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It would be easy to rewrite Sec. 88 to say, “while committing an offence or for the purpose of committing one.” Instead, it deliberately gives police and the courts leeway to harry, squeeze and exhaust anyone who tries to look after themselves.

You may think you detect some wiggle room here yourself, to carry a screwdriver or pepper spray against “stray dogs” or “rabid raccoons” on the way to the bus stop. But if the state catches you with it, even successfully defending yourself against feral humans, it puts the onus on you to prove you had a legitimate concern about animals.

Forget the presumption of innocence. And prepare for the state to consider you a worse threat to public peace than your attacker. Ask grocer David Chen or homeowner Ian Thomson about the prosecutorial juggernaut that wastes years of your life, imposes ruinous legal bills, creates horrifying stress, then walks blithely away when it loses, its members highly paid not disciplined.

One police spokesperson told me that if you carry a knife, the assailant will probably take it from you. I consider that an insult, while his recommendation to take a taxi instead had Marie Antoinette written all over it. Besides, if someone is trying to rape and murder you and winds up with your knife as well as his, I don’t see how you’re much worse off.

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Most fundamentally, it’s not government’s call, it’s yours. Or rather, it should be. But in Canada today the state openly calls you a menace to yourself and others who must not carry dangerous things.

If you don’t agree, tell the justice minister. Help us take our story back by supporting our documentary (at arighttoarms.com). Insist that Canadians are self-reliant, responsible people who can be trusted with tools the government cannot be trusted with the power to take away.

Meanwhile, Minister Wilson-Raybould should ask her security detail what important Canadian value or policy goal is served by deliberately leaving women unarmed.

National Post