Shootings

[motto]

There was quite a bit of news coverage here yesterday morning about an Austrian hunter that had lost the plot and killed three police officers and a paramedic.
Last reports showed armoured vehicles being brought in to assist in the siege of the offenders hunting lodge then all went quiet, no further reports.
Can somebody please inform me as to the outcome?

David

[Richard Farrant]

David,
Just seen this;
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ody-found-farm

[motto]

Thanks Richard. It seems the armour played no part in the result.
It would be vastly better if these creeps killed themselves at the beginning instead of going on to create the trauma that they do. If they topped themselves at the start you would have to feel pity for them but through their actions they end up only worthy of contempt.
I refer not only to the pain and suffering of victims, families etc but inevitably these events provide justification for further restrictions on our freedoms which are rapidly becoming a distant memory.

David

[maple_leaf_eh]

Interesting that multicides now escalate to police armoured vehicles fairly quickly.

A headline caught my eye last time I was in the US. The small city of Watertown, New York received a $600k 2008 year MRAP for their police department in some sort of cascade of surplus federal property to lower levels. There are three things in Watertown - retail destinations for crossborder Canadian shoppers, nearby US Army`s Fort Drum and the factory that makes those little green pinetree car air fresheners. What level of crime substantiates a full-on ambush protected vehicle?

I had a blunt internet agree-to-disagree discussion with a serving RCMP constable about whether the City of Saskatoon really needed a similar armoured response vehicle, when their officers are probably at greater risk from bad tires on the patrol cars.

That said, a few months ago the City of Montreal punched a hole in a barracaded house with a boom on their Cadillac Gage M100 A/C. Chuck in the teargas and manhandle everyone who emerged coughing and puking. In that circumstance things worked out safely for everyone.

[Marc Montgomery]

some citizens do not appreciate the "militarization" of the police... viz this item from just before Christmas *Dec 23 2013) from California

http://rt.com/usa/californians-outra...d-vehicle-689/

Meanwhile, Montreal police have acquired an armoured vehicle. I think (?) the Cadillac-gage mentioned by Terry is an SQ vehicle (quebec provincial police)

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/41...oured-vehicle/

meanwhile I get a bit irked when I see Canadian media talking about SWAT units.. although basically the same purpose , Canada has no such terminology, we have ERT
(emergency response team)

kinda like we have first nations reserves, US has reservations.
guard of honour, vs honor guard...etc etc etc

I once had to phone CBC Toronto and tell them that the young female reporter story on Remembrance day being broadcast nationally, was using TAPS and not LAST POST..amazingly the story had aired at couple of times, had obviously passed vetting, and nobody at CBC national news had noticed.....too much American cultural influence I guess
etc

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by guyvapeur

I have no problems with the police having access to armoured vehicles.

Nor do I, at least AVs are designed to apprehend CRIMINALS, as opposed to patrol cars preying on innocent motorists doing 3 kph over the limit on 6 lane freeways. That's about all our cops do over here, in between tazering and shooting the mentally ill.

[motto]

Aah, it all makes sense now. Some of them donuts would be capable of stopping a .308 if a bit stale. And meanwhile you could shoot back through the hole. I see the attraction.
Just trying to inject a little levity into the discussion guyvapeur. Good to have somebody with experience and inside knowledge contributing as most of us are on the 'receiving end' of law enforcement and sometimes that can be unpleasant
I'm smart enough to realise we would be in dire trouble without you guys. All I ask is to be spoken to in a civil manner.

David

[maple_leaf_eh]

Sticking to the theme of armoured vehicles, I mentioned seeing a Montreal police Cadillac Gage 4-wheel armoured car used in a successfully resolved barricade call. I may have been one belonging to the Quebec Provincial Police. It might have been requested on some sort of mutual aid agreement. As mentioned, Montreal has an armoured truck(s) based on a heavy short wheelbase chassis, and the Surete have the armoured car(s).

http://policecanada.ca/

Knowing guyvapeur has policing experience, I don't want to mow his grass, but for the purposes of the discussion. The RCMP have emergency teams positioned across the country, with a national team centrally located in Ottawa. Each team has various alert postures, manning and scales of equipment. From everything I have seen there are comparatively few police armoured vehicles in Canada. When required, the RCMP have requested military AVGP or LAVIII vehicles and drivers. An example of that was for a particularly protracted standoff in BC when AVGPs were used to ferry sniper dets and overwatch teams through exposed ground.

