http://www.thestar.com/unassigned/article/791376--parliament-hill-mounti...
Apparently that Climate change stunt a while back warrants machine guns... the Mounties can't handle tasers...
yeah lets give them machine guns too! Just another way to silence the opposition by Harper or a legitimate security concern?
But the good news is that they only get one ammo belt, and they have to keep in in their shirt pocket like Barney Fife.
SMG's uses clips. GPMG's uses belts. No need to thank me, Snert.
Apparently Harper has some really inappealing things he is going to put forward....
"Machine gun" is a bit of an exaggeration. Sure, they are automatic weapons, but overall only a step up from the pistols they have now: same bullet caliber, about the same fire power (though an increased rate of fire) and a bit more accurate.
If the police are required to use a firearm in a crowded area I'd much rather them have the more accurate MP5 than a pistol.
Pistols are quite inaccurate, especially in high stress situations.
How is issuing the RCMP submachineguns [in order to have a better stand off against a heavily armed gunman] harpers way of silencing the opposition? Are the opposition gunmen?
the way its being painted is that this increase in firepower is due to the apparent threat of protestors gaining acess to the roof, i don't see how giving the mounties automatic weapons is in anyway helpful. if the concerns are legitmately about security, then parliament should have a better screening process- its now just in the peace tower right, why not beforehand. I realise that they are not going to be carrying the weapons all the time, but will have acess to them, should a crisis appear- but what stops the mounties from using these new, more dangerous weapons (compared to their current shot guns) in the same horrible manner that tasers are being used?
both tasers and now these new automatic submachine guns are being sold as more effective
I read the article and I didn't take it the same way you are. The MP5s are for an active shooter it mentions. Not protestors on the roof. The protestors on the roof resulted in more boots on the ground and frequent patrolling. MP5s left in the car/
You couldn't engage a shooting on the roof if you were ground level with a 9mm handgun OR MP5.
Being a "shooter" myself I would argue that a shotgun is a much more dangerous weapon [as far as danger to the public in the hands of the police] than an MP5.
The problem with tasers is that it's too convienient a thing to use. 99% of the time [or more] when you tase someone there is no lasting effects. You shoot someone with a gun and the chance of them dying [especially considering the ammunition cops can use] increases greatly. A taser and MP5 are very veryt different.
If the police are required to use a firearm in a crowded area I'd much rather them have the more accurate MP5 than a pistol.
Pistols are quite inaccurate, especially in high stress situations.
How is issuing the RCMP submachineguns [in order to have a better stand off against a heavily armed gunman] harpers way of silencing the opposition? Are the opposition gunmen?
C'mon. You guys are nuts. Snapping off well aimed single shots (semi-auto or revolver) with a handgun is more accurate than "spraying" or "hosing" a crowd with a full auto SMG (submachinegun).
You know that.
Seeing our police and other security officers walking around our public streets armed with full auto weapons and clad in black with body armor, helmets, face shields and jack boots looking like storm troopers, would tend to have a chilling effect on the belief that we live in a "free" and "democratic" society.
You couldn't engage a shooting on the roof if you were ground level with a 9mm handgun OR MP5.
If you are talking about a lone gunman on a roof, you don't end the crisis by "hosing" him down with a hail of bullets from an SMG and possibly endangering the lives of others.
If a law enforcement forensic shrink/negotiator can't convince him to come down or he is in the process of randomly shooting people on the ground, then a SWAT or ATF (or what have you) sharpshooter with a high power rifle and scope takes him down.
Yes Frmrsldr a single shot IS more accurate then spraying a crowd with automatic weapons fire.
MP5s also have a handy little thing called a fire selector switch meaning they can just as easily take single aimed shots with their submachineguns.
You know that.
[Don''t you?]
It may be hard to accept but believe it or not police tactics and shooting training generally shy away from firing a hail of bullets into a crowd. Not only because it's, well, a lot of paper work but automatic fire is less accurate meaning the bad guy has a better chance of shooting the cop.
Is that really what you think when you hear police using MP5s? Spraying bullets into a crowd? You used a C7. When you were on a shooting range how often did you train using fully automatic fire??
