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In Canada, the term sergeant-at-arms means what it says Apparently the sergeant-at-arms in the Canadian Parliament is not just a ceremonial position.
An Islamist by the name of Michael Zehaf-Bibeau killed a Canadian soldier on guard duty at a war memorial, before entering the House of Commons in Ottowa… whereupon 58 year old sergeant-at-arms Kevin Vickers shot him dead. Nicely done, sir.
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Look at the pictures of him walking around after he shot that miserable scrote, checking the halls to see if there were other threats: not freaking out even though he had just been in a gunfight, but cool as a cucumber. That, ladies and gents, is what Bad Ass actually looks like.
I guess there are situations for which Violence actually IS the solution.
In this imperfect world in which we live, there are really quite a lot of those situations, Darryl.
He’s ex-RCMP (a Mountie), well that old saying has , er, come to life.
In Britain the “Sergeant at Arms” is a tiny woman who is smaller than the mace, and, probably more importantly, smaller than the Speaker. How sad to think our MPs would be toast if they depended on the PC appointee for protection.
JohnK, “God may not have made men and women equal, but Colonel Colt sure did”. Being small and female is no obstacle to protecting someone so long as you have a gun. I’ve no idea whether the individual you mention could be trusted with one, however.
Nor is an archaic job title and an equally archaic costume any obstacle to effectiveness, as Mr Vickers just demonstrated. I sez it as shouldn’t, but I knew this ten years ago, when the performance of the kneee-britches brigade after a non-lethal invasion of the UK House of Commons was deemed ineffective:
What if that happened in a school or a post office? What are the gun laws like in Canada?
Alisa:
Canadian gun laws are quite similar to the ones we had in Britain until the 1980s. Long guns can be owned without registration, whereas pistols are registered, and nothing with a short barrel is allowed (three or four inches, I forget which), and guns are not to be owned for the purpose of self-defence. Obviously, if you work for the state and kill a perp in defence of politicians, that’s OK and you get a standing ovation.
Seeing the bloke on the TV, he did look the type’d appreciate the head mounted for hall wall.
Well done Sir! Fine shot.
Would have been awesome squared if he’d struck the turdballs’ head clean *off* with that sword.
But other than that Good Show Sir!
Watched a video of today’s opening ceremonies in the Canadian Parliament. The standing ovation for the Sergeant at Arms was very moving, and clearly embarrassing to him as it went on and on.
I’ve always found “O, Canada” to be a very fine anthem, and heard it several times today. The Parliament sang it, the fans at the Pittsburg hockey game sang it spontaneously last night after the US anthem, and all the games today began with both anthems.
It was a nice touch, and a good reminder. Few nations in history have had such a long and generally peaceful border for so long. It has been a great boon for both countries.
SWMBO lived in Canada for several years when she was younger. These incidents this week upset her very deeply. These crazed jihadis are very fortunate she’s not in charge of what happens to them.
Yeah, but what was this thug’s actual problem? Felt rejected by society because he used the wrong mouthwash? Not enough pocket money? His cheese wasn’t halal?
Antbody know, or was he looking for a murderous martyrdom?
Nick, I believe he wanted to join ISIS but the government had confiscated his passport, so he had to do his martyrdom at home.
Yep JohnK, that was my (rather cynical) point. That notwithstanding, what the man did was the absolutely right thing, and besides he makes the impression of a very fine man.
Well that’s just silly. If I were the government (heh), I would send him off with my warmest regards and blessings, wishing him full success in his quest for a well-deserved martyrdom. The only caveat I’d attach to that would be that he cannot return home were he to fail in that quest. I’d just tell him to keep trying harder.
JohnK, the current Serjeant at Arms of the British House of Commons is apparently a man by the name of Lawrence Ward:
http://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/principal/serjeant/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Ward_(Serjeant_at_Arms)
Though the wiki page does raise the question of why he was picked for that role, given that his background is in the post office rather than the military or something else suitable.
http://blogs4victory.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/guns.png
AKM:
I was thinking of the tiny woman who always looked silly as she was dwarfed by the mace. Her claim to fame was that she tamely let the police into parliament to search Damien Green’s offices, as if the rights of parliament did not exist. The job, as well as the mace, was too big for her.
