News • 25 May 2003

Firing in self-defence

By Matthew Vella

An execution-style showdown last Sunday has seen two men, Cikku Fenech, 63, and John Pace, 38, being tried in the Law Courts for attempting to murder each other, when Pace allegedly trespassed onto Fenech’s field in Mosta.

Fenech and Pace were reported to have fired a total of eleven shots at each other, the latter using a shotgun and Fenech firing from a revolver. Both firearms were unlicensed.

A similar incident occurred a week earlier in the Italian city of Milan where a shopkeeper reacted to an armed robbery on his property by shooting at his assailants. The shopkeeper stands accused of murdering one of the robbers and injuring the other.

The number of shooting incidents in Malta rank nowhere near the incidents that occur in large European cities, but approximately 17 per cent of the Maltese population had a licensed firearm in May 2002.

A total of 67,036 firearms were registered with police authorities during that period. The estimate of the number of arms purchased in the black market remains unknown, although informed sources claim there is no lucrative underground economy for firearms in Malta.

The total number of single-barrelled and double-barrelled shotguns numbered 48,556 out of the global figures.

In 2001, a total of 1,679 firearms were imported, 1,380 of which were shotguns. That same year, police received 76 reports of offences involving firearms. Only eight had been licensed. Between January and August 2002 a total of 1,890 firearms were imported, 1,008 of which were shotguns.

Smoking barrels

Stephen Petroni, managing director of Phoenix Group’s sporting department is currently the representative of a lobby representing seven organisations pushing for a new gun law in Malta, to be debated in Parliament in the near future. The organisations include hunting groups, target-shooting clubs, collectors clubs and re-enactment groups.

"Presently, the 1931 Arms Ordnance allows anyone with a clean police conduct to purchase any firearm currently available, be it an airgun, black powder revolver, or shotguns.

"We always believed that licensing should be on the basis of the intended use of the arm, and consequently upon the user himself. So what we worked for is a new law based on the EU arms directive that introduces specific licences for different categories of uses, such as target-shooting, collecting, or hunting.

"Obtaining a licence will not be an easy process. You will first have to be a member of a target-shooting, collectors or hunting organisation. Then you will have to go through a weapons advisory board that will vet your application, and will then recommend the police commissioner to issue a licence.

"Only once you are given the appropriate licence will you be able to buy those guns appropriate for that licence. This is a far more secure system and it will be a law that will address safety as well as acknowledge target-shooting disciplines.

"Every form of restriction creates an underground market. With this new law the bona fide enthusiast will have the opportunity of enjoying his sport and hobby under conditions that guarantee safety. It will reduce the temptation to do so outside of lawful parameters. Even so, there does not presently exist some advanced form of lucrative black market."

Petroni says the figures available on licensed firearms from police records are inflated because they also include old muzzle loaders and even airguns, which strictly speaking are not firearms. “The arms that are licensed in Malta generally pose no threat. Licensed firearms can either be kept at home under lock and key or carried to the shooting range."

Repelling by fire

In the Mosta shooting incident both accused are undoubtedly set to supplement their ‘not guilty’ plea by arguing they acted on grounds of self-defence.

Criminal lawyer Joe Giglio told MaltaToday that self-defence had to fulfil certain conditions in order to be justified:

"Determining self-defence involves the identification of whether there was an actual necessity in committing the offence.

"The criminal code includes three elements of justifiable self-defence: trespassing on one’s property; defence against someone committing or attempting to commit theft, with violence; defence against rape. These are the tests of self-defence and are explained by law.

"But should the test of self-defence fail, there are a further four elements which could determine whether the act is excusable, and therefore have the punishment for the crime reduced.

"These include: whether the aggression against the offender was grave, maybe provoked by grievous bodily harm; whether the offender was the victim of an unjust aggression; whether the aggressor’s actions were inevitable; and also if the aggressor’s reaction was a proportionate one. In assessing this last element, the test has to be subjective, and therefore looking at the situation as the offender saw it."matthew@maltamag.com