Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The next time the wall wtreet journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Come on, man.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

The words do not have to be perfect.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Shooting at Canada’s Parliament

Shooting at Canada’s Parliament

by | 41 Comments

This post is in: 

At least two people have been shot in an ongoing incident at Canada’s Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The live CBC broadcast is here. Reporters are saying there’s more than one shooter, but as we know from these type of events, it’s too soon to tell. The cops have confirmed that one shooter is down. A soldier was reportedly shot at the war memorial and has been taken away in an ambulance. Let’s hope it was just one nut and not a group of them and that everyone else clears the area unharmed.

Reader Interactions

41Comments

  3. 3.

    Betty Cracker

    @Bobby Thomson: I don’t blame South Florida for feeling that way, but the fact is, we are all in this together whether we like it or not. That goes for Florida, and that goes for the US too. It’s just not a realistic proposal.

  5. 5.

    The Moar You Know

    From Wikipedia:

    “in April 2012 the requirement to register non-restricted firearms was dropped in every province and territory, except for Quebec (pending litigation).”

    Hey, that legislation is paying off already!

  8. 8.

    The Moar You Know

    Is there a substantial number of Canadians who actually WANT to be like America?

    @Chris: Apparently so. Here’s the history:

    On October 25, 2011, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews introduced a bill to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act, to abolish the long gun registry and destroy all records.

    On February 15, 2012, Bill C-19 passed third reading in the House of Commons; the motion to abolish the long gun registry passed 159 to 130 and Bill C-19 became law.

    Prior to his appointment to the judiciary, Toews was a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.

    Conservatives – who have been in charge of Canada for more than a decade – are very consistent, no?

  11. 11.

    Svensker

    @Chris:

    Is there a substantial number of Canadians who actually WANT to be like America?

    About 27% But in a Parliamentary system, with the “left” split into two parties, it’s enough.

  12. 12.

    ThresherK

    @Chris: Toronto wants very much to be an NFL city, for one thing. I’m told this every time I go north to scratch my itch for the football with twelve men lining up on the 55-yard line to defend against a rouge, at the risk of a penalty for objectionable conduct.

  13. 13.

    Chris

    @The Moar You Know:

    I expect common themes from conservatives all over, like, you know, fuck the poor, fuck the immigrants, fuck those who ain’t in the right ethnic group. I guess I just assumed that gun nuttery like this was a more specifically U.S. thing.

  14. 14.

    Belafon

    @Chris: Once people start ignoring the evidence that countries with gun restrictions see significantly lower shootings than those without restrictions, it’s easy to fall prey to “Gun control didn’t stop this shooting.”

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    CBC says Malala Yousafzai was supposed to meet the Canadian PM today. Also, CBC is confirming a second shooting at a nearby shopping center.

  17. 17.

    beer time somewhere

    A little background info regarding firearms in Canada:

    Folks who wish to own or purchase firearms in Canada must successfully complete the Canadian Firearms Safety Course prior to applying for a licence. Background checks and investigations are performed by the RCMP. All licence applicants are screened, and a mandatory 28-day waiting period is imposed on first-time applicants. People who use their firearms for hunting must also pass a Hunter Safety Course.

  18. 18.

    Matt McIrvin

    Terrible news. It’s still hard to say what’s actually going on.

    My experience is that in these fast-moving situations apparently involving a conspiracy, the number of conspirators and separate incidents tends to multiply in early reports. (Terrorists seem to rely on the effect, to create a powerful illusion of them being everywhere.)

    (An extreme case: on 9/11/2001, at one point I tried to count the number of things going on and figured there were eight hijacked planes and a car bombing in DC, which was high by a factor of two plus one nonexistent car bombing.)

  19. 19.

    JPL

    : Where I live we have a guns everywhere law. I can’t imagine how many would be dead if there were a shooting in the mall.

  22. 22.

    Roger Moore

    @Chris:

    Is there a substantial number of Canadians who actually WANT to be like America?

    Given that they put Stephen Harper in power, I’m going to go with a big, fat yes on that one.

  25. 25.

    skerry

    4 Blackwater contractors convicted in 2007 shooting deaths in Baghdad – one guilty of murder and others guilty of manslaughter and firearm violations. 17 Iraqis killed.

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @skerry: Of course, no one higher up in the Blackwater chain of command faces any charges, let alone jail time.

    They’ve managed to emulate the US Military pretty well on that score.

  27. 27.

    skerry

    @Villago Delenda Est: Absolutely. But I am pleasantly surprised charges were ever brought, let alone any convictions.

    I understand that additional charges were dropped when prosecutors didn’t file proper paperwork and the statute of limitations kicked in.

  28. 28.

    beth

    Ugh I just clicked over to CNN’s website to be greeted by a little box telling me I’m getting a sneak peak at their new redesigned website. It looks like they hired the same crew that screwed up the MSNBC website. Has anyone else seen it? I find it to be really jarring and jumbled.

  29. 29.

    bemused

    @beth:

    I never watch CNN but just switched over from MSNBC to see if CNN was airing press conference. CNN isn’t there. We have DISH and info said Turner Network has removed CNN and DISH has put MSNBC in it’s place. Weird!

  30. 30.

