the knowledge you will do nothing at all.
Cristoph: Thank you for your tone. I’m always fine with a repectful disagreement, and there will indeed be a time for at least some of what you suggest–and it won’t be wrong when it happens.
My thinking is that it’s not now, but you make solid points, especially about the very real consequences of poor parenting and about the place of the police in this tragedy. And I’m also actually quite sure Mr Minchin will have no shortage self-imposed shame and regret.
Ural, on the other hand, is just trying to put straw-man words in my mouth. He knows I never said anything even close to that.
Ron, you’re welcome. I’m having a conversation with my girlfriend and when I mentioned your position (we often talk about child rearing together and I want her to understand my attitudes on the subject; generally, but not always, we are in tune), I said you seem like a good man and I mean it.
You’ll see I had a different tone for geller and I don’t apologize for it. I found his/her position beneath contempt and I cannot, in good conscience, say s/he also strikes me as a good person.
“And I’m also actually quite sure Mr Minchin will have no shortage self-imposed shame and regret.”
I’m less certain than you are.
However, a prosecutor also has an obligation to enforce the laws to set an example for the community. This is such a case, I believe.
Yes, I would take into account his loss when it came to a sentencing recommendation, and depending on his record, may ask for nothing but a minimal sentence.
But I would make the charge. It’s not my decision to make, but for his son to die in an alcohol-fueled incident (speculative, but that’s his dad’s speculation) with a knife, and for his dad to talk about his drug and alcohol use with his minor son… well, it occurs to me the whole reason drinking and doing drugs with a minor, contributing to their delinquency, is against the law is to prevent precisely what happened.
I guess he should have been hanging-out at his local free injection site instead.
My tax dollars = one less smacked-up looser on the street. Money well spent for a change.
missing link, I gotta say I think that’s horse crap.
It’s tragic a young life was ended this way. I would have strongly preferred he had been given a chance to reform himself and a better upbringing. It’s true his own actions prevented this in the end. If he could have been taken alive, that might have been possible and it would have been preferable — to any decent person.
Wishing for a troubled youth’s deaths is more contemptible than anything even geller said.
Brent: Understood and agreed.
22 people have been killed with tazers in five years. does anyone know how many people police have shot in five years? i guess you don’t have to shot them if you can kill with a tazer.
If this “father” sues the police , who will pay his legal bill?
He said he doesn’t have many memories of his son
That’s what killed this young man: his parents’ neglect. It’s probably the primary reason why he turned to booze and dope which, given their natural course to emaciate and compromise the user’s health over years of misuse, would probably have killed him sooner or later. The taser, unfortunately, speeded up the process, but this young man was well on his way, already, to an early death.
It’s very sad that he died, but he could have prevented an ARMED confrontation with the police if he had not been drunk, doing drugs, and holding a weapon which he threatened the police with. What were they supposed to do? Give him a hug? Get him to a sweat lodge? Hold hands and dance in a merry circle?
Give me a break. No wonder Canada’s in such a mess. Misplaced sympathy everywhere and no accountability for one’s own actions. This kid was a walking disaster just waiting to happen, and there’s no one to blame but him and his AWOL parents, especially his father.
Fatherless homes are the scourge of North America, and the sooner we face this reality, the better.
Go to The Black Rod http://blackrod.blogspot.com/ and scroll down to the June 19th entry for a discussion on what the police in Winnipeg is up against. Truly disgusting.
ANyone notice the AMAZING coverage that the liberal media wing, i mean CBC put out on this story? Sarcasm off.
CHeck this out:http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2008/07/25/langan-father.html
Note, no mention of the dad and father toking up, no mention of the stealing and bad crap the boy did. The spin on this is sad sad sad.
A
What kind of moron stands off against -two- (2) opponents armed with guns, tasers AND clubs, and all he’s got is a knife? Another Darwin Award winner here, for sure.
It has been my opinion of late that the cops are getting pretty free and easy with the zapping of people, they often seem use it to put down unarmed agitated civilians, which is not what they are supposed to be doing. However, this is clearly not the case here.
This is exactly what tasers are for. No cop in his right mind is going to wrassle some kid with a knife, particularly when the kid is “under the influence”. DRUNKS DON’T FEEL PAIN, particularly when the alcohol is accompanied by some of the more common street drugs. You can kick these guys in the balls and they won’t notice.
