The Canadian Mountie Killings

[Updates below.]

The AP via ABCNews: Canadians Stunned Over Mounties Killings

The slayings of four Canadian police officer have stunned a nation that prides itself on far fewer acts of gun violence than its neighbor to the south.

One can already detect the direction of this article by Beth Duff-Brown. More on that later.

I logged in to Yahoo just a few minutes ago and this is the first I heard of the shootings. What a nightmare.

A bagpiper played "Amazing Grace" and flags flew at half-staff Friday as Canadians grappled with the deadliest attack on police officers in 120 years. The four Mounties were slain during a raid on a marijuana farm in a rural western hamlet on Thursday.

Of course, more details are to come, but the very next reaction after feeling sympathy for the families of the killed is well, since growing marijuana is a victimless crime, the Mounties shouldn't have been there in the first place.

"Canadians are shocked by this brutality and join me in condemning the violent acts that brought about these deaths," Prime Minister Paul Martin said.

I condemn the acts of people who aggress against non-aggressors. People who initiate violence deserve no sympathy for they made the choice to do so. However, if violence is committed in self-defense or in defense of one's property, I not only reject condemning it, I endorse it.

That is the crucial distinction here: self-defense and aggression. Protesting all violence opens you to the dangers of grossly negligent self-annihilation; if you are morally prohibited from repelling attackers with force, you place your life in the hands of any random stranger to do with as they wish.

"The loss of four police officers is unprecedented in recent history," said Bill Sweeney, commanding officer of the Mounties in Alberta. "I'm told you have to go back to about 1885 … during the Northwest Rebellion to have a loss of this magnitude."

The Northwest Rebellion was an unsuccessful attempt by indigenous rebels to establish an independent nation in the northwestern frontier.

This is also subject to what I explained above. If those rebels were attempting to peacefully secede from the government and exit it's social order and the Mounties were killed while attempting to force them to remain citizens, then the rebels were acting in legitimate self-defense and were, in the words of Kim du Toit, righteous shootings.

The four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers had been investigating a farm in Mayerthorpe, a small hamlet of some 1,300 people in western Alberta province.

Spokesman Cpl. Wayne Oakes said the four Mounties and the suspected gunman were found in a Quonset hut on the farm late Thursday. A government source told The Canadian Press the suspect killed himself after shooting the officers.

[...]

The suspect was identified by police as 46-year-old James Roszko. Authorities said he had a long criminal record, including the use of illegal firearms and sexual assault.

Oakes said the Mounties were investigating reports of stolen property and marijuana on Roszko's property.

Some details emerge but a complete picture is not obtained. This particular article changes into another mode at this point, so I'll return to it later. From the Reuters Alertdesk we get this: Details emerge about killer of Canadian Mounties

Families and police planned the funerals Saturday for four Canadian Mounties murdered in a raid on a marijuana operation, as more details emerged about the suspect, a man notorious in the area as a police-hater who stockpiled weapons.

In one of the bloodiest incidents in the history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, officers were investigating stolen vehicles and an illicit marijuana growing operation near the town of Mayerthorpe, Alberta, Thursday when they were gunned down inside a large metal shed.

The shooting has sparked debate over the government's plans to decriminalize marijuana possession, but town residents and criminologists say they do not believe the suspect, James Roszko, 46, opened fire to protect a pot crop.

[...]

"Jim has been developing more and more hate and anger against the police," said his father William Roszko, 80. He said his son "probably is in Hell already."

Family and neighbors described his short temper, angry encounters with police and bailiffs and his firearms cache.

Police said the young Mounties were armed with handguns and wore light body armor when the entered the shed. They were shot with what was described as a "rapid-fire, high-powered rifle."

"The RCMP were out-powered...," George Roszko, James' older brother, told the Edmonton Journal newspaper. "This is not your average hunting rifle-style kind of situation. There were numerous searches there, they tried to find his automatic weapons numerous times. But he's not stupid."

