93 Replies to “Marc Lepine’s father and related matters”

  1. I think it is about time to also mention the men who left the room so that the women could be killed. What kind of society have we created where men (or any other person) will leave a room knowing that those remaining will be killed?

  4. That’s interesting, Maureen. Would you have stayed behind to confront someone with a gun, knowing (as you imply) that all who stayed behind would be killed?
    I recall a much more recent incident, on a bus, where everyone, of both sexes, scurried off the bus rather than confront a knife-wielding assailant. The chances of success in that situation were much, much higher.

  5. Maureen, that is a difficult call. Personally I would not have left, but I am a pretty tough guy who has been in harrowing circumstances when I was in the RCMP. But I am trained in “conflict resolution” (which usually involved the effective use of either martial arts or a firearm). LOL
    Those male students were largely just kids…It is distasteful that they would flee, but I find it hard to blame them personally. Situations like this happen so fast it would be virtually impossible for the males to organize a co-ordinated attack.
    Well that is my take on it, anyway.

  6. It is interesting how little has been divulged over the years about the prior interpersonal dynamics of the people who found themselves together in that classroom on the fatal day. Guess it would detract from “the message” of those who have taken political ownership of the tragedy.

  7. I would argue why the “fight or flight” become just flight? I believe there is a cultural reality to why apathy is the considered the best course of action, knowing it is also the most cowardice.

  8. We should treat the Montreal massacre as it was: a disturbed man from an abusive and clearly unsuitable home took his anger out on innocent people, period. To blame all men and insist on gun control is counter-productive and intellectually dishonest. All we’ve done with this day (as I initially suspected when it first happened) is give feminists a hobby-horse.
    Just my thoughts.

  9. At least it’s being talked about in the MSM, as well as in the Blogosphere in a not foaming at the mouth fashion either.
    Yep, it’s a tough call to figure what to do. I guess that I’d like to think that I would have done something, but unless you were there at that exact moment, it’s all By Guess and By God.
    As someone, it might have been Mid Island Mike mentioned when I spoke of the restraint of the police officer that shot the guy that killed the 4 cops just recently, that he gave the guy a chance to give up. Mike correctly pointed out that it’s all a matter of training.
    Like I used to tell students, Train the way you will fight, because when you fight you will react the way you have trained.

  10. Amen Pat…I cannot even count the number of times that conscious thought departed and training just kicked in. Training, I know for a fact, saved my life on a number of occasions.

  12. Lepine was wielding a Ruger Ranch rifle, a semi-auto rifle with a large capacity magazine. That all sounds pretty ominous until you realize a gun like that can only shoot in one direction at a time and even a semi-auto can’t spray down everyone who charges. The thing is, it is very difficult to shoot even one person coming at you, let alone a few.
    The real shame in Canada is that the government has regulated self-defense out of the public so much that even in an imminent danger situation most people will phone the police and wait the eight minutes for them to arrive. Even then, they won’t endanger themselves to save you; the police sat outside l’Ecole for quite a long time before moving in. We have made the idea of self-defence repulsive to the masses so much so that it is even illegal to own a firearm for that purpose. We can legally own guns or pepper spray to defend against animals but not against the human-animals that prey upon us.

  13. I was watching the SAR unit doing helicopter rescue at sea on the way over to Vancouver Island from Powell River and as I watched, some guy said “There’s the Government wasting tax dollars” Well, by the time I got done with reaming him a new one he understood that I wanted those guys to be really, really good at what they do, as I might just be the guy in the water.

  14. So I’m watching the CBC news about the Montreal massacre and a woman being interviewed about gun control claims that spousal homicides by firearms have dropped by 2/3rds since the legislation was introduced. She then goes on to say that the overall number of spousal homicides have remained the same, but gun related spousal homicides have decreased by 2/3rds. Victory!
    What I’d like to know is how long did the cops wait outside before they stormed the building.

  15. Well said,O. Kinyobe.
    Dec.6 is also the date of the fall of Hong Kong,which saw hundreds killed and thousands captured to be abused in Japanese prison camps,where many more died.
    It’s also the date of the Halifax explosion in which over 2000 people died.
    The “Montreal massacre” was a tragedy that should be put in perspective.

