Shooting Rampage In Canada

[simcitystar1167 0]

Dawnson College in the center of Montreal suddenly came under fire this afternoon. Witnesses say a gunman took out a machine gun and began to shot at students. Link is below.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14818183/

[nealos101 20]

What do you know? Another idiot with a gun!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

That's too bad. Hopefully that doesn't affect the areas image/economy.

[s.i.X 13]

Montreal has 3.5 million people. A shooting like this, while unexpected, shouldn't be entirely out of the quesiton. Things do happen, unfortunately.

20 injured and possibly 4 dead so far.

[Equilibria 16]

This really is too bad... serves as a reminder I guess. Not all danger comes from international religious fanatics. Some comes from morons like this guy.

[DuskTrooper 314]

Very sad...

[iamthouth 0]

I guess we can expect to see more colleges and schools with metal detectors in Canada too now.....

[Fischbob 9]

Damn, this comes as unexpected.

Though this type of thing isn't entirely unprecedented, it is the first time I can remember where something like this has happened relatively close (within a day's drive) to me, and it's further complicated by the fact that none of the eyewitnesses whose testimonies I've heard recognised the gunman.

As a student, it sort of makes you do a double-take. An event like this tends to blur the line between your senses of security and vulnerability. Are you really as safe as you think you are at school? I'm eerily reminded of a couple years back, when a Columbine-esque plot was unearthed at the school I'm atttending now. Though I wasn't a student at the school at the time, it still gave me a few second thoughts, as it was the school I would be attending the following year.

Still, I'm not going to alter my plans because of this latest tragedy. The risk of something like this happening at my school is just as great now as it was yesterday.

My thoughts are with those many students and their families who were affected by this.

[s.i.X 13]

'Though this type of thing isn't entirely unprecedented, it is the first time I can remember where something like this has happened relatively close (within a day's drive) to me, and it's further complicated by the fact that none of the eyewitnesses whose testimonies I've heard recognised the gunman.'

Canada has had foiur major schools shootings. Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, (man shot 14 female students because 'feminists prevented him from getting into the school') Concordia in 1994(?) (professor shot four colleagues) also in Montreal, in 1999(?) there was the shooting in Taber Alberta, and this recent one in Montreal. 3/4 school shootings in Canada have been in Montreal colleges. (not that that makes them unsafe or anything, they're great schools)

I don't think we'll see metal detectors in schools here.

[jacqulina 162]

thats very sad

[Fischbob 9]

Yeah, there have been others, but the 1989 shooting took place before I was born, and the Concordia one I was too young to remember (I'd always thought that the Concordia shootings happened in the 60s/70s. Or am I thinking of a completely different event?). So this is the first where I've been able to take the incident in as information becomes available.

[DOXXP29 5]

Sad statement on society, I guess. While this is a serious tragedy, Canada fortunately doesn't have the kind of shoot 'em up idiocy as the states has. Seems like literally every day there's at least one case of some moron going off and shooting up a school, workplace or crowd or else the new trend, the "murder-suicide" phenomenon. Almost like these people are walking time bombs. A switch gets flipped and they flip out and start with the shooting. My heart goes out to the victims and their families.

[nealos101 20]

While this is a serious tragedy, Canada fortunately doesn't have the kind of shoot 'em up idiocy as the states has.quote>

Neither does Great Britian, unless the situation has been rectified that way and a special armed forces police unit is called in.  But by that time the gunman would have had his way with dozens of police officers trying to evacuate the students.

A switch gets flipped and they flip out and start with the shooting.quote>

Nothing to do with a switch, these are breeds of mental cases that have been brought up that way.  IMHO they should be treated like a serious criminal, i.e. being diasabled for life inside of a hardcore prison, instead of taking the easy route out...

[hamsterTK 93]

the news is now claiming he was influenced by a videogame called super columbine massacre...

Oh lord not this again....

after going to the games site i found out its a free noncommercial game made with a easy to use game making program called RPG Maker and not something being sold in stores. Since its not mainstream i think we finally have some proof that  violent people are drawn to violent games....

the guy who made it claims its been downloaded like 40000 times but i bet thats a load of BS. games like that never hit that mark even if they are actually well made(guy did a real crappy job making it from the screenshots)  and not about something completely horrible like the columbine tragedy...

shoot 'em up idiocy as the states has.quote>

yeah sure whatever...

[PhilsCafe 8]

I've seen this on different news sites... that's a terrible incident. One should think that school would be a safe place. My thoughts are with the family of the young woman who died there...

