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Mr. Thomson was charged with four crimes: careless use of a firearm, pointing a firearm and two charges of careless storage of a firearm, one for each of the pistols he had removed from his gun safe (the second, a 9mm pistol, was never fired during the incident). The first two charges were dropped — it’s hard to imagine a more cut-and-dry case of lawful self defence than firing on men trying to burn down your home while you’re inside it. But the Crown insisted on pursuing the charges of careless storage.

On Friday, an Ontario judge acquitted Mr. Thomson of both those charges.

The Crown had pursued two avenues of prosecution. First, it contended that Mr. Thomson kept at least one of his guns in his bedside table, not in a legally mandated secure locking container. As evidence, they pointed to the fact that when police arrived, they found the guns in his bedroom, as well as a box of ammunition in the bedside table.

Nonsense. The guns were out because he’d just been fighting for his life. And a box of ammunition in his bedside table is proof only that Mr. Thomson kept a box of ammunition in his bedside table. If we accepted the Crown’s logic, I would apparently be in the habit of parking my car in my bedroom because I drop my car key onto a shelf there every evening.

The judge found that video surveillance captured by Mr. Thomson’s security cameras offered convincing evidence that Mr. Thomson did not have easy and immediate access to his firearms. There was a gap of a minute between the attack beginning and Mr. Thomson opening fire — time during which Mr. Thomson claimed he was opening his gun safe to arm himself. The judge accepted this.