    Origuy

    CBC is reporting that the gunman shot in the Parliament building by the sergeant-at-arms has died. One Canadian soldier shot at the War Memorial has died. A Parliament staffer was shot in the leg.

  32. 32.

    Spiffy McBang

    Clearly a well-armed populace would have stopped this menace in its tracks. After all, one shooter was on the roof of a building, and with everyone pointing up to fire at him, there’s nothing that could have gone wrong.

    That’s if it happened at all, of course. With widespread gun ownership and the ease of legally carrying one’s firearms into almost any location, this fellow (or these fellows) would have thought twice about partaking in a violent rampage. Ignore any news about the legality of the weapons used to perpetrate this crime; in fact, I find it disheartening that we would even consider investigation into such a useless detail.

  33. 33.

    cmorenc

    Well, Fox News is unsurprisingly all over the Al Qaeda angle of the shooter(s) at the Canadian Parliament Building, because police had information he was “radicalized” from previous encounters with him. Former CIA expert yammering on about the HUGE security threat this poses for the United States as well.

    I suspect that though Benghazi! has plenty of true believers among the GOP, there were plenty of more cynically objective sociopaths among them who knew it was hot air bullshit but were playing not just the immediate objective of trying to discredit Obama and Hillary C., but the longer objective of preemptively undermining confidence when some fearsome international crises came along of the sort that easily induces gut-level fear in people. And after several attempts to promote situations that never quite bore fruit, they got three of ’em in a row – Isis, Ebola, and the Canadian Parliament shootings. And the headlines are momentarily skewed away from more favorable democratic terrain – the economy generally, and inequality and the minimum wage and women’s issues particularly.

  34. 34.

    Origuy

    @cmorenc:

    Well, Fox News is unsurprisingly all over the Al Qaeda angle of the shooter(s) at the Canadian Parliament Building,

    Have they even identified the shooter yet? Could they be talking about the guy who ran over two Canadian soldiers on Monday?

  35. 35.

    mdblanche

    Tabarnak.

    @Origuy: The Mounties are holding a press conference right now. It sounds like the shooters have not been IDed yet.

  36. 36.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Origuy: Here’s the difference between a news service and an entertainment service.

    Reuters:

    A gunman shot and fatally wounded a soldier in Ottawa on Wednesday and then entered the country’s parliament buildings chased by police, with at least 30 shots fired in dramatic scenes in the heart of the Canadian capital.

    A suspected gunman was shot dead inside the parliament building, a government minister said.

    Ottawa police were searching for more suspects near the National War Memorial in central Ottawa, where the soldier was shot, and on nearby Parliament Hill, a police spokesman said.

    Fox:

    Multiple gunmen stormed the Canadian Parliament complex Wednesday, killing a soldier guarding the National War Memorial and spraying as many as 30 shots inside the government building in Ottawa in a brazen assault that left the nation’s capital on virtual lockdown just two days after a terror attack in Quebec, officials said.

    The shots rang out just before 10 a.m., and were quickly followed by reports of “several shooting incidents in downtown Ottawa,” according to a tweet from police.

  37. 37.

    Steve from Antioch

    @The Moar You Know:

    Don’t you worry none. ‘Fore too long there will be another shooting here in the USA and you’ll be able to roll out your talking points without being inconvenienced by any facts that don’t fit your narrative.

    Best keep your powder dry til then.

  38. 38.

    Jane2

    @The Moar You Know: The long gun registry was scrapped because it was horribly expensive, corrupt, and ineffective. Canada still has pretty strict laws regarding firearms ownership and use.

  39. 39.

    Steve from Antioch

    @Jane2:

    The long gun registry was scrapped because it was horribly expensive, corrupt, and ineffective.

    How much does the NRA pay you to write such nonsense?

  41. 41.

    Malovich

    @Origuy:

    Nope, and no word on who, what or why. The official word is, “It’s too early to speculate.”, which won’t stop wild-eyed speculators from speculating.

    There is an excellent chance that the individuals involved in instigating and carrying out this attack were radicalized and there’s also an excellent chance that it isn’t.

    One reservist soldier was killed in the initial attack at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; he was posted as a guard. One gunman entered Parliament Hill and was shot fatally by the Sergeant-at-Arms. You do not fuck with Sergeants.

    The rumour of a second shooting are false; there *may* be a second suspect running around. A grey car without any plates has been identified and was being checked out by the bomb squad as of the latest update.

    What would an armed populace do in this instance? Get shot by both sides, I suspect. Area cleared, armed persons in this instance would be easily confused for suspects and either detained or confronted with maximum force.

    That’s the limit of my knowledge on the incident itself. The PM has withdrawn from the meeting with Malala, but since she was speaking, I think that event is still going on.

    The gun registry was scrapped because it was by the Liberals and the Cons sunk a lot of money turning it into An Issue. Most law enforcement I know really really liked it and wanted it kept around. It’s as much of a boondoggle as any government program with overruns and inefficiencies. It’d be good to have something like that available for law enforcement.

    Otherwise, yes, our gun control is pretty solid; you have to be proven to be a fairly sane individual who can go through a gun safety course and be given a basic screening by the RCMP.

    Malovich, in Ottawa

Comments are closed.