Even Roszko's lawyer was quoted as saying he was frightened at times by the repeat-offender, who was also convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 2000.

Residents of Mayerthorpe, a town of 1,600 people about 90 miles (140 km) northwest of Edmonton, described how the farm was equipped with heavy gates, booby traps and security cameras.

"Everybody knew he was nuts," said Tanya Madigan, a gas station clerk, whose boyfriend owns a nearby property.

© Reuters Foundation 2002. All rights reserved.

The sounds you hear are the sounds The Chorus makes as it takes the first breath of it's upcoming lyric, before the words are released with unanimous affirmation: The man was a crazy drug-dealing anti-government type; a paranoid sexual deviant; a thief with a bad attitude who was greedy and owned machine guns and whose very father hated him.

From this, which will rapidly become the Conventional Wisdom, people shall conclude James Roszko posed a severe danger to everyone around him and therefore had little right (if at all) to continue living as he did. I know nothing about the sexual assault charge, which, if true and actually constituted assault, would make him a rights-violator. However, the fact that he engaged in activities that the state deemed illegal doesn't necessarily make them morally criminal; nor does the fact that he engaged in activities that some or even many people disapprove of and fear automatically make him a evil person. How many guns is it OK to have before you are considered a monster? At what point does it make you insane when you attempt to set up defenses for your property?

Assuming Reuters didn't miss other things on his rap sheet, it can be said that Mr. Roszko placed a very high value on his property and decided it was worth investing considerable time and resources to defend. Given that the Canadian government repeatedly attempted to confiscate and control his property against his will, he had legitimate concerns.

Back to the Associated Press article:

"This is something that happens in Hollywood, but it never happens here," Albert Schalm, the town's mayor, told CBC TV. "I think it will change the community. It will just make everybody more aware that there are drug problems, even out here in rural Canada."

The awareness raised will, unfortunately, not be directed towards the source of the conflict here: between one man growing plants and the government attempting to stop him. Why do people produce drugs? Because there is a demand for them. Since the supply for that demand is artificially restricted by the state, prices for those drugs are high. Thus, ordinary people can become quite wealthy if they do business in this prohibition-created black market. The government created the crime and incentivized certain levels of risk-takers to engage in it.

As documentary filmmaker Michael Moore pointed out in "Bowling for Columbine," there are few reasons to lock your doors across this vast nation.

There were 152 homicides by firearms in Canada in 2002, according to federal statistics, compared with 11,829 homicides by guns in the United States for that same year. Canada's population is about 32.5 million people; the U.S. population is about 293 million.

A 1995 federal firearms law in Canada requires every firearm in the country be registered and each gun owner licensed.

post hoc ergo propter hoc: An author commits the fallacy when it is assumed that because one thing follows another that the one thing was caused by the other.

Be on the watch for this fallacy in the coming days. It is not so hard to point out that the causes of gun homicides are not restricted to the ownership of firearms. Crime has many fathers.

But Canada is grappling with an increase in organized crime behind the multibillion-dollar marijuana industry.

"It is an unprecedented and unspeakable loss," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli said in a statement. "We know that these are the most serious challenges, made complicated by the involvement of organized crime, the availability of weapons and the risks posed by individuals who choose the path of violence and destruction over peace and good."

"He loved the RCMP and all it stood for," his family said in a statement. "Our country is hurting. We have lost four dedicated citizens who were willing to do something about it."

One of those fathers, however, is not the fact that some people possess tools capable of inflicting grievous, fatal injury on another. Furthermore, it does not follow that the incidence of individuals killing others with firearms means those who have harmed or killed with the rifles, shotguns, and pistols in their possession ought to have their property rights restricted, regulated, and controlled by the state.