Armed drunk/druggie, you either shoot him or you taser him while your buddy stands ready to shoot him. You try to shoot him in the head or the heart too, because drunks/druggies tend not to notice they’ve been shot six times. They take the lead and stab you to death before they bleed out. Happens all the time.
This is not secret information by any means. Talk to any ER doctor, cop, nurse or even the average bouncer, they will tell you this stuff. They’ve -seen- it. Some of them see it every week.
The Globe and Mail is pursuing disinformation here, in classic MSM tear jerker style. “Why did this poor young man have to die? [sob!]” He had to die because of his own actions. He chose death when he faced off with those two cops instead of backing down.
The Globe would have you believe there was some other, magical non-violent way this confrontation could have ended. Something super duper the cops could have done if only they weren’t racists, if only the System wasn’t racist and eeeeevile and stacked against this poor young man. This is a heinous lie. Those cops did every single thing they could to keep this imbecile alive, and frankly I don’t think he deserved it.
It p1sses me off in the extreme that the Globe and Mail thinks I am stupid enough to fall for this crap. This is why I do not read the Globe or go to their web site.
As for Daddy Dearest, way to go on the role modeling, awesome job man. I suppose he would feel better if his son had knifed one of the cops and the other one had shot sonny boy in the head. Good luck with the lawsuit buddy, and if they find for the plaintiff I’m going to up my contribution to the CPC.
Leftard ideology is responsible for the sorry life this young man led. Cradle to grave welfare, instilling a victim mentality into our youth vis-a-vis education and propaganda. Lack of accountability via the Young Offenders act etc. He’s just another victim of socialist’s policies, keeping the poor and addicted poor and addicted for decades. The only way to break the victim mentality mindset is to hold people accountable for their actions, many non-native kids have been raised by acholic parents yet they don’t follow that path. Accountability, responsibility and understanding there are consequences for one’s actions is the only way to break the cycle. Patting irresponsible parents on the head and saying “There their dear it’s not your fault” it’s the cops, the government and the conservatives policies at fault.
At some point the socialist left have to accept responsibility for the damage they’ve done to Canadian Society as a whole.
The Leftists and their buddies on MSM have a picture to paint, they have no problem leaving out the nasty bits which are most RELEVANT to the whole story.
Truth in reporting? Forget it.
First, in my med school days when I worked part time at the city morgue, I can remember admitting a police officer who had died from a single knife wound to the groin, below the area protected by BA. So, a knife is not to be sneered at, TV cop shows notwithstanding.
Second, the cops have a job to do. If the way to evade the police is to escalate the violence, the goons will soon escalate the violence at the drop of a hat. They talk to each other. It’s not like they hold formal conferences, but the word spreads. So, the police have to apprehend the goons.
The taser may well be overused or used inappropriately in some situations, and part of the problem may relate to a tendency to see the taser as a sub-lethal firearm vs a qualitatively different weapon. The result may be a tendency to aim for the centre of visible mass (firearm) usually the chest, therefore greatest potential for cardiac dysrhythmias vs aiming for the abdomen, buttocks or back when possible. This situation would appear to be one in which it was appropriate to use the taser, and given the choice I’d sure prefer to be tasered vs shot. Maybe automatic defibrillator packs should accompany the tasers. Ideally they’d be in every patrol car anyway.
The cops have spouses and families too. I’ve met the occasional hard nose, but most of them have been unfailingly polite and professional. I’d like them to make it home safely to their loved ones at the end of their shift. And I’ve yet to treat anyone in the trauma bay suffering from a ticket wound.
The one character in this situation for whom I have the least sympathy is the dad. This useless POS failed to meet even the most basic responsibilities of parenting or adulthood and left his son a void which he attempted to fill with booze, drugs and violence. Maybe he would have gone that way anyway, but if the dad wants someone on whom to vent his frustrations he should look in the mirror. It’s far too common to see relatives who are inclined to do more for the deceased in death than they were ever prepared to do in life simply to assuage their own guilt. The selfishness never ends.
