Can you imagine if you or I left a loaded handgun under the front seat of our vehicle and someone else found it? Here’s roughly what would transpire next:
1. SWAT would be called in to serve a “high risk warrant”, kick in our front door, arrest us, seize anything and everything even remotely related to firearms, and parade us and our personal property before the media to show how awesome they are.
2. We would be charged with a myriad of crimes starting with “unsafe storage of firearms” and possibly even reckless endangerment of human life for the handgun left loaded under the front seat.
3. We would spend our life savings defending ourselves against the charges only to…
4. Be convicted of all counts and sentenced to God knows how long in a federal prison.
Victoria Police Chief Jamie Graham will not face any of those possibilities, however, even though the Victoria Police Chief is the guy who left a loaded pistol under the front seat of his police cruiser, where it was found on February 17, 2012 by another cop searching the entire police facility and every vehicle in it for some unnamed missing equipment.
No, the only thing that will happen to Chief Graham is a written reprimand, or in plain english, a slap on the wrist.
Technically he is guilty of “neglect of duty” under the Police Act, but he will not be charged with that because, well, he’s the Chief of Police.
What’s ironic is that it’s folks like Chief Graham that believe we mere citizens cannot be trusted with firearms and the world will now end because the gun registry is soon to be abolished.
Hey, here’s an idea:
How about we give Ian Thomson of Ontario the written reprimand and we take the charges that Thomson is currently facing, unsafe storage of firearms, and charge Victoria Police Chief Jamie Graham with that instead?
Its a different law for them isn’t it? Canadians need to realize that it is WE the public that have given THEM, the public police the right to carry guns. However, we did not confer upon them, the public police, the power to either take away our guns, or live by a different set of rules.