[rob love]

Terry: The RCMP have recently corrected that situation of having to borrow armoured vehicles and now have a small fleet of Tactical Armoured Vehicles (TAVs). The 18 TAVS cost the force about 14 million.
Info on it can be found here:
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/fs-fd/tav-vbt-eng.htm

[Marc Montgomery]

Notice in that link they use the correct terminology ERT and not SWAT (american)
However I note they use imperial measure (1,000 lbs) and not metric..???

[rob love]

They could say it in metric, but who in hell would know how much that would be? I know what 1000 pounds is, but would have no idea what 453.59 kg would represent.

[Marc Montgomery]

Canada has been metric for 44 years. Maybe the Canadian contract called for complement of officers and a 450kg of payload and the Americans rather than understand 992lb 1.2 oz...decided to round it up to 1000lbs?

actually, I was always kinda confused by American quarts and gallons etc..so much smaller than the correct (Commonwealth) imperial.

and you were completely familiar with short tons and long tons right?

and of course you know off the top of your head what lb means right?

Base 10 vs base 12? no..metric makes a heck of lot of sense to me

[rob love]

According to another RCMP article, the trucks were built by Navistar Defense Canada, so not really sure why they list pounds, except that is what people understand.

I had the metric training back in grade 8, and the teachers extolled all the virtues of the system. So why am I still having to convert kmh to mph. And why do we understand mpg rather than lp100km for consumption?

Since highway speeds are generally around 60mph, and there are 60 minutes in an hour, it makes it easy to figure out how long until we get there.

[Marc Montgomery]

well posted speeds are actually around 62.1 mph.

Grade 8 math question..if you're travelling 60mph, and there are 60 minutes in an hour and its 174 km from Dauphin to Yorkton...how long will it take you.?

supplement..you've just purchased 20L of gas at a Canadian gas pump. and you know your car gets 25mpg- will you have enough?

[chris vickery]

Try working in industry with Metric.
Go cut me a piece of 500mcm cable 3710mm long....
Do I need a friend to help me? How heavy is that?
I had a young trainee years ago that I had asked to get me a piece of material.
I asked for a piece 20 x 40. He returned with a piece 20mm x 40mm, a slight difference from 20" x 40" Considering the job we were working on, common sense should have prevailed

[Marc Montgomery]

isnt it fascinating how the thread started out talking about mental wackos shooting people and ended up talking about metric measure?

back to topic, Kalashnikov always said he had no remorse for making the AK, that he invented it to protect the motherland and if people used it to kill each other around the world it was politicians fault not his
..but now revealed is that he had remorse shortly before his death and asked Orthodox religious leaders about it... saying he had spiritual pain..and asking them if he was to blame for the slaughter around the world using the gun he created.

Apparently the reply was the church supported the designer saying the weapon was intended to protect the motherland and that was all and he could not be spiritually condemned for that.

Oppenhiemer and Rotblat invented the nuclear bomb (relunctantly) to end war..fearing that Hitler was trying to do it

Gattling invented his "machine gun" believing it would reduce the size of armies, reduce killing and make war futile.

[guyvapeur]

There are many ways to resurrect a thread that has pettered out. Last night 3 police officers were murdered in the Moncton New Brunswick area. That should bring a spark back into this thread. Any one interested can certainly get better information from the many news media outlets.
I will leave it at that..... I am going to take the flag to half mast until we lay these three officers to rest.
I have a lot more to say.......but..... I will probably be in front of the tube until this matter is resolved.

