Guarding The Guardians

Follow the logic on this one:

The Department of National Defence is in discussions with the Ottawa Police Service to provide police protection for unarmed ceremonial guards in the capital, CBC News has learned.

The discussions come nearly five months after Cpl. Nathan Cirillo was shot and killed while on honorary guard duty at the National War Memorial on Oct. 22.

Actually Cpl Cirillo was armed but his service rifle had no bullets. That was not an oversight:

The commanding officer in charge of the Ceremonial Guard in Ottawa says soldiers who watch over the National War Memorial should not carry loaded guns – even in the wake of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo’s death.

Maj. Michel Lavigne says soldiers have not been armed with real bullets since the October crisis in 1970 – and they shouldn’t do it now.

There might be valid safety reasons for this policy.  The Honor Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider at Arlington does not carry live ammunition, apparently to prevent an accidental discharge. Then again the Tomb is often crowded with visitors and armed police are nearby. It's also a busier place than the National War Memorial in Ottawa. 

My suspicion is that this policy has more to do with civilian squeamishness than any practical or ceremonial need. That while Canadians are prepared to mourn our fallen the actual work and rituals of soldiering makes them uneasy. There is something quintessentially Trudeaupian about soldiers without bullets. The form of a thing retained but its essence removed. The early Trudeau years didn't quite see the Canadian Forces reduced to a parade ground force, but it wasn't for lack of trying. That anti-military spirit still persists in many quarters of modern Canada. 

Given that Cpl Cirillo was shot in the back it's unlikely live ammunition would haver changed the outcome for him. That said there were two other sentries on duty at the time of the shooting.  Cpl. Kyle Button and Cpl. Branden Stevenson tried to stop Zehaf-Bibeau. However a rifle without a bullet is little more than a club and they were forced to flee under fire from Zehaf-Bibeau.

This begs a very obvious question the MSM has been careful to avoid asking: How difficult would it have been for a trained shot to have ended this rampage then there? Instead Zehaf-Bibeau proceeded to storm Centre Block and menace the lives of MPs, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Official Opposition.

It was a matter of luck this incident didn't become the bloodiest massacre of a democratic leadership in modern times. But instead the MSM is consumed about whether this was a terrorist act or the deranged behaviour of a sick man. This is despite a video that has come to light where Zehaf-Bibeau clearly stated his reasons and intentions. He was a self-proclaimed jihadist who lived several minutes longer than necessary, perhaps, because the Queen's soldiers were not properly armed.

Comments

[John Chittick]

Anyone who has an inkling to do so should be free to pack heat unless a convicted criminal of "aggressive actions" (as opposed to say, paperwork violations). The Jihadi could have been taken down by any number of armed individuals. Disarmed soldiers are now essentially expendable Jihad-bait. Fort Hood was a gun-free zone, literally fish in a barrel for Jihadist Major Hassan. Having lived where conceal carry laws were in place, violent criminals wouldn't have gotten too far into it before someone could intervened with an equalizer.

[Mark Collins]

The RCMP, responsible for the Parliament Hill grounds, failed pathetically to do anything effective to stop the fellow's getting to the Centre Block. A display of ineptitude and incompetence fully worthy of the US Secret Service.

Yet as far as one knows no Mountie heads (or tails) have rolled, unlike in the US. The Commissioner should have resigned forthwith along with several others at a minimum; and a serious outside--with non-federal people--enquiry into the, er, Force's readiness and actions should already be long in place.

But this is Canada and instead everyone, including our blessed MSM, have focused on the "heroics" inside the building--riddling a man long after he was out of rounds. Note that the autopsy has not been released, probably out of squeamishness at the number of wounds inflicted.

Moreover those MSM have never yet looked at the RCMP's culpable inability to do its duty on the outside.

Always getting their man? No longer. Rather other men are more likely to murder Mounties in bunches. The RCMP need to be abolished and a completely new federal policing structure, with several discrete and more specialized agencies created:

"Some immodest proposals on federal policing"
https://damianpenny.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/some-immodest-proposals-on-federal-policing/

Slay the deformed and malignant beast before it is too late and something goes truly horrendously wrong.

Mark
Ottawa

Mark
Ottawa

[Mark Collins]

"It was a matter of luck this incident didn't become the bloodiest massacre of a democratic leadership in modern times." Actually no, given the type of rifle he carried. See:

"Why Michael Zehaf-Bibeau Could Not Have Killed Many People"
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/why-michael-zeh.html

Mark
Ottawa