I agree with your last point. Seeing "hard" police will have a negitive effect. Probably why the RCMP are leaving the MP5s in the car trunk.
I like the symbolism of our parliament being patrolled by police with fully automatic weapons. It puts the level of democracy that we have in this country into perspective.
P4 and others what I don't understand is why you think that a proper response to any incident on parliament includes shooting into crowds of innocents. Have you been in Afghanistan so long you don't understand the term collateral damage actually means dead civilians?
The OPP regular cruisers carry sem-auto (have to check if they're full auto) mil-spec rifles in their vechicles. The RCMP must want to keep up.
Krop
I don't think it's a proper response at all.
Frmrsldr brought up the whole spraying into a crowd thing under the assumtion that it is what police would do with an automatic weapon. I pointed out that they also fire single shot at a time and are not restricted to spraying bullets.
I'm very familiar with what collateral damage means and how important it is to avoid it.
Yes Frmrsldr a single shot IS more accurate then spraying a crowd with automatic weapons fire.
MP5s also have a handy little thing called a fire selector switch meaning they can just as easily take single aimed shots with their submachineguns.
You know that.
[Don''t you?]
It may be hard to accept but believe it or not police tactics and shooting training generally shy away from firing a hail of bullets into a crowd. Not only because it's, well, a lot of paper work but automatic fire is less accurate meaning the bad guy has a better chance of shooting the cop.
Is that really what you think when you hear police using MP5s? Spraying bullets into a crowd? You used a C7. When you were on a shooting range how often did you train using fully automatic fire??
Given that this is a democracy, the weapon issued should be a bi-partisan political committee decision. A compromize solution, if you will:
Take the current issued pistols and modify them so that a stock and (say a 12 inch) barrel extension can be attached.
Should the need arise, a cop on the beat can in the time it takes to attach a stock and barrel extension, turn their service pistol into a more accurate and useful situation specific weapon. You will have a weapon that is semi-auto fire only, thus eliminating the risk of the weapon being 'accidently' fired on full auto. During normal use (the stock and barrel extension will be carried on the person of the police officer, just like they were handcuffs or nightstick, etc.) and thus the gen. pub. would normally see the less offensive looking service pistol and their minds would be more at ease.
Yeah, right(?)
I want one too.
Frmrsldr brought up the whole spraying into a crowd thing under the assumtion that it is what police would do with an automatic weapon.
That's certainly what they do in movies. Just hold the trigger down and pan back and forth indiscriminately, like you're washing your car with a hose.
But will mounties get one for each hand? Because that would definitely say "we're badass".
I want one too.
[Sigh] If I had the connections, I would get into the manufacture and sale of these sidearm accouterments. I would give you and all my rabble friends a discount. I could become rich!
(Just kidding!)
Seeing our police and other security officers walking around our public streets armed with full auto weapons and clad in black with body armor, helmets, face shields and jack boots looking like storm troopers, would tend to have a chilling effect on the belief that we live in a "free" and "democratic" society.
Fortunately, that won't be happening as they will be stored in their cruisers:
. . .
Though the MP5 is technically a submachine gun, Cox said the RCMP weapons have been altered to be semi-automatic in function, meaning that a single bullet is released with each trigger pull.
The guns will also be assigned to RCMP staff tasked with guarding embassies and consulates across Canada, Cox said in a telephone interview. They will replace the shotguns currently assigned to these officers as secondary weapons, he said.
. . .
. . . Mounties intend to bring their Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns back into service as "secondary weapons," pending weapons training for officers. He said the RCMP must also decide on how to store the weapons securely, while also ensuring that they are accessible to officers.
. . .
but what stops the mounties from using these new, more dangerous weapons (compared to their current shot guns) in the same horrible manner that tasers are being used?
both tasers and now these new automatic submachine guns are being sold as more effective
The comparison doesn't make sense.
Tasers are widely used, and often quickly brought out, because they are promoted, rightly or wrongly, as a less-than-lethal weapon that can incapacitate people (usually) safely.
