The World Last Week: The Ottawa Shootings

We all know what happened last week...except we don't. Not yet.

We know that a Canadian of Libyan descent, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, went on a shooting rampage in the vicinity of the Canadian Parliament. We know that 24-year old Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, who was guarding a war memorial in the area, was shot and killed. We know that Zehaf-Bibeau was killed by Sergeant-At-Arms Kevin Vickers, who retrieved a handgun and shot the shooter near Canada's parliament. It wasn't the first shooting in Canada that week, either - a soldier was killed in a hit-and-run Quebec just days before.

We don't know what prompted Zehaf-Bibeau's rampage. But I can guess.

Canada, along with Australia and the United Kingdom, is engaged in the bombing of ISIS alongside the United States. In the days leading up to the attack, Zehaf-Bibeau supposedly made comments about wanting to kill the people who were killing Muslims in Iraq and Syria. It stands to reason that Zehaf-Bibeau, who was kicked out of several Canadian mosques for his hardline views, was attempting to avenge the deaths of his fellow extremists by attacking the seat of the Canadian government. This raises quite a few questions for us, chief among them: are we safe from this type of attack?

For what it's worth, I think we are. We're definitely safe from an attack identical to Zehaf-Bibeau's, and there's one reason: gun culture. Zehaf-Bibeau was armed with an illegally-owned firearm, but it wasn't an assault rifle or a semi-automatic - it was a lever-action, thirty-caliber Winchester rifle. Cpl. Cirillo was unarmed when he was gunned down. Canada's strict gun laws keep gun violence down to a very low level, but this is the trade-off. We all know what would happen if a terrorist pulled a Winchester in Dallas or Montgomery or Little Rock. Canada's policies, which benefit its citizens at large, stand in stark contrast to America's, and the main drawback is very visible here. Living in America, it's astounding to me that a nation's center of government would be so poorly defended that a man acting alone, armed with a World War One era rifle, could get within striking distance of key national leaders. Because ten terrorists armed with assault rifles wouldn't make it halfway up Capitol Hill without being gunned down.

I suppose the main point I'm driving at is that American society is radically different than the society of our northern ally, in spite of the historical, linguistic and cultural ties we share. It's a chilling reminder of America's role in the world, and that assisting us can hurt our allies in ways beyond our control. We're a superpower, and one of the world's most formidable nations. But a faceless coalition of enemies scattered across the globe is devoted to destroying our security and our way of life. It would not do for us to be caught off-guard as Canada was last week, and as we were thirteen years ago. The world is always watching us - we need to perform accordingly.