  16. A person’s reaction in this case is just something you do, not think about. Most heroes look back at the risk they took and say boy was that stupid.

  17. Sorry, Battle of Hong Kong started on Dec.8, eight hours after the Pearl Harbour incident.
    My memory failed me.

  18. Heh…Western Canadian…a couple of times I forgot to duck, and accordfingly got shot.. And on one occasion I let a guy with a hidden knife get within 6 feet of ne…less than two seconds, he had me…too little time to draw and shoot.
    Each time in hospital all I could think of how stupid I was. Heh.
    One learns over time.

  19. Global news mentioned the anniversary of the shooting in Montreal, but were careful not to mention anything about what may have been cultural causes of the man’s anger. I suppose in today’s world it is normal for a child to take its mother’s maiden name?

  20. maureen:
    you are a mere 13 angstrom units from blaming the victim with that crack.
    can you irrefutably and definitively say with 100% certainty that lepine/gharbi would not have turned his weapon on the young men as supporters and sympathizers of ‘feminists’? give THEM a concealed firearm and THEN make your prissy comment.

  21. Maureen @9:02 – I’m not going to quote Steyn or Shaidle here on SDA because that just seems too incestuous and echo-chambery (if you know what I mean), but of course you are right.
    Oh, all right, just a little online incest, it is the weekend after all: Shaidle once said (and I paraphrase) that while no individual knows how they would react in a nightmare situation until it actually happens, it is nevertheless true that there is a terrible societal failure in making cowardice the default position, and only bad things can come of it.
    Can anyone honestly disagree?

  22. Maureen wrote – I think it is about time to also mention the men who left the room so that the women could be killed.
    Really – Maureen? They left the room so that “the women could be killed”. You say that as if the men were complicit in the killing. Sure – maybe the conversation went this way “hey – les boys – allons Y pour que les femmes peuves se faire tuees” Hey guys – lets go so the women can get themselves killed.”
    I suspect you probably agree with the editorial that puts the blame squarely on the misogynistic society that is Canada.

  23. I don’t think Maureen is being prissy or anti-male in her assessment of the situation, the modern “metrosexual” male is not the same as what men were when it was okay to talk of women as the weaker sex and of man’s necessity to protect them. If that’s sexist, too bad, and georgie boy can live with it or not.

  24. a different bob – speaking for myself, I put the blame indirectly on the castrated society that is the Canada the media seems to think should have prevented the massacre in the first place.

  25. The less hostages the better, is what I think. So the men should have left.
    I believe one of them committed suicide later because of his guilt feeling.
    The coverage of this tragedy has been unending in Quebec today. And never any mention that some Liberals are also in favour of dropping the long-gun registry.

  26. larben – you certainly are entitled to your opinions however my comments were directed at Maureen. I absolutely did not like the tone of her post. It made the men in this situation complicit in the killings.
    Maureen needs to answer to this on her own.

  27. This incident has been played to the hilt by the femmi-nazis over the last 20 years and frankly I’m sick of it! A tragedy, yes… But I, and the rest of my gender had FA to do with any involvement, and I wish everyone would stop with the associations.
    This asshole acted on his own, with his own prejudices, hatred and inadequacies.
    I’m proud to admit my absolute caring and respect for the ‘fairer sex'[can I even say that in this day and age?], but my sympathies end when we’re relentlessly pilloried for the actions of this nutbar.

  28. Pat said “I guess that I’d like to think that I would have done something, but unless you were there at that exact moment, it’s all By Guess and By God.”
    You’re right Pat. These things don’t unfold like you think they will when you imagine it in your head. When you’re unarmed and a crazy guy is waving a gun around there’s not much you can do. Probably nobody got within 10 feet of the shooter. It has nothing to do with courage if it’s a suicidal move to rush him.
    You can’t blame the boys for leaving when they were ordered out. They probably didn’t know he was going to kill them. Once the girls figured out they were going to be killed did they rush the shooter? Probably not. You can’t blame them for that either.
    You’ve got scared kids and a crazy gunmen. It’s too bad they have tried to blame all Canadian men for this tragedy. It really cheapens the kids deaths and diverts the focus from the real villains.