A MP5 is still a lethal firearm, just like the pistols and shotguns they have now. More effective in terms of accuracy, sure, but still fundamentally the same - and fundamentally different from a taser. There's no reason they would be quicker to reach for an MP5 - and use it - than they are with their shotguns now.
I like the symbolism of our parliament being patrolled by police with fully automatic weapons. It puts the level of democracy that we have in this country into perspective.
Why should those police officers have any weapons?
Come on, Sven. How can we have a serious northern banana republic here without cops carrying the heavy stuff? Look what's happened in Khirgyztan. We can't have regular slobs running the show here. Bay Street is our excalibur and lady of the lake. And they have no intentions of going quietly into that goodnight if they can help it. Their problem is that they've come to believe that their jobs are so important that no one else is capable of doing them. It happens to the best of us. But our stooges really are replaceable. And in the backs of their minds, they've realized it, too, and are having a difficult time coming to terms with that realization. Theyre at the pinnacle of their careers as stoogeocrats, and they don't even want to consider stepping down for fear the country would go to rack and ruin without a certain level of genus and good inbreeding running things. They fear the possibility that we could go on without them, sad but true. We can just imagine how a 140 year-old stranglehold on federal power in the colony would create feelings of grandeur and a sense of permanence for them. If they only knew how Canadians could get along without them, they might consider retiring a few decades early. You never know. Stooging is like a box of chocolates. They never know what they'll get in the end.
I pissed on the doors parliament building one night in Ottawa, when I was mildly drunk, just shortly after putting out the eternal flame in the main square in front. If the security guards are sleeping, like they were on that night, the kind of weaponry available to them hardly matters.
That said, it would be sad to think that persons similarly expressing their respect for the halls of democracy in Canada might be cut through with automatic weapons fire.
Bay Street is our excalibur and lady of the lake . . .
Hey Fidel, you trying out some new material here? A bit of departure from your usual "stoogecrats"-this and "banana republic"-that. I'm sure if it gets a good reception we'll be seeing these Arthurian references repreated throughout your posts in the future.
But let me guess, when you say "excalibur" you're picturing a sword that looks like this aren't you:
What prompted this change? Who's idea was this?
A_J is that a Fulham Gladius?
A MP5 is still a lethal firearm, just like the pistols and shotguns they have now. More effective in terms of accuracy, sure, but still fundamentally the same - and fundamentally different from a taser. There's no reason they would be quicker to reach for an MP5 - and use it - than they are with their shotguns now.
So what you're saying is that this MP5 is
The same type of bullet as the RCMPs pistol. More accurate thus less dangerous to bystanders. Single shot and not " capable of spraying bullets". Kept in the truck of a car?
Machineguns lol
A_J, don't say that. The RCMP watching this website will get ideas and pretty soon the RCMP will have chainswords and powerswords.
THAT would be something to complain about actually. I'm surprised the RCMP are using 9mm still. I thought most police forces were switching to .40's?
And FYI The OPP rifles in the back of their cars are single shot only too.
We have budget shortfalls in every federal department and cuts for many services but we can afford new weapons to sit in the trunk of a car to prevent something that has never occurred. Using this logic since we could have a full scale Al Quada attack at some point in the future why don't we ring the parliament with tanks and checkpoints. It makes as much sense as a precautionary measure as new automatic weapos incase a sniper gets into the bell tower.
Follow the money, it the only thing to do. Who got the contract for the new guns and how well are they connected to the RCMP bosses and their Conservative buddies.
These are unnecessary but they do serve to inform the public that we are at war here at home and therefore we must be vigilant in our overseas adventures.
kropotkin1951
The article states the weapons have been owned by the RCMP since the 1980s. There is no new purchasing of weapons
Did people even read the article posted in the opening post? 
THe RCMP has owned useless weapons for decades now I feel better about it.
So are you upset that nothing that would require them to use these weapons has happened so far or are you upset that they are prepared for something that hopefully never happens?
The real questions is why did the Star write about this non story - to wind up the sort of people that are regulars on Babble?
