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You have to admire Beverley McLachlin’s sense of humour.

In his crusade against the long-gun registry, Stephen Harper used to say “you don’t prevent gun crimes in our cities by cracking down on duck-hunters.”

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Now the Supreme Court of Canada has decided to strike down the government’s mandatory minimum sentencing legislation on gun crimes, on the grounds that it could side-swipe …. duck hunters.

The chief justice and five of her fellow Supreme Court justices spiked the law as unconstitutional on the grounds it could envelop the responsible gun owner who stows his unlocked firearm and ammunition in the wrong place.

Critics of the court will not be surprised at the decision — they will point out it was always likely to rule in favour of increasing the discretion of fellow judges.

But they may be slightly in awe of the ingenious fashion the majority of the justices reasoned their decision.

“A three-year term of imprisonment for a person who has essentially committed a licensing infraction is totally out of sync with the norms of criminal sentencing — there is a cavernous disconnect between the severity of the licensing types offences and mandatory minimum three-year terms of imprisonment,” wrote McLachlin for the majority.