[motto]

No response Guyvapeur. Not because nobody cares but because 'what can be said in the face of these senseless killings that seem to have become part of our lives?' It's not only law enforcement officers that are the victims. The pre-disposition of people to perform violence on each other appears to be increasing generally. Last night a 19 year old man was fatally shot in a Sydney street. This sort of thing didn't used to happen.
It is a complex issue of which access to firearms is only a part. After WW1 & 2 hundreds of thousands of men trained in the use of firearms returned to civilian life with easy access to guns but shootings were a rarity. In Australia these shooting rampages started happening around the time that the generation that fought WW2 was handing over the reins to the following generation.
The great Australian poet Henry Lawson uses a line in one of his poems that refers to 'rotting in a deadly peace'. I suspect that he perceived something of the big picture. We've had it too good for too long. It seems that violence, lamentably, is part of the human condition in one form or another and always will be.

David

Shots fired into the front of a house in Sydney overnight. This never used to happen either. Now it's not uncommon at all in Sydney and Melbourne and firearms legislation is vastly more restrictive than it was when I was a youth.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by motto

After WW1 & 2 hundreds of thousands of men trained in the use of firearms returned to civilian life with easy access to guns but shootings were a rarity. In Australia these shooting rampages started happening around the time that the generation that fought WW2 was handing over the reins to the following generation.

David, you mean shootings of white people were a rarity. Australian ex-servicemen shot thousands of Aboriginal men, women and children over the years, sometimes several hundred at a time, ably assisted by police of course. I suspect that would qualify as a "shooting rampage".

[rob love]

One change to this recent occurrence is that the media is not playing up the shooter, making him infamous and thereby offering infamy to the next guy who wants to go on a spree. It will do nothing to boost the media's sales, and I find it rather incredulous that they have done this. Good on them.

Too often, within days of the shooting, we hear every minute detail possible about the shooter, along with every known photo of him. Hopefully, if this is the media's new operandi on these horrible events, they can stick with it.

[motto]

Tony, bad things happened in the isolation of the countryside in the 19th century, I don't doubt that but what actually went on is largely confined to hearsay and what is believed by any individual is dependant on their natural inclination and allegiances.
What I am trying to identify and comment on here are the changes in community attitudes and behaviour in my lifetime plus two generations. When I was born in 1948 there were still huge numbers of people around who were born in the late 1800s. By then the 'aboriginal massacres' were a thing of the past and I strongly object to them being associated in any way with returned servicemen from WW1 & 2.
Rob, I agree entirely, the media have played a large part in perpetuating this aberrant behaviour.

David

[chris vickery]

Re the media;
Blood and guts and sensationalism sells news, bottom line.
As Rob points out, I think the average citizen has had enough and finally news outlets are realizing this. Personally I hold most news reporters at about the same level as lawyers and politicians- scavengers making a living from the world's misery and despair at every opportune moment.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by motto

When I was born in 1948 there were still huge numbers of people around who were born in the late 1800s. By then the 'aboriginal massacres' were a thing of the past and I strongly object to them being associated in any way with returned servicemen from WW1 & 2.

David, my comments are in no way intended to impugn the reputation of Australian ex-servicemen. I'm only interested in history, and getting it right, without fear or favour. We've grown up with a lot of myths in this country and they need to be dismantled, because they don't do us justice. Most especially they fail to recognize Australian military achievements, particularly in WW1. Lamentably so in fact. That's my own pet bugbear, so I guess that says something about my "natural inclination and allegiances." I could rave on at length about the subject but it's a bit off topic here.

As you say we're discussing changes in society since the WW1 generation, specifically the rise in senseless gun killings in our own lifetime, and possible causative factors. I mentioned the earlier killings in passing because the question of "shooting rampages" came up, and I was pointing out that it's not an entirely new phenomenon. It has no real bearing on the modern situation, but since it's under question I'll deal with it here for the record.

