I’ve been a the qualifying range where cops were shooting. Seems like most of the ones I saw got their gun out about once a year to practice. Most of them couldn’t shoot themselves in the A$$. Saying that we need COPs is the wrong solution. We need TRAINED MARKSMEN and RESPONDERS ... they might be cops, they might be military, they might be traveling salesmen, or for that matter, the farmer’s daughter! But to say “cop” because they are all trained and qualified is a dangerous shortcut. The facts of THIS case with THIS cop shows the fallacy of that line of thought. Stop saying “cops” and “military” and start saying “trained responder marksmen.” (Or something like that).
Washington Post – October 23, 2014
Fred Barbash and Justin Wm. Moyer
In Canada, they call the job of sergeant-at-arms “ceremonial.” But as the Calgary Sun said this morning, anyone who thought it was an “archaic novelty now understands the man holding the sceptre has a deadly serious job.”
No law enforcement agency has yet officially confirmed that Kevin Vickers, sergeant-at-arms of the Canadian Parliament, took out the man who opened fire in the halls of the capitol in Ottawa Wednesday after killing a soldier. Nor has Vickers commented on his actions.
However, in multiple news reports, Vickers, 58, is already being hailed as a national hero who eyewitnesses say prevented a massacre that would have been nothing short of a national catastrophe.
By all accounts, the white-haired grandfather, a decorated veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, kept cool amid the chaos as dozens of bullets flew in the corridors, went to his office, retrieved his weapon and with a firm hand and a steely eye shot a killer before he could kill again. Vickers, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall, then walked away, gun-in hand, having “taken care of business,” as one news outlet put it.