Alphecca: Forget the Crooks, It's the Gun

August 22, 2005

Forget the Crooks, It's the Gun

That's the impression you would get reading this story from Canada:

The restricted semi- automatic rifle seized after last week's jewelry heist and police pursuit has a history as an easy-to-carry maiming machine.

"In the gang context, the AR-15 could be deemed a status symbol because it's small and light and compact in terms of assault rifles," said Marko Jugley, a gun owner and executive member of the Maple Leaf Marksmen Rifle and Revolver Club in St. Catherines.

The rifle's cartridges are also lightweight, allowing users to carry more ammunition at a time. That ammunition packs a nasty punch.

There then follows another dozen paragraphs about the history of AR-15's, ammo, Canada law, and so on. In fact, it isn't until the last paragraph that the crooks are mentioned:

Wednesday's heist left two men dead -- one of them Sean Patrick McGrath, 37, of Montreal -- and two in hospital. One of the survivors, Akili Roberts, 25, of Montreal, is charged with robbery.

If they had been carrying knives, there would no-doubt have been a long history of them, starting with the flint-working of early man. In fact, you'd have to turn to another article to learn that the mutants had a long history of violent crime dating back years, and that they were probably a part of a gang in Quebec. Because, you know, it's the AR-15 that committed the crime, not the thugs...

Posted by Jeff Soyer at August 22, 2005 07:41 AM

Comments

Notice that only one of the injured people was directly attributed to the AR-15, and that injury wasn't even major:

"At least one shot was fired at police, ricocheting off of the windshield of a cruiser, leaving a hole and slightly injuring an officer in the vehicle."

Sounds like a piece of glass from the spalling if you ask me.

So for all we know, it could have been an evil assault knife that left two dead and caused the other injury. I'm calling loose shit on this reporting.

Posted by: Brass at August 22, 2005 10:03 AM

Actually the men that committed this crime were shooting out of the sunroof/back window of their vehicle in a neighbourhood filled with children at 2 in the afternoon at the police. One officer was injured when shattering glass entered his eyes after a bullet struck the windshield of his cruiser inches from his head. Two of the robbery suspects died when their vehicle clipped a truck on the highway and rolled. Two others are in hospital. Hopefully with what is fatal injuries.

Shotty researh in posting this blog is more the story. The newspaper clipping you quote was from several days after the robbery. The men involved had at that point been profiled as best as they could since little information has been released about them. In Ontario where this crime occurred a civilian agency investigates all matters of injury or death involving police and little comes out until their investigation is done. All of this clearly reported by the media. All of it ignored by this blogger conveniently. Guess stating those facts would not have made your argument as convincing though.

Also, unlike our neighbours to the south, the use of an AR-15 in the commission of an offence is not a common occurrence in Canada and certainly not where this incident took place, in front of my house.

Posted by: Mike at August 24, 2005 12:53 AM

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August 22, 2005

Forget the Crooks, It's the Gun

By Golly, you're reading an archived post. Click Here to head to the main page and read current stuff...

Check it out:

My group sci-fi blog novel:

Colony: Alchibah