VanGogh
If you look at the clever way in which this story is constructed, it is clearly trying to raise a point (which is not entirely invalid) about plans to increase security measures despite the fact that the most recent 'threat' the RCMP has had to deal with lately is posed by Greenpeace protesters with big, scary banners.
Surely this requires we get out the bigger guns and plan to build a new underground check-in point for guests. Clearly, you never know when one of them protesters might go 'on a rampage'.
All to protect our democracy from those terrorists who are out to destroy our way of life.
THe RCMP has owned useless weapons for decades now I feel better about it.
Come now. Lets get to the real issue. The MP5 is cool. It may be pretty much useless for anything other than intimidation, and spraying crowds with random fire, but it does look cool. Its one of the coolest looking small arms available on the market. It's got a cool name, cool look.
That's about it.
That said, what about issuing Mac10's? Nothing can beat that for cool.
Cueball
Nothing says cool like a brown bess and an 17inch bayonet.
the article is aimed at people with an anti-gun, anti-police bias - "spraying crowds with random fire" yeah
I'm surprised you posted that since surely you assume they are reading this and are getting ready to break down your door and make you dissappear.
Of course not in Canada, CSIS would never arrest people on flimsy evidence and those people would never end up in gulags like the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre.
But you are right VGEar to note that if Rup is not a Moslem the odds of him or her being detained are miniscule. CSIS merely collects files on activists unless it is a lead in to the Olympics in which case they start to interrogate their friends and families.
the article is aimed at people with an anti-gun, anti-police bias - "spraying crowds with random fire" yeah
I'm surprised you posted that since surely you assume they are reading this and are getting ready to break down your door and make you dissappear.
There really isn't any other special utilitity for that weapon.
Were the issues otherwise, the order of the day would be creating an on-site special weapons task force, armed with high powered assault rifles, with pinpoint accuracy to take out specific targets at long range, and also capable at short range.
You may be right on the capabilities of the weapon, I'm not an expert at all. - I know that they have sharpshooters who go to large outdoor events but I doubt they would be permantly at The Hill only maybe when foreign dignitaries are visiting.
The idea of them spraying bullets randomly into crowds is on the paranoid side.
Are the people being detained at this so-called Gulag in Kingston Canadian citizens?
I think the use of that word is actually an insult to the survivors and dead who were imprisoned in the former Soviet Union Gulag or the current NKDR Gulag.
I think the use of that word is actually an insult to the survivors and dead who were imprisoned in the former Soviet Union Gulag or the current NKDR Gulag.
Like Nazi gets thrown around.
Are the people being detained at this so-called Gulag in Kingston Canadian citizens?
I think the use of that word is actually an insult to the survivors and dead who were imprisoned in the former Soviet Union Gulag or the current NKDR Gulag.
LMAO
No Canada is not as bad as other countries don't look at what our government does compare them to someone worse. They are acting in my name and thus I will complain about them without having to jump through any moral equivalency hoops.
So in your world we can incarcerate any one who arrives at our borders without due process or the rule to law. The only thing is apparently they have to be Moslem. By the way to the individual involved they don't fucking care if it a Soviet gulag or a Canadian gulag. To you they are non-citizens to me they are human beings my government is incarcerating without due process based on the word of spooks. What exactly is your definition of a police state? Is it only when it happens to you and your peers. Most Russians went about their business and didn't let the gulags concern them much. Now that Russia has adopted the facade of a democracy we have stopped talking about the way they are incarcerating and murdering Islamic dissidents in the Caucuses. Counter revolutionary terrorists have become Islamic terrorists in Russia but the state and there brutal treatment of dissidents has not changed.
As for Germany most people thought that murdering leftists was not a bad thing since they were obviously a threat because they supported the USSR. Also there was no out cry when they started murdering people like my son for the crime of being born different. Both the above started while Germany was still a "democracy" But don't worry not even the Nazis killed people like you who supported their state.
You may be right on the capabilities of the weapon, I'm not an expert at all. - I know that they have sharpshooters who go to large outdoor events but I doubt they would be permantly at The Hill only maybe when foreign dignitaries are visiting.