  29. Black Mamba – how about putting the blame on the asshole who committed the murders. Not evey person who gets abused by a parent or parents turn out to be mass murderers.
    Every now and then one will go off the deep end and shit hits the fan. When it happens its big news and the media is all over it and everybody with a pen in his/her hand has their two cents worth to contribute as to why – why oh why did this happen.
    Those who don’t have a real clue will take the easy way out and throw enough shit at the blame wall that some of it is going to stick on someone.
    Then, as if the gun were to blame, air heads are calling for a gun registry. Did that registry do anything in preventing the murderer in the most recent Montreal school shooting? No – not a damned thing. Yet even today the same tired calls are going out to the government from the same tired and clueless people who wanted the gun registry in the first place, to not scrap the registry.
    The fact that the registry is a huge white elephant does not matter to these people. It gives them something to hang their hopelessness on. They really have no other solution to offer.

  30. Is it that time of year again? I remember this Gharbi thing happening, although nobody reported his name as Gharbi. I also remember the candlelight vigils (which would have been appropriate except for the feminist garbage) and the ‘all men are responsible’ crap that went on. In fact there was a question on my high school english exam about this, which asked me to write about why all men are responsible. I probably would have done better on the exam if I could have stomached writing what the moron english instructor had wanted me to regurgitate.

  33. Was male, but I have to presume he was a huge liberal. Very few conservatives in the teacher’s union.

  34. “perhaps Canada’s first Muslim terrorist attack.”
    In light of the Fort Hood murders, perhaps that would make sense.

  35. After 20 years, some objective analysis of the killings in a MSM paper. The conventional femminist view that all Canadian men are responsible for Gharbi/Lepine is now being questioned. Commentators can’t have it both ways: that Gharbi/Lepine represents all men, but that N. Hasan in Ft. Hood is a deranged killer representing only himself.

  36. My better half’s first reaction was ‘if just one of those women/men would have had a gun and known how to use it – this would have been avoided or minimized’. It was a long time ago now and nobody can ‘do over’ that day. Like the Halifax Explosion (Trotsky was in that neighbourhood, that day…hummm) hindsight is always 100%.
    The Prime Minister stopped to honor those who fought at Hong Kong. Just recently those men were recognized as WWII vets, with veteran’s rights. Same for the Merchant Marines.

  37. Amazing that the first post here tries to blame the men. If I remember correctly the Ft. Hood massacre was conducted in an army post where most of the victims, killed and injured, had military training. The only person to charge the gunman was a policewoman with a gun in her hand. Perhaps if someone in that room twenty years ago had been permitted to carry a concealed firearm the outcome would have been immensely different. When only the bad guys carry guns the outcome will always be horrific.

  38. Sad…I well remember looking down the business end of a handgun many years ago.It was a totally unexpected shock in a totally unexpected situation where I was trying to help the perpetrator.
    How I felt in that split second I can’t recall…I only knew I had to do something and did by taking the initiative of wrestling the man for the gun.
    No one else was immediately involved in the danger at this point…though my wife and kids were near enough to perhaps be in danger should I have fallen.
    My lingering thought even sometimes to this day was/is one of violation.
    My mind and focus became crystal clear at that instant of recognizing lethal danger and there was no doubt as to what I had to do,though I’m sure it was not a concious thought.
    On looking back on this,I believe that I walked away from this experience with a better understanding of myself and certainly a wiser man as to the dangers that unexpectedly lurk out there in the so called netherworld of some other people’s minds.

  39. a different bob @11:13 – “how about putting the blame on the asshole who committed the murders”
    Perhaps you’ll notice that @10:41 I italicised “indirectly”.
    Every now and then one will go off the deep end and the shit hits the fan…. Those who don’t have a real clue will take the easy way out and throw enough shit at the blame wall that some of it is going to stick on someone.”
    Now I absolutely agree that Lepine, half-Algerian as he was, was a random nut, an evil loser; his ethnicity and religion (“confirmed atheist”) were no more significant than those of Dylan Klebold. Lepine doesn’t really matter. We matter. The bullsh*t our media has been peddling in an orgy of sanctimony for two decades matters: The idea that this psychopathic lunatic was somehow emblematic of all men, of what they want to do to women. Because that line of thought leads directly to this: Take away all the guns and demand abject passivity.
    Which is in fact the attitude that enabled Lepine.
    Look, it’s easy: This is about sane people applauding men (and women) who act like men – or even just “citizens”, that works for me – and about deriding a culture which encourages men to act like sheep.
    Now do you really think that constitutes, on my part, or (Antenor @11:58) anyone else’s, blaming “the men” for the Montreal massacre?
    And I wish just one student in that classroom had been carrying a concealed weapon.

