If it squawks like a duck, and kills like a duck…

First of all, my condolences go out to the family of the Canadian Armed Forces member killed yesterday, as do my hopes for the speedy recovery of the one who was injured.  

On Monday 20 October 2014 (yesterday as I write this) two CAF members were intentionally stuck by a car in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu QC, home to a military training facility.  One, as mentioned above, has now died of wounds suffered in this attack.  The driver then sped off, but fortunately there was a police cruiser on the scene (how stupid was this guy?) which gave chase.  After the offender (suspect my ass) rolled his car into a ditch he (apparently) came out with a knife and (fact) was shot dead by police. 

Good riddance to bad rubbish I say, but the most significant part of this whole affair was how the Canadian government handled it.  Immediately after the events, the Prime Minister (himself) called this a probable terrorist attack.  Turns out he wasn’t pulling it out of his ass, as he had been briefed by our National Security organizations about the perp’s background. This guy was a local convert, and had been gobbing off on Facebook or whatever about “going on jihad”.  Since Daesh put out their fatwa on everyone in the Western world, this guy must have felt he was doing his bit.   

It will be interesting to see how the CAF handles this, as I would argue that the member was killed in action.  The Americans by contrast bent themselves into pretzels to call Nidal Hassan’s jihadi killing spree at Fort Hood in 2009 “workplace violence” despite him yelling “Allah Akbar” when he started it.  This refusal to face and admit reality is a leadership failure. 

There will be more of this sort of thing, and in many cases (like this one) they will be essentially unpreventable since we don’t live in a police state.  I will accept that risk, and it’s made easier knowing that PM Harper, whatever his other faults, “gets it” and won’t pretend the problem away.  So, thumbs up to the police officer who settled this guy’s hash, and to our PM for not soft-pedalling the event or the general threat.  

Thugs, Race-Baiting and the Police State

The recent events in Ferguson Missouri are displaying all of the hallmarks of the race-baiting grievance industry. For background (and in case this is being read well after the fact), an unarmed (black) teenager was shot by a (white) cop. These are the bald facts and the races of the involved are in parentheses because I personally don't think they were the driving force of events. Details are trickling out, the most recent (autopsy) that all shots to the victim were in the front, the wound pattern contradicting the "eye-witness" account of Mr. Brown's friend who was with him at the time.

There is pervasive racism in the USA, like there is everywhere else. Naturally, given the afore-mentioned racism grievance industry, any shooting involving an unarmed black man by anyone other than another black man, the vultures will descend. What follows is what I think the facts will eventually bear out in this case.

Michael Brown may have been 18 years old, but he was a hulking 18-yr-old who was captured on video only minutes before the shooting roughing up a shopkeeper and stealing a box of cigarillos. Petty theft and standard assault so far; definitely not capital crimes. Problem is, the cop who shot him didn't even know about this at the time; the initial stop was apparently for walking in the middle of the road blocking traffic.

Last I checked that type of behavior constitutes Probable Cause for a police stop, being at least a misdemeanor. What happened next is speculative, but based on the limited sample of Brown's (anti-social) behavior available it is probable that he threatened the cop in some fashion, and at 6'4" & 290lbs and not alone, that is a clear and present danger to anyone. The friend (accomplice) claimed that the officer shot Brown in the back and that Brown's hands were up and he was running away, which is disproved by the autopsy results. What is consistent with the physical evidence is that Brown was charging at the officer.

At this point however, most of the damage has been done. Days of rioting and looting have resulted in the National Guard being called out and a curfew imposed. In the process leading up to this there have been many discussions of militarized police forces which is also a problem, albeit not the one which precipitated the violence.

The problem is thugs, specifically black ones. Treyvon Martin was a teenager too, but again a big one with an aggressive attitude. Big guys who are "unarmed" are still capable of deadly or crippling physical violence and I have no doubt that if Zimmerman hadn't shot him Zimmerman would be dead or brain-damaged today.  Big thugs of any other complexion are of course just as dangerous, only no-one would riot if Brown were white, even if a black cop shot him.

It comes down in situations like this to "Better tried by 12 than carried by 6", optics be damned. I will yell as loud as anyone about police abusing their power, and there is a lot of that, just not in this specific situation as far as I can tell. Cops in assaulter gear shooting dogs, SWAT teams hitting the wrong houses, reporters and the public being intimidated and arrested for filming police in public areas; these are real problems requiring a vigorous public response. Said response should constitute political action, possibly civil disobedience, but smashing burning and looting is merely opportunistic crime.

This will be investigated, and is being so already. As long as the Attorney General can be kept from interfering (it's happening again) something as close as we can get to the truth will eventually come out.

Guns don't murder people, a**holes murder people.

There's a lot going on this week, but one of the big international stories is the "Dark Knight" shooting rampage in Aurora Colorado last week. North of the border there was another gang-banger shooting in Scarborough albeit with a smaller body count, but there are important differences between the two ( i.e. lone maniac vs. sloppy and reckless thugs). I'll look at the common element, guns, availability and use thereof.

Gun control comes up as predictably as the sun every time there's a mass shooting, and I see no reason that will change. There are of course many other ways to kill someone besides a gun, and explosives do a very effective job of it either in concert with or without firearms. As a thought experiment I'll come up with a simple way to recreate the Aurora attack (I will not help immortalize that murderer's name) if guns weren't available to him.

The 'perp's apartment was rigged with explosives, so a remote-detonated car bomb was the least risky way to kill and maim a bunch of people. Want something more personal? He could have made a bunch of pipe bombs and gone into the theatres lobbing them into the middle of the crowd. Neither of these scenarios require access to any specialized or highly controlled items or substances and could have done as much or more damage.

My point? You can't ban enough stuff to keep lunatics from flipping out and going on a spree. Likewise, even in places where it is most certainly illegal to be carrying a weapon around nothing can stop someone who has one (legally owned or otherwise) from doing so. It is a matter of near certainty that all of the gang shootings in Toronto (home of very restrictive handgun laws) were perpetrated with illegal firearms.

My answer? Mandatory concealed carry for everyone with a clean record (capable of handling a pistol) might help to cut these things short when they happen. Otherwise, accept that bad things happen and try to minimize the occurrences and/or your exposure. After that, it's all luck to not be in the path of the rare but inevitable acts of entropic violence that will erupt no matter what the "authorities" try to do to prevent it.