“A Regina couple received a rude awakening during the early hours of Victoria Day,” cbc.ca reports. Roger Lepage [above] says his wife awoke at around 4 a.m. CST when she heard a banging on the front door. Thinking it was their daughter returning home, Lepage said his wife went outside to see what was going on. Instead of their daughter they found an apparently intoxicated man with no shoes trying to break into their home in the city’s Lakeview neighborhood [pop. 7720].” So Mssr. Lepage called the police. In the intervening hour, the situation escalated . . .
Upon being denied entry into the house, Lepage said the man started engaging in erratic behaviour such as using a broom to hit the door, cursing, urinating on the deck and throwing the patio furniture.
Lepage said the man attempted to use a belt to pick the lock and tried to open the back gate and get into the garage.
“The only damage he did was to the house,” Lepage said. “Who knows what could have happened if I came out and he assaulted me or I ended up assaulting him.”
God forbid Mr. Lepage had assaulted someone damaging his property of attempting to gain access to his home! The cops are investigating their response time. Meanwhile, they have some advice for Canadians facing a similar incident.
While the Regina case was city police jurisdiction and RCMP would not be called for such incidents, they do have some tips for anyone involved in a similar situation:
Lock all the doors and close the windows.
Call police.
Close the blinds so the person trying to enter the home doesn’t have the power that comes with knowing what is happening inside.
Stay back from any windows or doors.
Turn off the lights.
Create witnesses by informing neighbours or people nearby.
Take pictures and/or record the incident.
What’s missing from this picture? [h/t SS]
Canadian bacon reference?
Missing?
Castle Doctrine, eh.
Crack open a Canadian or get a 4×4 from Timmy Horton’s and celebrate the sheep are ok.
Drunk Goof.
What’s missing? Apologizing to the home invader wannabee, because Canucks are so damn polite.
What, you were expecting a gun?
Actually, I was half expecting them writing a strongly worded letter. Canadians love writing letters and Timmy Hortons. Canadian Tire, too. But mostly writing letters and Timmy’s.
The five guys who broke into Chris Bishop’s house in Nunavut weren’t expecting a gun, but unfortunately for them it wasn’t just a gun but an SKS with an unpinned 30-round mag. Despite shooting three of them in the back (one on the ground), his convinctions were overturned.
Self-defense in Canada isn’t as simple as many states in the US, but it isn’t as bad as many Canadians think. That’s especially if the crook breaks in. There’s no duty to retreat up here.
I think the homeowner was right not to go out to the yard, but if that guy broke in, I hope that he had something a bit stronger than harsh language ready to go. Perhaps in future he’d consider joining the roughly 10% of Canadians who have a firearms license.
Use:
One of those brand new Norinco SKS that Canadans can buy. Even pinned at 5 rounds, it should work.
Ruger SP101 with the slightly over 4 inch barrel – allowed under Canadian law. Again only 5 rounds, but have to love the .357 mag.
Enfield in .303 British – a proper Commonwealth “welcome”.
Short barreled shotgun – legal in Canada. Actually, this should probably be number one on the list.
How about a lever gun in .44 Mag? Nothing says get off my porch like several rounds from .44
A .44 mag levergun would be a devastatingly effective home defense piece. great idea
Or a .44 mag mare’s leg. Which you can acquire with only a basic license.
Don’t need a .44 for people, a .357 will sling 158’s at near 1700-1800 fps, more than enough power with less recoil. But remember it has to be kept locked up and unloaded, so a pistol or a revolver with a loaded magazine or speedloader might be more quicker into action than a levergun.
The Beretta CX-4 takes pistol mags, so you can get 10 rounds (along with the Just Right Carbines). Also, any rifle that accepts STANAG magazines (like the Tavor) can take LAR-15 magazines, so that’s 10 rounds again.
Polite Canadians are a sterotype I’ve never actually seen. Most I’ve known are downright mean.
Pathetic. There was a Canadian a few years ago that fired over the heads of people throwing molotov cocktails into his home, he was of course viewed as the criminal.
Arson is one of the often enumerated crimes where it is justifiable to shoot the arsonist. In the U.S. (and even N.Y.). It has to be a case where people might be present. I think Molotov cocktails into a house qualifies.
Actually all they could go after him for was violating “Safe” storage requirements.