The chapter in Australian history I'm referring to was the War Service Land Settlement Scheme, which ran from 1915 into the 1960s. It was this scheme which opened up much of rural and outback Australia to white settlement. Known also as the "second dispossession" it evicted Aboriginal populations off their reserve land for subdivision and allocation to ex-servicemen, including those who had not served overseas. Aboriginal ex-servicemen were ineligible, although it's reported that one managed to qualify in NSW.

Contrary to popular belief, much of the land was fertile farmland which was cleared and cultivated by Aboriginals, including commercial enterprises like hop plantations and market gardens. Often these were established with the assistance of Missions. Likewise in more remote areas the Missions assisted in the establishment of stations, and these were subsequently acquired under the scheme, eg:


"In 1921 two returned servicemen, Leonard Overheu and Frederick Hay, applied for a grant under the War Service Land Settlement Scheme. Nulla Nulla station was excised from the Marndoc Aboriginal reserve with the traditional owners, the KIng River Aborigines, removed and forced to live on the outskirts of Wyndham. The two men planted cotton, peanuts and kept a small herd of cattle. Hay, along with his friend James Dunnett ran the station while Overheu worked as a bookkeeper in Wyndham to provide cash flow."

I won't go into details of Hay's reported behaviour over the next 5 years, or the incident in which he was killed by an Aboriginal named Lumbia. Hay's death was reported to police by Rev. Ernest Gribble from the Forrest River Mission:

"On hearing of Hay's death Gribble rushed to Wyndham where he swore in Richard Jolly and Bernard O'Leary as special constables under the supervision of Constable Regan and tasked them with finding Hay's killer. The Aboriginal community supported the arrest of Lumbia and Gribble supplied two Aboriginal men from the mission who knew Lumbia to escort the patrol."

The patrol also included Overheu, his house boy Tommy, and another ex-serviceman Daniel Murnane. To cut a long story short, a massacre ensued and Lumbia was brought to trial where he pleaded guilty to Hay's murder. The initial death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after it was successfully argued that Hay had provoked the attack. Gribble reported the massacre to Inspector E. C. Mitchell of the Western Australian Aborigines Department in Wyndham, who visited two of the massacre sites identified by Tommy. Mitchell sent a telegram to the Chief Protector, A.O. Neville: "Shocking revelations, saw place Forrest River, rocky higher bed where natives chained small tree killed there then bodies burnt improvised oven". A Royal Commission was launched and evidence gathering parties uncovered further sites identified by Tommy, but when Overheu heard of these investigations, Tommy vanished, presumed murdered. The Royal Commission proceeded:

"None of the Aborigines named to the Commission who had witnessed the massacres or who had relatives killed were called to testify. The Royal Commission found that 11 people had been murdered and the bodies burned."

Many years later Overheu's brother Charles went on record: "They all got together up there and there was a bloody massacre because I think they shot about three hundred natives all in one hit and there was a hell of a row over it. It was all published in the papers and somebody let the cat out of the bag and anyhow the government and the judges in those times they realised what the trouble was and the whole thing was hushed up you see."


Two years after the Forrest River massacre came the Coniston massacre in NT, the last known massacre of Indigenous Australians:

"The massacre occurred in revenge for the death of dingo hunter Frederick Brooks. Official records at the time stated that 31 people were killed. The owner of Coniston station, Randall Stafford, was a member of the punitive party for the first few days and estimated that at least twice that number were killed between 14 August and 1 September. Historians estimate that at least 60 and as many as 110 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed. The Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Kaytetye believe that up to 170 died between 14 August and 18 October.


An earlier massacre occurred at Mowla Bluff WA in 1916:

"Responding to the brutality of the white station manager, some local men gave him a beating. In reprisal, an armed mob which included officials and residents rounded up a large number of Aboriginal men, women and children who were then shot. The bodies were burned. One account states that three or four hundred people were killed and only three survived."


It's worth noting that Aboriginals who managed to join the armed services in WWI did not experience discrimination during their service.


On the subject of post war massacres (amongst white Australians) we also need to examine the history, as they fall into distinct categories, and statistically the threat posed to Australians by spree shootings appears to be a myth. I'm probably not saying anything new there, but as a non gun owner I've never given it much thought before.

