Montreal Shootings

[Darrell]

Breaking news right now...

Apparently there have been a number of shootings at Dawsons College in Montreal (Quebec, Canada).

Reports say as many as four people have been shot, there are reports that one gunman may have been shot dead by police - but from the pictures they are showing now, police aren't convinced its over. There may be more shooters.

Several police in different areas around the college have guns drawn, students and faculty are being evacuated...

EDIT: Details still sketchy, but here's a CTV report

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060913/montreal_shooting_060913/20060913?hub=TopStories

and the CBC report

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/09/13/shots-dawson.html

[AllanJGAnderson]

That's horrible, truely horrible. My condolences to the families of the victims.

[Musubi Dojo]

New information at your links Darrell....

[Darrell]

I'm watching live on CTV right now.

Montreal Health Services says 6 in critical condition, 2 in serious condition, 4 stable of the total of 12 that have been admitted to hospital.

One of the gunmen was 'neutralized' by police. Another is confirmed dead, but it's not clear whether he killed himself.

[Musubi Dojo]

Bloody awful.....and in Montreal again! :(

[Brian R. VanCise]

How sad! My heart goes out to all of the families.

[David Craik]

Good heavens, aren't gun control laws very strict there since the incident at the Ecole Polytechnique?

[TIRAGION]

GUN CONTROL LAWS is the cause of these tragedies. Keep on taking guns away from law obiding citizens, and this will just be the begining. Another example of such events New Orleans post Katrina

[Gordon Nore]

GUN CONTROL LAWS is the cause of these tragedies. Keep on taking guns away from law obiding citizens, and this will just be the begining. Another example of such events New Orleans post Katrina.

Huh........?

[Gordon Nore]

Good heavens, aren't gun control laws very strict there since the incident at the Ecole Polytechnique?

I believe that the 1988 shootings at Ecole Polytechnique did provide the impetus for the most recent package of gun legislation in Canada known as the Canadian Gun Registry. From a Wikipedia article...


The Canadian gun registry is a government-run registry of all legally-owned guns in Canada. It was introduced by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and implemented by successive Justice Ministers Allan Rock and Anne McLellan. It requires every firearm in Canada to be registered or rendered in an unusable state. This was an effort to reduce crime by making every gun traceable. While the legislation is still in place, as of May 17, 2006, the government is no longer asking long gun owners for a registration fee and will not prosecute long gun owners who do not register at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_gun_registry

Whether the registry has reduced gun crime is a matter of debate -- personally, I doubt it. The legislation did not directly lead to a confiscation of weapons, but rather an additional layer of monitoring of gun owning citizens. The current government has pledged (whether they'll do it or not) to reinvest the money it recoups from de-listing long guns into the RCMP.

Now all of this is likely moot in this case, as witnesses have reported throughout the day that they heard what they thought was autmomatic weapons fire. Automatic weapons have been prohibited in Canada since the 70s, and thus the shooter would have acquired his weapon(s) illegally.

[Ramirez]

GUN CONTROL LAWS is the cause of these tragedies. Keep on taking guns away from law obiding citizens, and this will just be the begining. Another example of such events New Orleans post Katrina

Actually it was some suicidal, lunatic that was the cause of the tragedy.

[Musubi Dojo]

Nutbars get weapons no matter what laws are in place and I personally don't think this thread should be a platform for pushing a personal agenda about gun laws. (No offense or challenge intended here.)

On the upside from what I hear the Montreal Police did an amazing job and uniformed and plain clothes officers went in right away to save lives without waiting for any sort of back up from a SWAT type unit. They mostly likely saved a lot of lives this way, especially the folks in intensive care right now.

Peace
c

[Ramirez]

Nutbars get weapons no matter what laws are in place and I personally don't think this thread should be a platform for pushing a personal agenda about gun laws. (No offense or challenge intended here.)
c

Exactly, exploiting this tragedy for anyone's personal views about gun control is crass to say the least.

[SteyrAUG]

Exactly, exploiting this tragedy for anyone's personal views about gun control is crass to say the least.

It is hardly any different than the thousands of calls FOR gun control following Columbine and similar events. The Brady Campaign (VPC) was founded on just such an event. Groups like Handgun Control were created to exploit a shooting and promote an agenda. And I don't see anyone lining up to condemn them for their crassness.

That said, I don't think gun control causes or prevents such tragedies.

I think 9-11 pretty much demonstrated that you cannot disarm people who wish to cause harm. The notion that if you simply take all the box cutters, nail files, tweezers and sharp crayons away from Mohammed Atta types that they will then be safe to fly is absurd. Terrorists who are determined to cause harm will always find a weapon and always find a way. This is why the focus needs to be on the terrorists themselves and not the tools they may employ.

On the other hand, it is simplistic and unrealistic to suggest if everyone had a gun, nothing bad would happen. While it is true that if others in the Montreal school were armed then MAYBE they could have protected themselves or others, it is hardly a guarantee of anything. Even police officers get shot and killed and they are armed. In addition a LOT of people aren't responsible enough to be armed and tend to the safety and security of others. All one has to do is watch Jerry Springer to figure out why "guns for all" isn't the wisest idea ever promoted.

The main thing to remember is guns are not the problem or the solution. They are just a thing. The problem is the people who would do such a thing. Unfortunately crazy people don't come with warning stickers and flashing lights so the problem isn't that easy to address. So as a tendency people try and address other factors such as the tools they employ.