Which I believe he was also acquitted of.
No joke, the Crown prosecutor in the case accused the defendant of hiding evidence because he collected the spent shell casings before the police arrived…from his revolver.
All cops are an hour away when seconds count. That is why we of the gun, are of the gun. Why we carry, why we practice, and why we hope we never have to wait the time for the cops to show up.
The RCMP recommendations left out one additional suggestion: Don’t say things to insult the person trying to break into your home. Hurting the feelings of people committing criminal acts just makes things worse.
Canadians are very different from us. They have internalized the ideas of shared victimhood which insist that criminals should be viewed with sympathy because they’re expressing anger at being oppressed.
You’ve met the wrong Canadians.
More seriously, I’d say there’s a fairly substantial portion of the population who don’t like criminality and want to see it curtailed. They were instrumental in getting the current government elected, who have improved the self-defense laws. Previously, there was an additional test in the law if you killed someone in self-defense. Now that test has been removed.
The current Canadian law is basically the “reasonable person” standard- would a reasonable person, in the same situation as you, have acted as you did? There are always overzealous prosecutors, but if you look up even more contentious cases in Canada (like Chris Bishop, or Basil Parasiris), you’ll see that self-defense won out.
But I get that you’ve probably encountered some of the more obnoxious types of Canadians online, sticking their noses up in the air and being rude towards Americans. While I cannot control them, I can assure you that there are many Canadians who not only like our American neighbors, but also admire many of your states sensible approaches to liberty.
Thanks.
Yeah take pictures, because when the perp finally breaks in and kills you, you sure as hell aren’t going to be able to give any details to a sketch artist.
{Deranged individual trying to break in}
“What’s missing from this picture? ”
Offer to brew a kettle of calming tea?
Offer 20 mg Valium?
High velocity Pb?
Decisions, decisions…
Step one: release the hounds.
Step two: try not to laugh so hard that the ensuing video becomes shaky and unusable.
If he manages to hurt the dogs, guns and tasers are readily available.
Huddle together and sing ‘Oh Canada’?
Hit them with a hockey stick?
Offer the intruder a Molson?
click your heels together and say “there’s no place like (parts of) America?
Offer the intruder a Molson?
That’s a surefire way to get beaten to a pulp.
Yup – Kansas…
What’s missing from that picture? I didn’t see any “eh”s … as in Call the police, eh.
Considering that this continent was conquered just a little over 200 years ago, by force of arms, why do people continue to believe we have evolved past the point where a gun is no longer necessary as a personal defense? Because police, has never been true….not in the history of the world,…including the last 2 centuries. It’s a nice thought, to be sure, but that isn’t reality, we just aren’t there yet. Because sticks and stones, because arrows, because swords,….because guns, has been the only enduring, immutable, universal truth….in any century. The horrible, awful truth is, it’s because guns….because man.
While guns are uncommon in Canada, that does go both ways.
Stepping out of doors with an axe or machete is perfectly effective in situations such as that described above.
I’ll take a more effective means of self-defense for $500 Alex.
“Stepping out of doors with an axe or machete is perfectly effective in situations such as that described above.”
OMG, you really believe that ? What if you happen to be a 90 lb, 85 year old woman that is home by herself ? Or a small man against a large, well built, drug addict ? What if the bad guy has a gun ? Will your machete be adequate then? Some of you folks up North seem to live in a dream world where there is no violence or where you think you can prevail against violence with outdated weapons. Guns are the great equalizer.That is their primary advantage. A 90 lb person or even a disabled person can effectively use a gun to defend themselves against an attacker. No other weapon has that kind of leverage and reliability that I am aware of.
Yes, I believe that.
I’m talking about one drunk rampager against an armed person who is sober and of roughly equal stature.
Yes, guns are good; yes, our friends to the north should have them and yes, Samuel Colt made people equal.
All I was saying is that even in Canada, the fellow in the article wasn’t totally helpless had he the gumption and wherewithal to reclaim his porch.
In gun-free countries, the advice of the police SHOULD be “grab a pitchfork.”
What’s missing ? Hmmmmm…..oh I’ve got it. Canadians disparaging Americans cause America is f’d up and Canadians are this wonderful peaceful tranquil people.