So Minchin plans to sue! Maher Arar was reportedly paid $11.5 million of Canadian taxpayers’ money for alleged acts committed in a foreign nation by agents of a foreign government. No wonder every Canadian with a grievance expects to receive compensation for acts committed here by Canadian police regardless of fault.
DrDave, I agree with you about deploying the TASER to the back, buttocks, or abdomen wherever possible, and for that matter, I agree with every word you said.
Also, the suggestion to have automatic defibrillator packs present where TASERs are used is a great one. Do you know if this is under active consideration? I assume you do. If not, you should make the suggestion in a formal way, because it’s a good one.
F. Packer, the Ahar and Langan cases are not the same. It’s ignorant or disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
In case it happens to be mere ignorance on your part, which is more easily forgivable, the Canadian government was deemed by the courts to be culpable because of information the RCMP shared inappropriately with the US.
Well cry me a frikkin’ river, eh. I see there were a hell of a lot of you at the scene making determinations as to the proper course of action. Unless you were there it is rather pointless to second guess the cops and that includes you ET. Are tazers being used too much? Probably so as in the “Don’t taze me bro” incident where the female cop was too lazy to use proper force to subdue the grandstander but a lot of times a tazer is less of a lethal weapon than a gun. And can you imagine the outcry if a Free Press photog got a picture of a cop with baton raised against a (knife wielding) perp?
Another case in point: Calgary cop responds to a call of an aggressive drunk on a doorstep of relatives. Dude was known to be trouble and the cop ends up being knifed before he manages to shoot the drunk. Guess who is first in line to accuse the cop of excessive force, murder etc? Yep the family that called the cops in the first place because they didn’t want to take care of their own kin. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the race card was the first thing pulled out.
There may be lazy cops, bad cops and soso cops but overall I’d give them the benefit of the doubt over grieving relatives.
ET said (if it is ET anyway): “I disagree; I think that the taser is overused by police. The fact is – it IS a lethal weapon. The probability of death from its use is not rare but frequent enough that its use should only be in the most extreme cases. I don’t think that this was one of those cases.”
I hear this kind of thing often from highly educated people. They always think there’s some super duper method that police have to handle these situations, and when somebody dies its because the cops didn’t use it.
Clearly, one of the problems with universities is that they make you think you know things when you actually don’t. The use of violence is one of those areas where people tend to think they know things.
ET, violence is like higher mathematics. If you haven’t studied it and used it yourself, you can’t possibly know anything about it.
Somebody above mentioned that a knife is as dangerous as a gun inside 21 feet. That’s a true statement. But if you haven’t actually done the experiment yourself, it seems completely unreasonable.
Try this. Arm a colleague with a pink highlighter, arm yourself with a squirt gun and have them run at you. They get to “stab” you with the highlighter until you squirt them.
You will find you’re going to get a lot of marks on you until the person starts from more than about 30 feet. If you have to draw from the waistband it makes it much harder.
Now consider a related fact. The mighty pistol is actually fairly WORTHLESS in a fight. You have three pistol targets that will stop a man instantly: the brain, the heart and the spinal cord. Only the spinal cord is guaranteed, the brain and the heart are only “most of the time” propositions, kind of like the taser in reverse. Hit a target pretty much anywhere else and they not only won’t die, they won’t even slow down.
I can attest to this. I have personally treated patients (that’s plural, as in more than one) who survived multiple pistol shots in fights. I had one who took the first round from the front through the liver, next one through the neck as he turned and the last one through the proximal end of the fibula as he RAN AWAY. Ran for several blocks as he told it. Drugs can be a pretty wonderful thing.
For your advanced lesson, take your squirt gun and try to squirt your colleague in one of those three sure fire targets. Its hard, eh? Like, where IS the spine from a three quarter view, and can my puny 9mm bullet get through all that meat to hit the spine at all?
Now try it with them moving.
Now try it in an alley at night with a freaky teenager armed with a knife, screaming curses at you and moving like a squirrel on crack. Add that you’re out of shape from sitting in a cop car 8 hours a day, you haven’t been to the range to practice for three months, and your partner is a 120 lb girl who couldn’t hit a barn from the inside.
Taser? Cops are brave. I’d have used a shotgun on the stupid b@stard. Its the only way to be sure.