The idea of them spraying bullets randomly into crowds is on the paranoid side.
Are the people being detained at this so-called Gulag in Kingston Canadian citizens?
I think the use of that word is actually an insult to the survivors and dead who were imprisoned in the former Soviet Union Gulag or the current NKDR Gulag.
You have really launched yourself off from the shores of reality. Here we are discussing the rearming of the Parlimentary RCMP, with low velocity, low caliber SMG's, useful for very little other random fire into masses of people at close range, and you are going off about the Gulag and North Korea.
I didn't say I agreed with locking people up without charges - nor did I mention anything about moslems - I just asked if they were citizens to try to understand what this detention center you referred to was about. I also said nothing about modern Russia??? I was referring to the use of the word Gulag which is a specific term which I feel is cheapened when used haphazardly. I think you'd find our views are not that different if you responded to what I actually wrote rather than making assumptions.
exagerating things doesn't help - being locked up without charge is bad enough without making it seem like they're skin and bones from eating gruel and rats while breaking their backs doing hard labour.
I don't want to continue the drift but my views on the treatment of the Chechen people from our time going back to Stalin are probably in line with yours.
. . . spraying crowds with random fire . . . There really isn't any other special utilitity for that weapon.
Were the issues otherwise, the order of the day would be creating an on-site special weapons task force, armed with high powered assault rifles, with pinpoint accuracy to take out specific targets at long range, and also capable at short range.
. . . modified, single-shot "rifle" version of the legendary submachine-gun . . .
The RCMP's "crowd spraying" capacity isn't going to change - these will have the same rate of fire as their current pistols. Like Webgear said, do people just not read anymore?
And they do more or less give the RCMP the capabilities you are advocating. Not necessarily "long-range" (wikipedia says up to 150m) or "pinpoint", but medium range and with a huge improvement in accuracy over what they have.
A_J is that a Fulham Gladius?
It's just the first picture I grabbed off of wikipedia. It's described there as a Pompeii type.
cueball - it was Kropotkin who brought Gulags into this conversation
I didn't say I agreed with locking people up without charges - nor did I mention anything about moslems - I just asked if they were citizens to try to understand what this detention center you referred to was about. I also said nothing about modern Russia??? I was referring to the use of the word Gulag which is a specific term which I feel is cheapened when used haphazardly. I think you'd find our views are not that different if you responded to what I actually wrote rather than making assumptions.
I agree GULAG is a term used very loosely and you are doing so now. The fundamental distinction of GULAG (as opposed to prisons which also existed in the SU), which actually started out as an acronym by the way, is the creation of a prison system that primary purpose is the aquistion of labour for profit.
Forced labour camps, in other words.
ok - thanks
Interesting definition then I stand corrected we have not had those in Canada since the 1930's.
I thought that Gulag was a term that could be applied to the incarceration of people suspected of having the wrong political views. you know like thinking that Soviet style "communism" should be replaced with an Islamic Republic similar to Iran's. So what is the right name for the prisons the Soviets sent their Islamic "dissidents" too.
So VGEar you have no problem with wrongful incarceration as long as there is food and they don't beat you too often? That is certainly not my view.
No, I have a problem with anyone being incarcerated without charges. Either charge them with a crime, and let them see the evidence against them in open court or let them go is my belief.
This is really getting off topic. I don't know much about the people detained who you mentioned but I assume since they are not citizens - they can't be tried in canadian courts. (I don't even know enough details to really comment properly on this, since I don't even know why or who is being held)
There are millions of people in Canada from all over the world and I just dont't believe the idea that the government is locking up people based on their religious beliefs.
Are there innocent people locked up? - I'm sure there are and that's very wrong and should be corrected but your blanket statements are way too paranoid sounding to me. That's about all I have to say, because I don't like people putting words in my mouth rather simply accepting what I've written.
There are millions of people in Canada from all over the world and I just dont't believe the idea that the government is locking up people based on their religious beliefs.
Of course! Its just an unhappy co-incidence that all the people locked up on security certificates are Muslim or of Muslim ethnic extraction.