The reality is that there is no simple solution. You can't lock up everyone who is a "little strange." Half this forum would be doing time if you could. You can't disarm criminals by taking guns away from the law abiding. Any criminal willing to kill people doesn't give a damn about gun laws. So at the end of the day it remains an imperfect world where you can find yourself "on your own" when things go bad. This is why many of us are martial artists and why some of us are armed.

We don't know what is gonna happen or when. But we'd like to be prepared to do something about it "if" things go bad. Trouble doesn't make an appointment, it sorta shows up without much warning.

[Musubi Dojo]

It is hardly any different than the thousands of calls FOR gun control following Columbine and similar events. The Brady Campaign (VPC) was founded on just such an event. Groups like Handgun Control were created to exploit a shooting and promote an agenda. And I don't see anyone lining up to condemn them for their crassness.


Not condeming anyone Richard, just looking for a respectful thread in light of the events.

I'd agree with you that self agrandising jerks with an agenda come in all shapes, sizes, colors and flavors..

That being said, thank you for your obviously well thought out and respectful post.

Cheers
c

[Darrell]

Few thoughts now that the details are sorting themselves out..

- big props for the Montreal police for responding with incredible speed, moving in quickly at incredible personal risk to contain the shooter, and handling things with caution and professionalism when the shooter was taken down.

- Sympathy for the families of those involved, and especially Anastasia DeSouza.

- Kimveer Gill was clearly deranged. It's unfortunate that he was able to do this at all, but complete security from random violence is too much to ask for. There will be a lot of discussion about who he was, whether we could have prevented his rampage, what videogames he likes, etc. Some of this will be worthwhile, but the truth is it's all hindsight and it won't help the families.

[SteyrAUG]

Few thoughts now that the details are sorting themselves out..

- big props for the Montreal police for responding with incredible speed, moving in quickly at incredible personal risk to contain the shooter, and handling things with caution and professionalism when the shooter was taken down.

I think most agnecies learned from the mistakes made at Columbine.



- Sympathy for the families of those involved, and especially Anastasia DeSouza.

I agree. The victims are unfortunately never remembered as well as the criminals. Sadly that is often a big part of the criminal motivation.



- Kimveer Gill was clearly deranged. It's unfortunate that he was able to do this at all, but complete security from random violence is too much to ask for. There will be a lot of discussion about who he was, whether we could have prevented his rampage, what videogames he likes, etc. Some of this will be worthwhile, but the truth is it's all hindsight and it won't help the families.

Some people just "ain't right." I'm convinced that Jeffery Dahmer would have become a monster in ANY environment or upbringing. Attractions to weapons, rap music, violent video games. etc. are not what creates a violent sociopath. They are simply things that often interest a violent sociopath. This guy was bing into Vampire Goth getting rid of all the Anne Rice novels would not have prevented this. He would have simply found some other interest that appealled to him.

[Darrell]

Some people just "ain't right." I'm convinced that Jeffery Dahmer would have become a monster in ANY environment or upbringing. Attractions to weapons, rap music, violent video games. etc. are not what creates a violent sociopath. They are simply things that often interest a violent sociopath. This guy was bing into Vampire Goth getting rid of all the Anne Rice novels would not have prevented this. He would have simply found some other interest that appealled to him.

Well said.

[David Craik]

Gotta agree with Richard, we can look for all the 'causes' we want, but some people are just nuts. My heartfelt sympathies to the families.

[Gordon Nore]

Gotta agree with Richard, we can look for all the 'causes' we want, but some people are just nuts...

You know, that's an interesting point. This is much like some of the recent self-defense threads... What works best on the street -- this or that? Realistic training and situational awareness are great, but it's virtually impossible to prepare this level of insanely malevolent behaviour.

[TonyU]

Realistic training and situational awareness are great, but it's virtually impossible to prepare this level of insanely malevolent behaviour.
That's our job. We have to train and be prepared to deal with this type of behavior.

Coincidently, the night before the Montreal shooting, we had back to school night with my daughters first grade teacher. They now run what they call "lock down" drills in the event of a school shooting. Scary, since if something like that were to happen I would be responding as part of the SWAT team.
Responding to that as an LEO is one thing, being there as parent is a whole different matter.

[Cliff Hargrave]

...They now run what they call "lock down" drills in the event of a school shooting...

That is common here also. No more fire drills or the like where everyone walks outside. Now they lock all the doors. There was a school shooting a few years ago where a kid called in a bomb threat, then sniped some kids when they went outside.

Since Columbine the Active Shooter Response protocol has changed alot. No more perimeter, tactical team, etc. The standard now is for the first officers to enter and hunt the shooters down. Almost all the nutjob shooters commit suicide as soon as they have contact with the police, or they get shot by the police.

I certainly do not look forward to ever having to run into a school and engage in a gun fight with a nutjob in the middle of a crown of kids. But sometimes in our job you just have to tell yourself "This is going to suck" and then just do it.

[Gordon Nore]

That's our job. We have to train and be prepared to deal with this type of behavior.

Absolutely it is, Tony. I was talking about the average civie. We have lockdown drills here too. In my previous school, which was a K-5, we rehearsed our lockdown procedures.