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The government’s mandatory-minimum sentencing regime for serious firearms offences, introduced in 2008 as part of the controversial Tackling Violent Crime Act, was found to be cruel and unusual punishment.

The court found the law “casts its net over a wide range of potential conduct. Most cases within the range may well merit a sentence of three years or more, but conduct at the far end of the range may not.

“At that far end stands, for example, the licensed and responsible gun owner who stores his unloaded firearm safely with ammunition nearby, but makes a mistake as to where it can be stored. Given the minimal blameworthiness of this offender and the absence of any harm or real risk of harm flowing from the conduct, a three year sentence would be disproportionate. Similar examples can be envisaged. The bottom line is that s. 95(1) The high court concluded the government’s mandatory-minimum sentencing regime for serious firearms offences amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

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This is quite a reversal. When the Conservatives came to power, mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes were all the rage among that crowd. In the run-up to the 2006 federal election, the Star lauded Liberal leader Paul Martin for his tough-on-guns approach, which included boosting mandatory minimums. In fact, the Starcriticized the New Democrats for focusing too much on “social ‘conditions that breed crime'” — for “committing sociology,” in modern parlance. The Liberals and, with one exception, the New Democrats supported the omnibus crime bill containing the very provisions struck down this week. (The exception, Bill Siksay, claimed to have been “disciplined” for his roguery.)