The editorial "Keep the right to self-defence" (Nov. 22) suggests Canadians' right to self-defence is under threat and describes three specific events to make the point.

In fact, the three cases actually prove the opposite. In the one example where an actual physical threat arose, the Crown appeared to honour the notion of a victim's right to self-defence.

That was the Port Alberni case, where jewelry store owner Dennis Galloway fired a handgun at armed robbers who were threatening his wife, and the Crown left him alone.

In the other two cases, the victims were never under threat of personal harm and the suspects were fleeing when attacked by their victims. A storekeeper in Toronto chased down and detained a suspected shoplifter when he spotted him back in the neighbourhood an hour after the actual theft. And an Alberta rancher fired a shotgun at the back of a fleeing thief. The storekeeper and the rancher were both charged with numerous offences.

Some might argue that all three crooks got what they deserved. The jeweller might have been safer had he complied, but in the face of a lethal threat, pulling out a gun was not disproportional.

The storekeeper was justified in detaining a shoplifter. Retailers do it every day. His legal problems arose from his method. In the case of the rancher, a blast of buckshot in the back is clearly excessive. Lethal force should not have been used against a property thief who was literally running for his life.

It is misleading to suggest the charges against the storekeeper and the rancher had anything to do with their right to self-defence. Neither was defending himself, just his property.

And while they had a right to defend their property, they did not have a right to use excessive, even deadly force and are being held to account.

Allen Peabody

Chemainus