Self Defence In Canada: Use Of Lethal Force

Can you use lethal force to defend yourself in Canada? Can you kill someone in self defense? In very narrow situations you can. First of all, I want you to refer back I did an extensive video on what is reasonable force. Every case is different, but I’m going to give you an example of when lethal force could be used. So basically generally, in order for someone to kill someone in self defense lawfully that is defending yourself, you would have to be in fear of imminent grave risk your life that you’re going to be killed or seriously hurt and that has to be happening right there and then. When do those situations emerge meaning, if someone has a knife and they’re threatening you and they’re right at you, if someone’s pointing a gun and threatening going to kill you. Those are you really have no other don’t you? If you have a knife or gun even if you had it legally or can get access you in that situation with your life on the line, imminent fear, could use lethal force it seems to be and probably win your case in court. So all the facts have to line up though I mean, this is a pretty serious situation where someone has a gun at your head and they’re threatening to shoot you or a person is just about to stab or even has stabbed you or has already shot you and you’re shooting or stabbing back. So it’s a very narrow circumstance. A Judge or a jury is going to look at that very carefully. If you kill someone about what was in your mind at the time, what was happening and whether you’re truly protecting yourself from being killed or experiencing egregious bodily harm. Now I can think of hypothetical scenarios you know, involving the well let’s say you have a small woman being attacked in a home by a big man who’s going to kill her with his fists maybe that could justify lethal force but if you’re talking 2 men pushing and punching in a bar well you just don’t start pulling out your knife and stabbing or shooting the person. It’s not that reasonable. Between those two extremes there’s all sorts of gray areas. But the bottom line to remember about this is was it reasonable force? Did you act reasonable in the circumstances and let’s face that, we can go through this rigmarole but common sense has to ultimately prevail. We know what’s reasonable when we see it.