Pistol versus Rifle

As you know, there was a shooting in Canada.  Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a felon who could not legally own a firearm, somehow acquired what was reported to be a .30-30 rifle.  He first murdered a soldier, Corporeal Nathan Cirillo, standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa.  His next target was Parliament.  There he encountered Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, who retrieved a handgun and killed the terrorist.

We won't even go into the bizarre coincidence that the murdering thug's mother is a highly-placed official on the Canadian Immigration Board.

IBD has a version of the story here.

Mark Steyn has some thoughts on the outrage as well. 

Montreal Gazette weighs in.

Back when the psychopath shot up the movie theater in Aurora, CO, using a .223 semi-automatic carbine, some people said that civilians with handguns would not have been able to stop him.

Mr. Vickers is not your average Canadian citizen.  He is former RCMP.  We can assume he is at least a fair-to-middling shot and knows how to use cover, and he was on his own ground, so to speak.

Now, certainly, given the choice, I would never to into a gunfight with a handgun.  Still, a handgun is better than nothing.  My Winchester 94 Trapper .30-30 is a sentimental favorite and not all that much of a disadvantage if it ever came to using it for self-defense.  I can tell you one thing for sure:  if I ever fired it off in the house without plugs or muffs, I would not hear anything for a week.  They are loud.  Not as loud as Dad's old Remington 760 in .30-06 with an 18-inch barrel but plenty loud.

Anyway, this encounter should remind us of the importance of training, because the man with the pistol doesn't always lose.