  40. Has anyone ever checked out the memorial to the deaths at the Polytechnical Institute in Thornton Park in Vancouver? It is as cold and impersonal and bloodless as the feminists who use it so effectively; it is almost perverse in its misuse and politicization as it is in its design. It is gross and totally unsuited to its location where it is the first thing seen by incoming tourists at the train and bus terminal.

  41. When I went through university, which was around the same period as the massacre, every thing I read and saw on campus was anti-male, and often anti-white male. It was depressing at times I must admit, but I tried not to let it bother me too much.
    Then along came this devil Lepine, and the anti-male sentiment only got 10X worse.
    It was then that I realized that feminists had a deep-rooted hatred of men. They were not after equality, instead they wanted men to become irrelevant.
    Unfortunately this relentless hammering by feminists and the politically correct class has affected society, and we are witnessing an interesting period where many young men are becoming sissies, with little drive or ambition.
    The problem manifests itself in all sorts of ways. For example at my son’s school two young boys were playfully wrestling outside during break and they got into serious trouble for it. Heaven forbid they should show any competitive drive or boyishness.
    So whenever I hear about the massacre, while I feel terribly sorry for those killed, my mind quickly turns to the depressing fact that the event is repeatedly used each year to embolden the anti-male movement.

  42. The real shame in Canada is that the government has regulated self-defense out of the public so much that even in an imminent danger situation most people will phone the police and wait the eight minutes for them to arrive.
    ~The Ra
    The average police response time is over 20 minutes.
    Maureen….14 women died that day.
    Those women thought they were so equal to men that they were in engineering school, a traditionally male vocation.
    Why didn’t those 14 women rush Gamil Gharbi and save themselves?

  43. “as cold and bloodless and impersonal as the feminists who use it…” – Larben
    Hey look, more misogyny, the likes of which led to the tragedy in the first place! Yay!
    “Those women thought they were so equal to men that they were in engineering school, a traditionally male vocation” – Oz
    Yeah, they shouldn’t have been there in the first place, right, Oz?
    “Why didn’t those 14 women rush Gamil Gharbi and save themselves?” – Oz
    That’s right – blame the victims!

  44. Personally I believe that this silly debate about why all the ‘hairy chested men didn’t rush into rescue the damsel in distress as plain silly. There have been any number of psychological studies as to why people react the way they do on hostage situations. Why did the Jews not rush and kill the Nazis when they so vastly out numbered them in the internment camps etc etc etc. The only blame to go around rests solely with the guy behind the gun. It was not his parents’ fault. It was not his religion’s fault, it was not the lack of gun control’s fault, it was not the victims’ fault and it was not the classmate’s of the victims fault. One evil, twisted, selfish little man decided that this was what he was going to do and did it.

  45. Eh bien, je trouve l’histoire de Mr Lepine/Garbie difficille a comprendre. Mai ca n’me derange pas trope parc que cet n’ettai pas mes amis.
    Phou!!
    En tou cas, pas mon affaire, fini d’trouble.
    That would about sum up the QUEBEC male students attitude. Anyone for another Fwench PM?

  46. Hey look, more misogyny, the likes of which led to the tragedy in the first place! Yay!
    ~bleep
    So, you’re a misandrist then like Maureen, eh bleep.
    Yeah, they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
    ~bleep
    What a dispicable thing to say bleep, you hate women too?!
    Otherwise why would you say such a thing?
    Do all you commies think that way?

  47. The fact Lepine was born Gamil Gharbi was noted in the aftermath of the tragedy, so it isn’t news. And frankly it isn’t relevant either. What’s relevant is that he was an abused child. I strongly doubt he would have done this had he been raised in a normal loving home. I presume abusive parents can arise under any religion.
    Also, the fact he targeted women is another marginal aspect; that he wanted to kill a bunch of people is by far the most important issue.

