Photo credit: Toronto Star
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has congratulated a homeowner who shot and injured an alleged home invader in Vaughan this week, saying intruders “need to be shot.”
“Congratulations for shooting this guy – should have shot him a couple more times as far as I’m concerned,” Ford said, after being asked about the incident at an unrelated news conference Wednesday.
However, opposition parties were quick to criticize the premier’s statement. NDP Leader Marit Stiles called it “very irresponsible nonsense” when speaking with reporters on Wednesday.
“This premier has been premier of this province for eight years now.” she said. “If people in Ontario feel less safe today, then that’s on him as the premier of this province.”
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner echoed those sentiments in a statement, calling it “irresponsible for the Premier to be making comments encouraging violence or celebrating the loss of life.
“He should focus on investing in measures that will make our province safer and em;power first responders to do their jobs to serve and pone should be congratulated for shooting another person.”
The Nigerian case
In Nigeria, the state of insecurity is so much that people have, more or less, resigned to fate.
People are abducted, wounded or killed in broad daylight.
Children, women and men are generally at risk.
It’s so bad that farms have been deserted due to a fear of the insecurity in the land.
On Monday, at least 23 people were killed and 108 injured in suspected multiple suicide bomb attacks in Maiduguri city, the capital of Nigeria’s insurgent-hit northeastern state of Borno, according to police and the military.
Meanwhile, that did not stop the president of Nigeria from making a trip to the UK.
The Chicken Game
I believe the current rate of insecurity in Nigeria is so worrying that the game of chicken should be recommended.
The principle of the game is that while the ideal outcome is for one player to yield, (to avoid the worst outcome if neither yields), individuals try to avoid it out of pride, not wanting to look like “chickens”.
The name “chicken” has its origins in a game i n which two drivers drive toward each other on a collision course: one must swerve, or both may doe in the crash, but if one driver swerves and the other does not, the one who swerved will be called a “chicken”, meaning a coward.
Most Nigerians are not even given the chance to be called cowards.This is because the process of owning a gun is just too hazardous. Moreover, most of the people can’t afford guns.
People are then left unable to protect themselves when attacked. The bandits are, in most cases, better armed, have better intelligence facilities, and might even be better paid than the government forces.
If the use of firearms were legalized and the bureaucracy eliminated, invaders would think twice for they might not know how prepared the homeowners would be.
At this stage, I would recommend the right of individuals to self-protection, even if it means through the legalization of firearms!