The pictures of the committer as seen on CTV.ca and Montreal Gazette really scared me... that guy was crazy. And of course, if it isn't the gun laws (Canada has quite strict ones as I understand) then it has to be video games... not. I absolutely agree with hamsterTK, violent people are drawn to violent games, it's not the other way round. And the upbringing also is a factor... something must have seriously gone wrong in that guys childhood!

Unfortunately, things like that happen all over the world... I remember a shooting at a local parliament building in Switzerland five years ago (September 27th), in which 11 MPs and 3 members of the state government of Zug were killed by one gunman. Terrible.

[MiniMark 7]

Today's paper of The Toronto Star has a picture of the committer and how he looks quite pyscho and you wonder why we can't all have world peace in this world...

[DOXXP29 5]

By the "violent game rationale", I guess you'll be seeing me soon on the 6:00 news driving a bulldozer thru downtown DC demolishing buildings. I'll blame it on SC4, of course!

[Merauder 0]

Wow, this isn't something I expected to happen in Canada......

Let's not get paranoid and argue about what causes what and in who. Poeple like this have been around since the beginning of humanity and they will be around as long as you and I and all furhter generations exist the way we know it. Pointing fingers at things is just a way the modern society tries to explain it and even prevent it, while you really can't. It's modern media and the belief that one can controll everything in the world that makes poeple blame stuff.

It's an eerie though, but this is a humane tradgedy with human causes and human results, the looks of wich has been around since prehistoric times and will contineu to be around untill we aren't.

Good thing the police responded so vervently, it could have been a lot worse if they didn't.

[Camaron 1]

Very tragic. I would not expect it to happen in Canada either, but really this type of tragedy can happen anywhere.

[s.i.X 13]

The police responded quickly because they were already at the school about a drug investication, and the officers were able to stop the guy and call for back up, as opposed to them not being there and someone having called when it was too late. According to new reports, the guy killed himself, it wasn't police.

'shoot 'em up idiocy as the states has.

yeah sure whatever...'

Omaha, Nebraska, has seen about 70 murders this year, while similar sized Canadian cities are just creeping up to 15. You tell me there's nothing wrong with American culture. I'm not saying that Americans like to shoot each other, but there is something present in America that isn't in the other western countries that makes murder more common there.

[spa 968]

Originally posted by: s.i.X 'Though this type of thing isn't entirely unprecedented, it is the first time I can remember where something like this has happened relatively close (within a day's drive) to me, and it's further complicated by the fact that none of the eyewitnesses whose testimonies I've heard recognised the gunman.'

Canada has had foiur major schools shootings. Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, (man shot 14 female students because 'feminists prevented him from getting into the school') Concordia in 1994(?) (professor shot four colleagues) also in Montreal, in 1999(?) there was the shooting in Taber Alberta, and this recent one in Montreal. 3/4 school shootings in Canada have been in Montreal colleges. (not that that makes them unsafe or anything, they're great schools)

I don't think we'll see metal detectors in schools here.quote>

 

Like everywhere in the world Canada has its share of crackpots although this kind of thing is still rare here and not a matter of routine like it seems to be in the US. When the Taber shooting happened it was the first time in 20-30 years (can't remember the exact total) that a student was murdered in a Canadian high school. I do remember a near miss though when I was growing up at Queen Elizabeth High School in Halifax. Some guy came into the school with a rifle, but was subdued by some quick thinking teachers. Nobody was hurt. It is scary when this kind of thing happens nearby. I have a friend at University of Montreal and I go in and out of Dalhousie here in Halifax everyday so it does stop and make you think.

[Dr. Neitchskrimfrauwnmoya 7]

This was crazy. Like everyone else, I'm shocked and angry. I was 2 km away from Dawson College when it happened. Near 1:00 pm, I noticed there was an unusual amount of cop cars and ambulances rushing to the west. A couple of minutes after someone told me what was going on. The first thing that I thought was about the Polytechnique massacre of 1989 as any other Montrealer. By luck, there was 2 cops near who heard the gunshots and 15 minutes after they shotted to death the gunman.

I was wondering how much coverage this event had in the US and all around the world?

This is a picture of the gunman, Kimveer Gill,  taken from his blog. 

And this is a picture of this crazy ~Edited for content~ after he got shot. Right on the front page of the today newspaper, they had a huge picture of his body without the sheat on him, a couple of minutes after he was shot, and it was quite gory. What the hell was going on in his mind?