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Tony Wheeler

David, my comments are in no way intended to impugn the reputation of Australian ex-servicemen. I'm only interested in history, and getting it right, without fear or favour. We've grown up with a lot of myths in this country and they need to be dismantled, because they don't do us justice.

....

On the subject of post war massacres (amongst white Australians) we also need to examine the history, as they fall into distinct categories, and statistically the threat posed to Australians by spree shootings appears to be a myth. I'm probably not saying anything new there, but as a non gun owner I've never given it much thought before.

Tony:

That was an instructive posting. Canadians had less overtly sanguine methods of separating the natives from their lands, but giving no less one-sided results. America's outright war with their first nations peoples has been well documented and romanticized.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by maple_leaf_eh

Canadians had less overtly sanguine methods of separating the natives from their lands, but giving no less one-sided results.

Yes I imagine your Treaties would have been rather one-sided Terry, although hopefully a little more than the usual "beads and blankets" deal! We only ever had one Treaty in Australia, when John Batman established Melbourne in 1835. Somewhat amusingly it was originally named Batmania! It was certainly cheap by today's prices:

"For 600,000 acres of Melbourne, including most of the land now within the suburban area, John Batman paid 40 pairs of blankets, 42 tomahawks, 130 knives, 62 pairs scissors, 40 looking glasses, 250 handkerchiefs, 18 shirts, 4 flannel jackets, 4 suits of clothes and 150 lb. of flour."

Evidently four of the tribal elders were kitted out in suits! Shortly afterwards however Batman's Treaty was voided by the Governor of NSW, which at that time included what is now the state of Victoria. No further treaties were negotiated in Australia, which was a big mistake for which we've paid a heavy price ever since. Countless billions have been spent in economic support for dispossessed populations, and the problem remains intractable today. If their reserves had been protected under Treaties we wouldn't have these problems, certainly not to the same extent. Contrary to popular belief they were well established in crop farming and grazing, largely with the assistance of Christian Missions. As such they were fully independent and contributing to the economy, and by late 19th century their produce was even winning first prize at International Exhibition. All that ended in the early 20th century when State governments resumed their reserves, much of it going to the 40,000 ex-servicemen after WWI under the Soldier Settlement scheme. Unfortunately most of those ventures failed, largely due to lack of farming experience. Lessons were learned however and the scheme was far more successful after WWII.

It's an interesting chapter in Australian history, because even as military history enthusiasts we tend to forget what happened to servicemen on their return. WWI was particularly brutal and many returned crippled and maimed, not to mention psychological damage. They arrived home to high unemployment followed by the Great Depression, with minimal government support. The Soldier Settlement scheme was intended partly to populate rural Australia, but also to address the problem of homelessness and street loitering. This stands in stark contrast to post WWII Australia, which enjoyed full employment from 1945 to 1975. There were jobs aplenty and we had to embark on a massive immigration program to supply labour. While Europe and Britain struggled under food rationing for years, here in Australia we enjoyed a "golden age" which saw massive population growth, with the post-war generation known as "baby boomers", and the rise of a huge and prosperous middle class which came to define Australia as the Lucky Country. These are the "good old days" we pine for in many ways, when a man could build a brand new house in the inner suburbs of capital cities, in which to support a wife and a tribe of kids on one wage! Not too many WWI diggers enjoyed that kind of prosperity, and of course it's impossible for young people in today's housing and job market. Some of this no doubt feeds into the generational gun crime rate David mentions, although there are many other factors as well.

[Marc Montgomery]

Rob- I wish it were so, but if you watched newsworld.."news now" as they ve relabelled it..it was incesstantly covered....criminal psychologists have long said media over exposure of these tragedies only serves to inspire other marginals.