The slow moves towards more and more pot decriminalization in Canada do not mean cannabis-related crime will cease. On the contrary, since it is still somewhat illegal to own, produce, distribute, and consume marijuana and at the same time lesser sanctions are levied against both producers and consumers, it is likely the Canadian marijuana market is seeing a boom, pushing against the remaining strains of government criminalization. Meaning, since potential users and dealers who are not already in the market now have fewer government-imposed costs to risk, more people are entering the market. And since that indicates a growth industry, more opportunities for profit are emerging. But marijuana in Canada does not have the same status as, say, toothpicks. There are still legal boundaries that can be crossed even by relatively meaningless activity. For example, laws that restrict consumption and possession to under certain weights and volumes and to certain uses.

Further background at CTV.ca: Roszko killed officers and himself, RCMP says

Presumed cop killer Jim Roszko ambushed and killed all four officers in his Quonset hut, say the RCMP.

"None of our officers were struck by friendly fire," Supt. Marty Cheliak told reporters Saturday at a briefing outside the Mayerthorpe RCMP detachment.

"James Roszko was hit by return fire from our officers. Those strikes did not result in his death. James Roszko took his own life."

This was based on preliminary results from medical examiners, he said.

[...]

RCMP Cpl. Wayne Oakes added that it isn't known yet whether Roszko was waiting for the officers inside the Quonset or whether he entered it from outside.

"That's something the investigation's going to have to definitively clear up," he said.

Well? Which one is it? Calling something an ambush assumes the person lying in wait was waiting for the people to arrive in the ambush zone.

An affidavit signed by a bailiff and made public Friday night says Jim Roszko would most likely shoot on sight anyone he found on his property.

"The debtor is quite dangerous, has a long history of assaults, is in possession of a number of firearms ... and is known to have booby-trapped land," it read.

Alberta Mounties first went to Roszko's farm on Wednesday to assist with the bailiff's request to obtain property from the farm.

In addition, the police found evidence of stolen property, namely auto parts, and about 20 illegal marijuana plants plus a few pounds of leaves.

Initial reports indicated this event was triggered by a marijuana grow operation raid.

If this is true, them Mr. Roszko was a thief and ought to have compensated his victims for his crime. Ditto for the assaults, assuming he was not being violent in self-defense.

"It started very young. We tried to let him know we'd help him. But he couldn't overcome it. A lot of people played a part in that.''

That was his sister, Josephine Ruel, and I wish the editors and staff of the article had either asked her to be more specific or given us a clearer explanation of what "it" is. Again, if "it" is the legitimate concern for and defense of one's life and property, then "it" can only be viewed as behavior that took principles seriously. In a way, very much like the Arthur Bixby and Steven Bixby fiasco.

A criminal profiler offered this explanation.

"This is the type of person who will either commit suicide by cop or he'll take everyone else out," said Pat Brown.

"He's not going to be jailed. He's done that before and didn't like it, so he's not going to let that happen again."

© 2005 Bell Globemedia Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Already, I see signs of the inevitable backlash against freedom. In fact, I predict:

1. This will slow down progress in marijuana decriminalization.
   
2. This will strengthen calls for more firearm regulation.
   
3. This will be used as a means to scare people into following the lead on the above.
   
4. Even more pressure will be brought to bear on those people who follow a rights-based, individualistic ethic.

On the front page of the CTV.ca website, we have this charmer of a poll: Are you worried about marijuana grow-ops coming to your community?

The results as of 9:55pm, Central Standard Time:
Yes...5693 votes...(58 %)
No...4143 votes...(42 %)

My mother is Canadian and I have a considerable portion of my extended family residing there. For their sake, they hopefully will recognize the issues at stake and help prevent another wave of restrictive legislation and regulation.

UPDATE 3/7/2005 9:02am
See related comments at The London Fog ( Reefer Madness, The Liberal Way and Witch Hunting and Political posturing), Colby Cosh (How high to hang them? and ColbyCosh.com assignment desk), Jay Jardine ( Reefer Madness, Canadian Style), and the British Columbia Marijuana Party (Tragedy in Alberta Being Used By Opportunists and Prohibition Claims More Casualties, as well as others).

Posted by Drizzten at March 05, 2005 10:33 PM