And to further your point, Phantom, a knife is more dangerous within a foot or two. It’s relatively easy to deflect a gun at that range before the other person can react.
If you do it right: The key being to do the exact opposite of the instinctive thing and I won’t give more details on this forum. Even most police forces teach the exact wrong principle, but standards are changing and this is slowly correcting itself.
Anyway, this goes to strengthen your point about a person being educated in the use of force vs. one who is not. At that range, it’s relatively harder to handle a knife. You can’t just move the knife out of the field of fire. It can slash or stab from anywhere to your body.
Christoph, I prefer distances of >100 yards myself. I like to see the trouble before it sees me. I’ll take any unfair advantage I can get.
I think cops should be issued shotguns with bayonets. Shoot them first, then stick them if they keep coming. Kind of like a boar spear, know what I mean?
That’s why they don’t let me be a cop, I guess. ~:D
Ron Good,
You must have come from a very sheltered life. I’ll bet you have never spent any time on ‘the street’. I’ll bet you have never been scared for your life at the hands of dangerous people. I’ll bet you had a great socialist education. You probably think that continuing to pay ultra high taxes to support that kid, his family, and that ilk in our society it the right thing to do. If so, you are naive and misinformed.
Most, but not all of the societal problems we have now is a direct result of 40 years of liberal social policy and parental permissiveness and/or neglect. The latter is most often for two reasons … parents want their kids to like them or they let the kids run amok because their lives are too busily centered around themselves. Then there is prolification the one parent household brought to you courtesy of easy divorce, and easy welfare, Again, the state helping families stay fall apart.
In this case, we have merely gotten a glimpse into the daily fare of the low-life trash that has become so prolific in this welfare state.
I feel no sympathy because my government(s) rob me to pay for that crap. Got that? We pay to enable those losers to live like sub humans, then we are supposed to feel sorry for them when they screw up.
My support is with the police who risk their lives daily to try to keep our streets safe from the likes of that dead POS drugged, knife carrying, crazy, brave scum-bag.
If Canadians use the taser more often than other countries it’s only because (again) we pay such high extortion to our revenue services that we can afford tasers. Poorer countries simply shoot their miscreants with much cheaper guns.
And Chistoph are some sort of android?
I’m not sure how you draw your conclusions about Ron Good. They could be right, but I’m not seeing it based on the above conversation.
He doesn’t appear to be taking a position against the police’s use of a TASER in this instance; he is among other things defending the act of picking up aluminium cans (and I have no problem with it; I’ve probably picked up a few in my life precisely BECAUSE I have spent some time on the street. I’ve even faced dangerous people).
Anyway, note to Ron Good: It’s not Mr. Langan walking 4-5 miles every day that was the problem, nor was it his picking up cans; it was what he was using the money for that was the problem.
I think you’d agree that if an adult including a parent was shown to be using alcohol and illegal drugs with a minor, the Crown would be justified in bringing a charge against the adult. My question to you, Mr. Good, is when an adult admits to using alcohol and illegal drugs with a minor who then goes on do die while using alcohol and/or illegal drugs, why is bringing a charge against the adult not justified?
Isn’t it even more justified because of the severe consequence the child suffered?
Something that has always annoyed me about cases such as this is that words of support from the officers’ superiors are never spoken. Ignoring political correctness and issuing a simple statement would be the right thing for the Chief of Police or the mayor to do. This statement wouldn’t have to be a condemnation of the deceased thug. Something to the effect of “If you threaten a police officer with a weapon and don’t drop it when ordered to do so, you will be tasered or shot. End of story. Now conduct yourselves accordingly.”
I think that encourages circling the wagon too much, biff. I believe calling for an investigation as a matter of course is the best policy, then issuing statements only after all the facts have been analyzed.
Yet I see your point and worded slightly differently I might agree. I’d say something along the lines of:
“This case will be investigated thoroughly and impartially to find out what happened. At the same time, it’s important for the public to realize if they are given a lawful order by the police, they must obey it because we have a duty to enforce the law, and to ensure the safety of both the public and our own officers. A person armed with a weapon may be disarmed by the police using any force necessary and sometimes the consequences will be tragic.”