  48. What disgusts me about this whole event is how it was used as the excuse to pass bill C68 and create a vast number of paper criminals in Canada which did absolutely nothing to prevent a future occurrence of a repeat mass killing of strangers and actually made it more probable. One interesting statistic in Lott’s? study of multiple homicides in the US was that they were statistically much more likely to occur in a state where concealed carry is prohibited. Having appropriately trained citizens in large numbers carrying concealed firearms is the best way of preventing another Gharbi from racking up an even higher body count.
    I don’t think that anyone can predict how they’re going to react in a situation like that until they’ve been there. My guess is that probably none of the men there had any martial arts training and the chances are that none of them had been in a fight before that day.
    When I grew up school fights were common and ignored by the teachers. It was left up to us to settle our differences. I was into kickboxing as a university student and we spent many hours hashing out various scenarios of how best to respond if one was attacked in various situations. Knowing my state of mind at that time, if I’d been in that situation and behind Gharbi or close to him I would have gone for him if I felt I could take him; one of the things about youth is that you feel invulnerable. If I’d been too far away to take him I would have run and then tried to surprise him once I thought safe.
    One of the exercises we used to do was to go into a room and look around for anything what could be used as a weapon and what we’d use if we had to fight from the position we happened to be in. Surely in a classroom there are chairs, heavy books, coffee mugs, tables and all manner of objects which can be lethal if one has done mental scenarios of this type of situation before being involved in it. I should also note that for the last 40+ years I’ve never been without a couple of knives on my person (unless I’m in that ultimate “gun free zone” past airport security and in the air where I feel most defenseless) and we also did lots of exercises to see how fast one could draw a folding knife out of a pocket and unfold it with one hand as well as throwing knives at random targets. For a while I was good at knife throwing but have gotten out of practice. I make sure that my wife has a can of mace or pepper spray in her purse at all times and that she practices getting it out on short notice to see how long it takes.
    For someone that has no martial arts experience, they haven’t the slightest idea what to do when confronted by a gunman. Unless you’ve had intimate experience with physical violence (which is getting less and less common in todays society) there isn’t any point in trying to fight because if you have to think about what to do you’re likely going to end up dead. As Bruce pointed out, training is essential so one can react quickly in a situation like this.
    The situation in Montreal suggested to me that there was a serious deficiency in martial arts training in the general population and the the easiest way of preventing such a situation in the future would be to allow concealed carry of firearms. It would have taken just one shot from an armed student to have stopped Gharbi but the university was undoubtedly a “gun free zone” (AKA a target rich environment for those who have no intention of obeying laws).
    I have nothing but contempt for the so-called feminists who use this anniversary to bash men every year. Not one of these feminists would have the guts to take on an attacker personally, but use the state to do their dirty work for them.

  49. A bus driver in Edmonton was almost beaten to death by a drunken bum. The passengers did nothing.
    If you ask me its to a certain extent the Police & security that have told us all for years to do nothing. That has been at least partly at fault. All to keep their jobs secure.
    Where not allowed to defend ourselves. Where to immediately look for their help not our own when it could be critical.
    As well any masculine traits have been so denigrated by Man Hating Women. That most males today are now forced drugged Ritalin in school. Hence the huge high school dropout rate, & lack of men going to University.
    Men have had their testes ripped out, by fanatical female Utopians socialists.
    JMO

  50. Ah yes Norman. He still hasn’t apologized for libeling me at The Shotgun.
    Mark Steyn has been making the point about this guy’s Muslim dad/name for 8 years. Thanks for coming out, Norm.
    And yes, the men who did nothing were wimps. That only one of them killed himself in shame is telling. 100 years ago they all would have rushed the man without pause, or been humiliated as cowards for the rest of their lives. Songs would have been written about how cowardly they were.
    Nobody used the expression “Well nobody knows what they’d do in X situation” in those days, because everybody did, or at least had had drummed into them the ideal scenario response since childhood.
    That expression is of very recent vintage, and a convenient preemptive excuse for wimpiness. **** what “psychological studies show.” More postmodern excuse making.
    Bravery was the default setting. Now cowardice is, and we call people heroes who were just doing their job, like the cop at Fort Hood, because we’re so shocked that someone would risk their life. Once upon a time, that was taken for granted, esp. where women’s lives were concerned.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation