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Several news outlets are reporting shots fired at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, the seat of the national government. There have been three confirmed shooting incidents, one at The National War Memorial, another within parliament itself and a third at a nearby shopping centre.
One ceremonial guard on site has been reportedly shot and killed. Reports say the gunman moved into the building itself, and has been killed by police. Most government officials have been evacuated.
- 1 shooter dead, 1 still believed at large in downtown Ottawa.
- Police searching cars leaving Ottawa trying to go to Quebec.
- Report of additional shots fired near Chateau Laurier Hotel, east of Parliament Hill.
- Police going door to door in downtown core; downtown schools in lockdown.
- All three main party leaders, Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau, reported safe.
Parliament Hill came under attack today after a man with a rifle shot a soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial in downtown Ottawa, before seizing a car and driving to the doors of Parliament Hill's Centre Block nearby.
MPs and other witnesses reported several shots fired inside Parliament, and a gunman has been confirmed dead inside the building, shot by the House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms, according to MPs' eyewitness accounts.
A tragedy for the soldier killed -- but all I can think of right now is "great, now what security-theatre overreaction will we have to suffer through to close this barn door?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dopefish on Thursday October 23 2014, @12:11AM
A good guy with a gun, stopped a bad guy with a gun. Now if only Canada would be more open to letting its citizens at least legally conceal carry, that would be a start.
Sadly, I can only see citizens' rights erode away more and more in response. Only time will tell though.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Thursday October 23 2014, @06:21AM
How would giving the shooter better arms lead to freedom? Same with the guy yesterday who used his car? At that judging by the American experiment, a well armed citizenry does nothing to protect from the erosion of rights.
(Score: 1) by TK-421 on Thursday October 23 2014, @04:01PM
How would giving the shooter better arms lead to freedom?
Concealed-carry isn't about better arms, it is about fear of the unknown. Assuming I am a "bad guy" with intent on harming person A, if I cannot ascertain the armed status of person A, I might think twice before escalating to violence against person A. I think this applies to everyone but sociopaths and narcissists. Concealed-carry creates uncertainty where open-carry is an overt display of power that may or may not be appropriate.
At that judging by the American experiment, a well armed citizenry does nothing to protect from the erosion of rights.
WRT the erosion of American rights, I agree that it does appear to be a problem but I think that has more to do with apathy than second amendment rights. Pick ten Americans off the street and ask them to identify their U.S. senators and more will fail than succeed. Too many Americans cannot identify the people that are elected to represent them. I don't mean to split hairs but we are a representative republic and that means something specific. If the constituents have little to no connection with their elected representatives then the system is going to skew badly.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday October 24 2014, @04:02AM
By concealed carry I take it you mean side-arms. If there are lots of side-arms around then the crack-head who attacked Parliament may well have been better armed. Being a mentally ill crack-head, I doubt he would have cared anymore about the chances of someone having a concealed weapon then he did about the cops that were close who had unconcealed weapons. Plus it would have been much easier for him to conceal a side-arm in the homeless shelter that he was residing in. The other guy who ran down a couple of soldiers also probably would have loved to have a better weapon then a car. We don't need more easily accessible weaponry.
We have the same problem here in Canada, very few Canadians could name their Member of Parliament little well one Senator (excepting which ever one is in the news for corruption). Being a representative constitutional monarchy has exactly the same problems as a representative republic, actually more as the executive is mostly ceremonial and when one party has a majority it is basically a dictatorship with only public opinion and the courts to rein them in. As an example the ruling Conservatives are going to push through a bill really fucking with our rights thanks to this crack-head and it'll be years before the Supreme Court declares the laws unconstitutional, the current government never bother checking on constitutionality first