I’m in Ottawa at the moment, albeit in the west end. I have to venture about half way closer to the downtown core in an hour or so.
I just picked my daughter up at school. The other public board is on lockdown, but not the Catholic board.
And the Leaf / Sens game has been canceled. :mad:
FYI, I’m here in downtown Ottawa.
We have just been released from lockdown, there will be a live press conference in the next few minutes.
The soldier has passed and one shooter is dead. The police are still searching for any other suspects.
Is it really necessary to crack jokes right now?
Maybe not as much as the US and UK, but there was definitely changes made similar to other countries after 9/11.
RCMP press conference
ongoing fluid investigations, don’t have all answers yet
9:52 reported gunfire at cenotaph
one ceremonial guard shot
several minutes later, incident reported at Center Block at the Parliament Building.
one male suspect - confirmed deceased
soldier died from injuries
That’s pretty well all they are saying.
Not sure this is a joke - this is a picture of the actual guy wearing his ceremonial outfit. If Parliament was in session at the time, this is what he would actually have looked like at the time of the incident (minus the ceremonial mace).
Fair enough.
It was a Caucus Day so I believe he wasn’t in ceremonial dress. It may also have saved lives, otherwise session begins at 10am.
Yeah, I’m already hearing people elsewhere blame it on Canada’s gun control laws.
Yes. We just sent 6 F-18s over.
Sounds like only one lone nutter at this point. No need to panic yet.
To quickly play it out, for the purposes of moving the thread along:
Buddy: If Canadians allowed guns, there would have been more people to shoot the crazy guy down!
Cindy: It’s because the US allows guns to be bought that it’s easy for Canadians to have guns. I’ll bet you the gun that was used by the shooter was legally purchased in the US!
Buddy: Even if so, he would just have bought it illegally if he couldn’t buy it legally. Or he would have built a bomb and used that. It’s not like the murder rate is any lower in the UK than in the US, despite having no guns. People kill using whatever tools they have at hand.
Cindy: You can’t prove that, and this killer used a gun that he almost certainly bought from the US, so it’s the fault of Americans selling guns.
Repeat last 2 points ad nauseum.
Well … apparently the one attacker we are certain about was using a long gun, which is legal to purchase in Canada, and his reign of terror was brought low after his first victim by the man in charge of security in Parliament (who was, perforce, authorized to have a weapon).
Not sure how those facts play out in the US gun control debate …
Well, I would say things are busy at my desk, but that would be a slight understatement.
it’s always interesting to read the Dope and see what people on the “outside” are saying.
I thought there were many Canadians who target shoot with handguns.
There is something about that in a Michael Moore film.
These posts are as classy as a bag of shite.
Meh.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Canadians and gun ownership, this is one.
Welcome to The Straight Dope were if you don’t slam Fox News five times a day you are not a true doper and most likely a crazy evil Republican.
There are some, but it is intensely regulated and restrictive in terms of storage and use and if you are caught breaking the rules you are in very deep doo-doo.
Are you saying it won’t happen?
Fox news is reporting that there was a spike in chatter from ISIS talking about Canada. So yeah, it appears to be terrorism. It would seem that the Canadian government didn’t take the threat seriously enough.
Also, the guy on monday is reported as having been “radicalized,” and had tried to travel to Syria to join ISIS, but the RCMP stopped him and confiscated his passport.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is definitely more than random crazies.
“ISIS” and “random crazies” aren’t mutually incompatible.