So the basic advice of the Canadian police is to cower in your home and hope for the best until they get there? After all it only took them an hour or so. What if the guy outside happened to have a gun, knife or even a rock to break through a window and get into the house. Would their advice be the same then? Move to a locked room, cower, let him steal what he wants, pee on your floor and hope for the best ? Is Canada now a nation of idiots and cowards ?
It’s the same advice as a lot of US Police forces give to the citizens in their jurisdiction. But just like those areas, the law actually allows for a much greater freedom of action by those citizens if they choose to take it. There’s no law saying you’ve gotta give up.
“What’s missing from this picture?”
Scones warm from the oven and a kettle of calming tea?
Tranquilizers dissolved in that calming tea?
Hot lead launched at 1300 fps?
So the situation is that the guy is banging at your locked door and you have called the police and it is taking the police an hour to get there. And the advice helpfully transmitted from the RCMP through the news outlets is to lock your doors and call the police. Yeah, I think a lot is missing there. Unfortunately, our Canadian colleague is correct, that kind of official nonsense is hardly limited to our northern neighbors.
started engaging in erratic behaviour such as using a broom to hit the door, cursing, urinating on the deck and throwing the patio furniture.
How did my neighbors ex get to Canada?
We tackled the bastard. Tied him up and waited for him to sober up…..and he resurfaces……go figure…
Whats Missing?…. The Canadian self defense program.
“When in danger, when in doubt, Run in circles, scream and shout.”
Our Prime Minister got raked over the coals recently for suggesting that that gun ownership in rural areas “wasn’t just for the farm. It was also for a certain level of security when you’re a ways from immediate police assistance.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/in-rural-canada-harpers-gun-ownership-comments-ring-true/article23569748/
Read about 10 of the comments and feel like I’m going to throw up.
Grant: You feel like throwing up for what reason ? Are you Canadian and cannot handle an alternative viewpoint ? Is that how Canadians respond to adversity, by throwing up ? I did not realize that our neighbors up North were such a bunch of pussies. Makes me glad that I live in the USA. We have our issues, to be sure, but at least we have not totally submitted to the liberal leftist pacifists quite yet. I cannot fathom why so many Canadians are so fearful of firearms and the right to defend themselves with a gun or anything else for that matter.
The comment section of the article Canuck linked to.
Having lived in Regina until last fall, less than 2 miles from where this incident took place, I’ve got to say this goof trying to get in was the lucky one…he probably picked one of the 4 or 5 houses in the entire city where a gun wasn’t present.
This is the Canadian Prairies, one of the Pro-gun strongholds in Canada. The Regina Police have a rather well deserved reputation for dogging it when responding to calls; the city is surrounded on three sides by Indian reserves with next to no employment, so the crime rate is through the roof, most of it to feed drug or alcohol addictions. The local Police are convinced that if you leave calls like this alone for a while, the perp will likely either pass out or get bored and leave. Personally, I was always ready and waiting if some goof decided to come and visit without permission. Although our handgun laws are insane, we have a lot more latitude with long guns. Short-SHORT shotguns are A-O.K. ( I have one) as are Keltec Sub 2K’s and JR Carbines ( I’ve got one of each as well). I’m pretty sure the welcome he’d have gotten at almost any other house in town wouldn’t have been nearly as tolerant
Well, well; good to here, that.
Oh come on, he was just a drunk. Seriously, if i had time to determine all I had was a drunk idiot on my hands, I could save some paper work. Slam the door, lock and latch it, anyone determined enough to break it shoot to kill. Had a guy in SC, banging on the front door at about 9pm. I went out back door, lights out, looking for anyone else that might be waiting on me. Went around the house until I could see the guy. Asked hm to come down the steps into the light, street lamp. Next door neighbor, a county deputy, heard the door banging, (he was outside at the time) came out pistol at the ready around the other end of the house. He took up a position to avoid hitting me in a crossfire. The man complied with all instructions. He had run out of gas, a lady had stopped to offer help, and went for gas. Miracle of it all, the woman showed up with the can of gas while I was talking to the guy. She had no idea. My neighbor and I made sure he was able to get back running. Neighbor called the sheriff’s office in the next county to give a heads up. Sure enough, the guy got stopped, only because of the description of the car he was driving. The deputy called next day, told my neighbor the guy was not drunk, just a little nuts. Nobody died.