Except absent a clear and imminent threat of actual harm to be stopped, there's no self defence to be argued- it's just a plan to potentially shoot someone. The quoted passages were quite clear.
‘39 The question arises as to the relevance of a finding that the accused actually used his weapon in a manner which constituted justifiable self-defence. Thus, in
R. v. Sulland (1982), 2 C.C.C. (3d) 68, the British Columbia Court of Appeal held, at p. 71:
In my view, one does not commit the offence with which we are concerned if one carries a weapon for self-defence that is an appropriate instrument with which to repel,
in a lawful manner, the type of attack reasonably apprehended and if the person carrying it is competent to handle the weapon and is likely to use it responsibly. In the absence of other circumstances, such as conduct calculated to provoke an attack, the purpose is unlikely to be dangerous to the public peace. That an attacker might be repelled forcefully, and even injured, is not a danger that the section refers to. In that case the attack, not the response to it, breaches the public peace. [Emphasis added.]
Insofar as the B.C. Court of Appeal was referring, by the use of the phrase “in a lawful manner”, to justifiable self-defence, Jessup J.A., dissenting in
Nelson,
supra, seemed to agree (at p. 36):
Having a weapon for the sole purpose of abating a breach of the peace threatened to result from an attack on the possessor is not, in my opinion, a purpose dangerous to the public peace.
Self-defence, justifiable under the Code, is not confined to tooth and nail.[Emphasis added.]’
Those seem to favour self defence not violating s 88.
