A man caught driving through the VLA with a stolen and loaded handgun strapped across his chest was sentenced earlier this month to three years in jail.
Police had pulled over Ryan Knowles on Pine Street shortly before 10 a.m. on Jan. 9, 2015 after they noticed the amount of uncleared snow on his car.
Knowles, now 25 years old, did not have his driver's licence and there was no rear licence on the vehicle which he said he had just purchased a few days before.
An odour of marijuana led police to find a baggy holding a small amount in the console although Knowles, who suffers ongoing pain from a 2012 motor vehicle incident, may have had a medical licence for the substance. As well, there was no suggestion he was under its influence at the time.
Of more concern, Prince George provincial court judge Susan Mengering said in her reasons for sentencing, was the discovery of a loaded and restricted semi-automatic pistol in a single-strap shoulder bag strapped across his chest.
Police later determined the gun had been stolen in Vancouver in 2011. Knowles admitted possession of the gun to police but maintained it did not belong to him and declined to identify its owner. He also said he did not know if it was loaded.
Knowles, who had no criminal record, later told the author of a pre-sentence report he was carrying the weapon because he was "driving in a bad area" and "feeling vulnerable," but also conceded he knew he should not have had the gun in his vehicle and was nervous about it.
Knowles' father, when he spoke to the court, supported his son's reasons, saying he was carrying the firearm to make a statement - that he should not be "messed with." The logical inference, concluded Mengering, is that if "messed with" he would use the gun.
Crown had been seeking 42 months while defence counsel argued for two years house arrest followed by three years probation or, barring that, two years plus a day in a federal facility where he could receive better medical attention.
In arriving at three years, Mengering in part referred to a case in which the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the so-called "mandatory minimum" of three years for the offence but still upheld a sentence of 40 months for the accused.
In rulings on that case, Hussein Jama Nur has been described as a 19-year-old "exceptional student and athlete who volunteered and worked part-time" and had no criminal record but was found hanging about a community centre with a loaded handgun. He ran when police showed up and discarded the gun as he fled, but there was no suggestion he was going to use the gun. Nor was he involved in the fight that led police to show up.
Mengering noted Knowles was not using the gun to further any criminal behaviour such as collecting a drug debt but also noted he was carrying the firearm in a public place, creating a "significantly higher" risk to the community.
"While I am sympathetic to Mr.Knowles' circumstances, I am still faced with the growing outcry by communities and statements by higher courts that loaded firearms pose an extreme danger, putting lives at serious risk regardless of the intent of the person carrying the gun," Mengering said in the decision, issued Feb. 1.
Knowles then-girlfriend, who was in the passenger seat, was never charged.
