Keegan Muxlow has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of an 18-year-old who was a victim of a home invasion in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada. Andrew Lutton explains why self-defense is a fundamental right in Canada.
00:00:42.060He used it, shot the 18-year-old dead, and it sounds like there was a bit of a tussle, but ultimately police were called, and Keegan was the one charged with murder.
00:00:51.940Now, the two surviving alleged home invaders were, in fact, charged.
00:00:56.040They were charged with breaking and entering.
00:00:57.720But this charge pales in comparison to the second-degree murder charge that Keegan Muxlow has.
00:01:03.060Now, he's also facing a charge of unlicensed possession of a weapon and unsafe storage of it.
00:01:11.060Now, understandably, this is tainting people's perception of the case.
00:01:14.800If he had an illegally owned gun, then surely he should be charged.
00:01:19.500And I agree, he should be charged for the ownership of the gun if it was, in fact, illegal.
00:01:25.540But whether or not he lawfully owned the gun is irrelevant.
00:01:28.980The law in Canada says that you can defend yourself with reasonable force, which means if someone comes in with a gun, you're pretty well justified to use a gun, even if you aren't supposed to have it to defend yourself.
00:01:41.560But unfortunately, in Canada, the law surrounding self-defense is often very weak when police refuse to keep the spirit of that law alive.
00:01:51.320Now, courts have in the past given many, many passes to people that police charged because they were defending themselves.
00:02:02.900But more importantly, if you are put on trial in a self-defense case, you're the one that has to mount a defense.
00:02:09.040And this has cost people tens of thousands of dollars.
00:02:11.420The most notable example is the man in Port Colborne, Ontario, whose home was firebombed and he shot warning shots, didn't even shoot at the people that were destroying his property and threatening his family.
00:02:24.300But the need to protect self-defense has never been more alive because you have law enforcement agencies in Canada that are not recognizing what isn't just a right in Canada, but a fundamental common law right.
00:02:36.260Something that really is as intuitive as it is lawful to protect and defend yourself.
00:02:43.380Now, I don't know the details of this Weyburn, Saskatchewan case.
00:02:46.380I don't know what this nature of the invasion were.
00:02:48.960We know that most home invasions typically are targeted.
00:02:52.200But we do know here that a man had his home broken into and the people who were breaking in had a gun and he had a gun and he shot back.