I’m with Biff. Threaten a cop with a weapon, they shoot you. End of story.
In fact, I’ll go one further and include the armed citizen along with the cop. Threaten -anybody- with a weapon, they shoot you six times, reload and shoot you six more times.
Why should cops be the only ones allowed to shoot back?
Phantom,
My guess is that there are probably more people able and willing to shoot back if necessary, but they are in violation of the laws of Canada regarding self-defense and/or carrying a concealed weapon. Those are the folks who avoid confrontation, but subscribe to the Tarantino rule “it’s batter to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have one”. Therefore they are less likely to even have to shoot back, but are able to do so.
Most people are law abiding and don’t want trouble. I fail to see why the state chooses to ‘declaw’ them. Those are also folks would be available to save a live and perhaps even the life of policeman.
We live in scary times with druggies and street punks, and B&E boys everywhere. It’s a natural progression that people with a realistic view of what is, will do what they need to do to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Obviously, I have no idea what those stats might be, but self-preservation is a basic human predisposition. In Canada you are much better facing some sort of charges from the state, than a life-threatening situation from a crazy person.
We lack decent self-defense laws in Canada and that is unfortunate because Canadians risk, becoming criminalized for merely employing what should be a human right.
I can only imagine how much more victimization there would be in the USA if so many states had not passed the right to carry. They also have the good sense to allow self-defense as a legitimate option. I have read many of those stats and without exception, there is less violent crime in the states where good citizens have the right to defend themselves.
Lefties are unable to learn that new/old trick.
JohnV:
I was fortunate to have terrific parents–it’s probably because of them I’m still alive, and that I didn’t make even worse choices, Still, due to my own poor choices, I spent well enough time on the streets, in much rougher places than you obviously imagine. I’ve been homeless, I know exactly what it’s like to be very, very hungry, to feel very, very hopeless–and pointless, and I know exactly what it’s like to have my life seriously threatened with both a knife and a gun.
I don’t have a left-wing bone in my body. I don’t think the police did anything wrong in this situation and I have at least as much sympathy for the unfortunate officers who have to have this in their memories than I have for the father–but I have some sympathy for him, too.
I generally agree with this: “Most, but not all of the societal problems we have now is a direct result of 40 years of liberal social policy and parental permissiveness and/or neglect that you wrote. Except I think our stupid drug laws have caused more problems than they’ve solved, too.
As for: “I feel no sympathy because my government(s)rob me to pay for that crap, well, I feel sympathy *even though* the governments rob me to pay for that crap.
Christoph: You ask: “My question to you, Mr. Good, is when an adult admits to using alcohol and illegal drugs with a minor who then goes on do die while using alcohol and/or illegal drugs, why is bringing a charge against the adult not justified?
I never said it wasn’t justified–I just don’t think it will help; plain old reality seems to be exacting a terrible and unfortunately perfect consequence to Mr. Minchin, doesn’t it. And 17 is plenty old enough/adult enough to know that keeping the knife in your hands when the police tell you to drop it will have severe consequences.
I’m solidly on the side of the police in this instance.
As for the tin can thing: too many times I’ve seen people insult and make fun of down-and-outers picking up cans to support their addictions and/or just to make their way through another day. But every time I see someone doing that instead of stealing or just giving up, I respect the fact that these poor folks are still trying to make their way honestly, with work. Addicted or not, I will never disrespect that.
JohnV: I agree with everything you wrote about citizen self-defence.
Ron,
It’s nice to know that we can agree on most things.
Copy your last, John V.
John V and Christoph: Lots of common ground.
Ron, I understand what you’re saying emotionally; it doesn’t make any sense logically.
Take the example of a reckless driver. They get a ticket or charge, even though the driver may feel it’s not a big deal.
If a reckless driver causes someone to die, they feel terrible and guilty if they have any decency. Do the police and prosecutor say, “Don’t worry ’bout it. The other person died so we’ll just forget about it.”
?
I think not.
The fact is Mr. Minchin’s doing illegal drugs and alcohol with his minor son can reasonably have been seen to have contributed to the delinquency which cost his son’s life.
Mr. Minchin has admitted to a crime and he should be charged for it. Parents cannot legally in Canada smoke marijuana with their children.