Exactly what level of police state are you comfortable with? I, for one, don't want officers arresting, searching, or interrogating people bases on 'information'.
On the one hand we have people like Squidward saying that the government should do everything possible to prevent a mass shooting, and yet we have this example of the police being spoon-fed the information they needed to actually prevent a tragedy, and you guys are trying to rationalize their inaction by saying "yeah well that would have violated his privacy."
Well guess what: all this talk from Bill Blair and the Prime Minister and others about doing more to reduce the flow of illegal guns coming into Canada? Completely worthless if the police aren't willing to do the police-work required to actually investigate.
If somebody gave the RCMP a tip about an alleged white nationalist or Muslim extremist who was asking around town about how to buy a large quantity of fertilizer, how do you think the authorities would weigh the question of public safety vs privacy? If the police received a tip like that, do you think they'd say "well, we can't violate this individual's privacy based on just some 'information'"?
Bill Blair also talked about "red flag laws", which are also worthless if the police aren't going to bother doing police work. We already have red flag laws. One of the first things you see when you go to the RCMP firearms page is
information for reporting somebody who you think might be a danger. If a credible tip isn't enough to interest the police in investigating somebody, what does it take? Wandering down mainstreet with a gun in plain sight?
You and Squidward and Bill Blair and PM Trudeau all talk a big game about how they aren't just harassing licensed gun owners, they're Doing More~~~! to stop illegal guns.
But presented with this example of how the police could have and should have Done More~~~! your response is "b-b-but privacy!" The truth is that you don't have the courage of your convictions, and you don't really believe the police should Do More~~~!
The truth is you're not okay with doing the police work required to actually crack down on illegal guns, because you understand that there has to be a balance between providing security and maintaining peoples' freedoms.
Which is as it should be. But don't pretend like further harassment of legal gun owners is going to compensate for it.
Like I said, hindsight is 20/20. We can learn from this, but we can't go back. Accusing one of the world's most professional police force of incompetence over human failures is something.
The RCMP have a lot of "human failures" on their resume. Their track record is hardly above reproach. And in this instance there's plenty of questions to be asked. The first is why no amber alert was issued. The second is how this guy who was a walking red flag slipped through their fingers. A third is why so little information is forthcoming about the details of this incident, and why what little data they've surrendered has been so heavily redacted.
-k