Traditionally the Sergeant-at-Arms was a retired military officer, though given the pitiful state of NuBritain, it does not surprise me if it has been given to a postie. One thing is for sure though, he won’t be packing heat.
Alisa:
Agreed, but in answer to your question, if the Islamo-loony had attacked a school or post office, he would have kept on killing until he got bored with it. He would not have faced armed citizens. As subjects of the Crown, Canadians, like Brits, are expected to die with good grace rather than defend themselves, unless they are of the priestly political caste.
JohnK is absolutely right. I cannot help but think that the choice of a former Post Office manager was in part coloured by a wish to fully break with ‘tradition’ of having a senior military officer (3* rank) hold the role, although the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, the S-a-A’ counterpart in the UK’s House of Lords is still a 3-star ex-Forces type, in this case Lt-Gen. David Leakey. Of course, the only ‘weapon’ available is an ornamental mace.
If an armed killer were to get loose in Parliament, he’s unlikely to do any damage to our freedom, although he might harm democracy (or quangocracy in the Lords) and do real harm to people. I think the scarcity of these attacks puts the scale of the problem into perspective.
John K is concerned that a gunman within the precincts of Parliament would be able to slaughter our politicos unhindered. In the long view that would be a good thing. Their elected replacements would be able to concentrate on reviewing the laws of selfdefence, gun control, immigration from hostile cultures as a matter of urgency.
Watched a video of today’s opening ceremonies in the Canadian Parliament. The standing ovation for the Sergeant at Arms was very moving, and clearly embarrassing to him as it went on and on.
I don’t for a moment mean to imply any sympathy for the idiot in question, but to me there’s something creepy about a bunch of politicians fulsomely applauding someone who killed a member of the public to protect their own interests (however justified in this particular case).
Jake:
I understand your point, especially given that if a citizen were to have shot the Islamo-loony as he left the war memorial, he would have been arrested by the RCMP on weapons charges at least, if not homicide, and the same politicians would have been saying, well, the law must take its course, we can’t have vigilantes, you must not take the law into your own hands, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Ljh:
I do not think that it would be a good thing, and I do not take you to be wishing for or inciting any such thing, but it might be a salutary lesson, even a just dessert in morality play terms, and perhaps, in the nexus of lives, a better investment than any other I could think of in terms of what is seen and what is not seen. My reaction would be along these lines, as a survival strategy would have been shown to have failed.
I would hope for freedom to break out spontaneously following a mass ‘Damascene’ conversion.
>John K is concerned that a gunman within the precincts of Parliament would be able to slaughter our politicos unhindered. In the long view that would be a good thing. Their elected replacements would be able to concentrate on reviewing the laws of selfdefence, gun control, immigration from hostile cultures as a matter of urgency.
Wouldn’t happen. Extra arms for Parliament security staff perhaps, but not for the general public.
What an own goal. It’s almost like Zehaf-Bibeau was a member of some hate group, sent on a mission to discredit Islam. Do you now think any member of the Canadian elite still truly believes Islam is a “religion of peace”?
Unfortunately, it’s a safe assumption there will be more such attacks in future, and – as this incident makes clear – the most effective way of stopping them when they start would be a wider availability of firearms.
I read somewhere that he had been a senior Mountie in charge of “Islamic Outreach” programmes.
Well what a result then, Rob! He proved very capable of reaching out to a member of the Islamic community 😉
This is pure speculation, but I very much doubt that any mainstream politician, faced with the danger of attack by a member of the public armed with a firearm, would see relaxing the firearms laws as a good idea. That doesn’t mean that it’s not, just that they wouldn’t see it that way.
The justification for gun control is always to improve public safety, and I’m starting to think that they’re being entirely honest when they trot out this line. The dishonesty lies in what they mean by “improving public safety”. Obviously it means to make the public safer, but you can read that one of two ways: to protect the public from harm, or to make the public less dangerous.
I’m convinced that they care little for the welfare of individual citizens but care greatly about themselves and that the latter definition is the one they use internally.