[PhilsCafe 8]

I happened to check Canadian media about the double-murder in a Toronto hotel when I saw the bad news from Montreal... But in our local newspaper, there was only a rather small notice about it. In my opinion, the media shouldn't grant too much publicity to the murderer though... that's probably what he wanted in the first place. Instead, we should remember Anastasia DeSousa.

[Cjah 15]

pfft....u kidding me....so all my Resident Evil games and my love of GTA....all of this means I'm some future killer?

Voilent Video games are for these types of people....duh....so they DON'T go out and kill,kill,kill....think about it....this guy probably didn't get his GTA fix for the day or something.....but by the VAMPIREFREAK picture,,,,,we can tell he loves his sub machine guns and such...hmm makes me wonder about that one goth/vampire chick i knew in high school....maybe she will snap like this one day....but yeh....if you can't do violent things in Fantasyland then that will only make you want to go out and take up hunting....then the next thing you know you got an NRA card and a a fat ass gun....then you go out and do what this man did today...he probably had this planned....i bet anything he was either some kind of loner(again VAMP pic) or he hated that school for kicking him out...but maybe this is better then that guy becoming the next Hitler...what if Hitler...instead of rising to power and creating the Nazi's to seek revenge.....instead of all that.....What if he just took out a gun and shot the guy at the Vienna Art Institute who denied him....

Anyway I better not continue....I'm probably gonna offend people....but...however...I do feel for the families.....any loss of life is sad...

[Constantina 5]

I have to admit, this world is being made cruel by violent video games. Shopkeepers should really stop being lenient on anyone when selling age-restricted games.

How about a 21 certificate to keep college student's hands of GTA, for example?

Or how about the adult age to be raised to 21?

Or even how about raising the watershed to 10pm or even 11pm?

Or even re-introduce the closedown and Test card F, and banning offensive programmes altogether?

[Cjah 15]

Originally posted by: Constantina I have to admit, this world is being made cruel by violent video games. Shopkeepers should really stop being lenient on anyone when selling age-restricted games.

How about a 21 certificate to keep college student's hands of GTA, for example?

Or how about the adult age to be raised to 21?

Or even how about raising the watershed to 10pm or even 11pm?

Or even re-introduce the closedown and Test card F, and banning offensive programmes altogether?quote>

 

you make me wonder some times....and NO don't raise it to 21....why do you have to be 21 to see violence...whats next...ban anyone younger then 18 from watching Television...

[Constantina 5]

Nationalise the internet? Then there could be easy to manage filtering.

Sorry if it's too radical, but there has to be a way to cut gun crime.

[PhilsCafe 8]

Constantina: The gunman was 25, so legally he was an adult... age restriction wouldn't have helped here.

It's too easy to blame everything on computer games, or media in general anyway. Such crimes are much more complex than that. Unfortunately we will never be able to understand what makes people do such a terrible thing. I guess we can't prevent such tragic incidents.

Maybe his blog was an alarm bell, maybe he was playing violent games, ...  but that probably didn't drive him to shot innocent people. Something was wrong with that guy and obviously nobody in his social environment (you know, Real Life) cared! Don't get me wrong, I don't want to defend his actions at all... but it's just not done making new laws everytime something terrible happens. Crimes still happen, actually that's the definition of a crime, right? And because he wanted to commit suicide afterwards, he didn't even have to fear consequences for breaking the law.

[Cjah 15]

ummm....I just read like the whole blog twice....kinda interesting actaully....but he didn't kill himself....you guys should have heard by now that the cops capped him in the face and that he didn't take his own life....

alot of people on the blog said he got hit either between the eyes or on the forehead,....sorry for being graphic but I'll give Canada props for their skills....

[Merauder 0]

I'm sticking with my opinion Constantina, that trying to get rid of stuff that will cause human violence is a lost cause. It's like trying to smack a puff of smoke to death. Even more so, I belief that violence in the world should be CONTROLLED and regulated rather then banned and forbidden. (though that's the kind of isseu scientists and psychologists should argue about, not little old me or you.)

Violence will be around as long as humanity exists. Were to good at causing death and doom to stop doing it.

What CAN help, or at least I belief it can, is controlling the flow of fire-arms. It's a solution that's just as hopeless, I know, but it's theoretically speaking a better option then trying to controll human violence. That kid would have been less likely to start killing if he had only his bare hands. ( I mean just look at him, he's pathetic. Only the gun could have made him that dangerous. )

There are a few questions that have been going through my mind....

Did the kid knew that there was police around? Was he actually looking for a showdown of that sort?