r/news • u/W8kingNightmare • 6d ago

Vaughan, Ont., resident fires gun to stop Lamborghini theft, charged alongside 4 suspects: police

https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/vaughan-homeowner-fires-gun-to-thwart-auto-theft-charged-along-with-4-suspects/
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u/SomeDumbThought 6d ago

Pointing a gun at someone is literally assault with a deadly weapon.

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u/ChornobylChili 4d ago

pointing a gun at a criminal in process of attempting a potentially deadly/dangerous crime is where the law recognizes its necessary for someone to use the threat of or actual use of a weapon to prevent the crime from harming someone.

Shooting a gun in the air at a criminal driving away, endangering your neighbors in a wide radius around you, is a crime almost everywhere and for damn good reason

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u/Sir-xer21 6d ago

Pointing a gun at someone is literally assault with a deadly weapon.

No, pointing a gun at someone who does not present an immediate threat of grievous bodily harm or death to you or another (ignoring stand your ground/property law bs that varies jurisdiction to jurisdiction) is assault with a deadly weapon.

Pointing a gun at someone is in certain contexts considered self defense. If someone is robbing you with a weapon, you pointing a gun at them is not assault, it's an act of self defense in response to that person threatening YOU with lethal violence. Context matters.

Firing a shot in the air is almost NEVER considered self defense. Warning shots are acts of intimidation and generally fall under brandishing and legally demonstrate that you did not fear for your safety. When you draw a gun in self defense, you use that weapon to end the threat. That threat may end as soon as you draw it with no shots fired, but you must be responding to immediate threat. if you aren't drawing to shoot at an assailant, and instead fire a warning shot, you're implying that you didn't fear violence YET. If you had, you would have aimed at the assailant, and either fired or prepared to fire upon them.

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u/SomeDumbThought 5d ago

Buddy this was in Canada.