JohnK was entirely right. A member of the public doing what the Sergeant at Arms did would have been reviled as a murderer. To do otherwise, to laud this hypothetical person as a hero and set the stage for increased gun rights, would be to reduce the security of the political class. From their point of view the odd islamist is nothing much to worry about compared to the spectre of an armed populace that doesn’t believe it needs for government to rescue it. That terrifies them.
Maybe I’m being too much of a cynic, but that’s how I see it.
Thank you Mr Vickers.
A couple of comments from Canada:
This is the second time in my memory that a Sergeant-at-arms in a Canadian legislature has done something impressive. The last time, an unarmed S-at-A talked an armed assailant in the Quebec National Assembly into surrendering.
I was pleased to see such a professional response from all levels of military and police, right down to the local city police. We’re fortunate that we don’t have a lot of opportunity to see our police in this kind of action, and it was good to know they’re ready when it’s necessary.
Canada’s gun laws were recently liberalized. (Yes, I’m aware of the irony in using that term.) Since the mid 90s we had a long-gun registry, which was hugely popular with about half the country and hugely unpopular with the other half. We got rid of it a few years ago. Handgun rules are still fairly tight, there’s nothing approaching concealed-carry, and handgun ownership is pretty rare. I would guess that few Canadians have seen a real handgun that was not in the possession of a police officer, unless it was when they were in another country.
Tedd, lately I often get the impression that Canada is going in a general direction that is much the opposite of the rest of the West, on all kinds of issues. Am I totally off the mark on this?
Not only is it NOT creepy that the Canadian lawmakers gave an extended standing ovation to the S-a-A, it is life affirming. Celebrating someone who did what needed to be done, even though it is perhaps personally a very horrifying act, is what we in the West need a hell of a lot more of.
I am with Darryl on this.
A bloke with the very stiffest of upper lips put a jihadi down with no stray shots ending up in some bystander. So stop over-thinking this and give the man some thunderous and well deserved applause for fuck sake.
Alisa-
What JohnK said. And in Canada, there is no provision in law for anybody other than on-duty police to carry firearms in public places.
Come to think of it, the US, Czech Republic, one of the Baltic states and (to a very limited extent) Israel and the Republic of Ireland are the only places in the civilized world where John Q. Public has any chance at all of being armed in public.
And Mr. Vickers was indeed decorated for his outreach to Canada’s Muslim community. No wonder, considering that he can clearly reach out to them at 1100 f/s.
Cousin: even more limited than you may think, and then some.
Alisa:
No, you’re largely correct, and I don’t have an explanation. We have been slowly but steadily rising on various freedom indexes. (Though it might be fair to say that a lot of that is counties that used to be ahead of us slowly sinking.) We had a Liberal government that eliminated the deficit (!), we have maintained low corporate tax rates, and we didn’t get very bail-out-ish in 2008-2009. A lot of that is because our current PM is an economist, but some credit has to go to voters for not making overly foolish demands. And, to give credit where it’s due, the previous Liberal government had pretty decent economic policies, too, even though they got elected by campaigning vigorously against those very policies.
I’ve heard people older than me say that Canadian voters have historically tended to be pretty sensible. But I came of age in the Nixon/Carter/Heath/Trudeau era, when that was manifestly untrue. Perhaps the old folks are right, though, and those decades were an aberration. One can only hope.
I don’t want to over-sell the case for Canada, though. We also have a human rights (sic) commission that is wildly out of control. It’s illegal to pay for health services yourself, in most cases (even if you’re dying). And many of us think that if you hate the U.S. you’re our friend. So there is plenty of wing-nuttery to go around, but it is perhaps more limited in scope than in some other countries.
I don’t know about the Republic of Ireland, they have arcane gun laws which make Britain’s look sensible. However, it is a little publicized fact that around 10,000 people in Northern Ireland have concealed carry permits for handguns. True, they are mostly politicians and people connected to the security establishment, permits are not given to the little people. Nonetheless, a perp who tried this out at Stormont might find he had a few pistol packing politicians to deal with.
It is largely because of this that Northern Ireland did not ban the civilian ownership of handguns with the rest of the UK, as the concealed carry holders needed the range facilities of civilian gun clubs to practice on. In mainland UK politicians had no vested interest in pistol shooting, and were happy to ban the sport for base political motives.