Chris-the reason news covers local car accidents, robberies, and "weather terrors" (notice how we are to fear weather so much these days) is because it's easy--ie cheap-- the private stations think of profits only and its much cheaper to send a reporter to stand in front of a crime scene, and say "im here at a crime scene" or have them stand in front of petrol station and say prices are up..
(as if we hadnt noticed that already ourselves)...rather than assigning them for two or three or more days to dig into a story- Why are the Pan Am games so overbudget...why i mean really why are petrol prices at the same level now with crude at $100 as they were when it was $140...... the privates wont do it as it costs money, and it takes time....and time on air to explain complex issues.. never on local radio..and no interesting pix...... the CBC cant do it anymore as it costs money it no longer has and in the past 5 years over 2000 of 7000 employees are gone with 1500 more to go...it is shocking the destruction of the cbc...still looks like a mighty oak on the outside, but completely gutted inside.

What do you know of FIPA for example or TISA- two things that will seriously affect our lives--costs money and time to dig into complex issues and deliver them in layman's understandable terms....and virtually no media outlet can do it anymore,,so they still have to fill the air time or the news pages..so they opt for the cheap story, and especially with colourful or sensational visuals (none of that with FIPA or TISA or UPOV-91-all of which hands our sovereignty over to multinationals)

[rob love]

Marc: We could start a thread on the CBC...that is a subject into itself. Perhaps they should have learned not to bite the hand that controls their funding. The media can report politics, but they should net mess with politics.

I saw a lot less info on the shooter in this event than I have in others. We normally hear about their school life, their current life, their parents, their personalities, etc etc etc. This guy we heard very little about, and hopefully the bulk of the media continues to take the high road in this matter and does not sensationalize the person himself. It just makes a goal for the next nutball.

[Marc Montgomery]

re the shooter: perhaps there was less, which is very good, alas, News Now (newsworld) really does go overboard still...again probably because there are many fewer reporters to gather other news.

As for the hand that feeds them, reporting on govt failures and foibles, waste and excesses is exactly its function. If the CBC did not, then you would never know and people would absolutely guaranteed complain the CBC was not fulfilling it's function., but of course with cuts like this, reporting on the govt activities will become less and less and reporting on the "easy" crime stories and stuff like gas prices (telling us prices are up..but not the false excuse reasons) will become more common..and Cdns will be even less informed about real issues

[rob love]

There are more than a few examples of the CBC manipulating stories with an anti-conservative slant. One example that comes to mind was a cut and paste job they did, where they attributed a sentence Harper gave as part of a story when in fact it had nothing to do with it. Due to complaints form the public, they ended up having to give a one line apology on air a few days later during their news.

Then there was the occasion where a CBC journalist was writing the speeches for a Liberal politician. With things like that happening, how are we to expect fair and unbiased reporting from them.

Or how about their Christmas interview with Harper a few years ago, where their lighting man ended up giving Harper a shadow under his nose to make him look hitler-esque for most of the interview.

The CBC used to provide a service that Canadians needed back in the day in order to provide radio and television to remote areas, and to provide a Canadian identity. However, thanks to satellite, I believe just about anyone can have 300 channels these days. If they can make a go on their own, good for them. But if they are dependent on taxpayers dollars, then I think those days may soon be over. Aside from Dragon's den for me, and Coronation Street for the wife, I don't think they'll be missed in this household.

[Marc Montgomery]

But if they are dependent on taxpayers dollars...

Cdns should realize that the "private" networks are publicly subsidized to the tune of a billion dollars a year.

As for being anti- conservative, one must remember it was Chretien who initiated the largest single cut to CBC.
Whichever party is in power has always accused CBC of being "anti"...its because the CBC are doing their job holding govt feet to the fire.
Frankly for $0.55 a week, I get wonderful entertainment and information from cbc radio and tv..from a variety of shows.
Plus, at almost the lowest funding in the world, no other public broadcaster in the world faces the challenges CBC has to face
Meanwhile Sun Media, (which recieves public subsidies) owned by businessman and now (rabidly) separatist Parti Qeubecois politician PK Peladeau, has long mounted a campaign against CBC- Radio-Canada, Why? to eliminate what he sees as competition for his own media empire.

PS- sure one can recieve 300 channels, but virtually none will have Canadian stories.