But it's just political show for the masses. Look here, we do something about our shitty police! That's the sad part.
That won't stop cops from showing up with SWAT teams at your house because you didn't pay parking tickets.
The problem isn't being run over with a tank or getting shot to pieces by .50 cal machine guns. Any sensible law enforcement officer working in the US should just know that this is ridiculous overkill. They're not fighting Terminators or Transformers, they're fighting fleshy, squishy humans.
And here's the real problem. They shoot people with handguns and kneel on their throats. They spray you with mace or beat you with sticks. They use somewhat low tech weaponry to cross the lines.
The only field where that military equipment could become a real problem is in mass-protest situations. Just look at the occupy protests. However, teargas, riotgear and batons are still the very effective go-to-solution.

Yeah, so let's talk about holy wars and the code of chivalry, Bill. Get your fuckin' war horse, long sword, mace, crossbow, and whatever else you plan to pack for your new equestrian lifestyle, cuz when holy warz was holy warz, assholes like you went to battle.

When someone brings a golden two handed mace to a gun fight, you should probably start running.

Well, historically, he's armed with a big ass club (mace) that he's supposed to bash heads with should a fight break out. I was just surprised he was "packin' heat".

I always knew he was in charge of Parliament security, but a lot of positions that are 100s of years old tend to be completely ceremonial, like the Speaker of the House.

It's like finding out the British "Beefeaters" (Yeoman Warders, the Royal bodyguards) actually have UZI machine guns under their hats and silenced Glocks stuck in their waistcoats when all they ever do is really conduct tours.

The House Sgt. at Arms is actually in charge of overseeing security details for the House. Parliment Hill has a weird system, where as the Sgt. at Arms runs security inside the house, the RCMP cover the outsides, and the Ottawa Police cover Wellington St.

His office is right next to the front door that guy ran through, so he was one of the first and closest people to respond.

I'm a Canadian who loves the history behind these types of positions. When things calm down, ask us about our giant mace.

Turns out the officer who took the shooter out was a retired RCMP officer employed in the largely ceremonial role of Sergeant-At-Arms. A role I was surprised to find out was armed.

I don't have any real objections to him being armed, but S-A-A is more-or-less a glorified security guard. The only weapon you see him with is a bad-ass looking mace. In the US, the S-A-A is the guy you see announcing the arrival of the President in the House of Representatives before the State of the Union addresses. You can imagine how much security the shooter would have had to passed to get the same place in D.C.

Some of the questions right now are about how the fuck the guy got to the doors where Parliament sits largely unopposed. I mean, it's Canada, the last attack on a Prime Minister consisted of a pie to the face, but you'd think there'd be a metal detector checkpoint and/or a couple Mounties milling about.

Then again, unauthorized crossings at our shared border -up until 9/11- were protected mostly by traffic cones.

How many times have you been accosted in your home in the middle of the night with guns drawn pointed at you and unknown people screaming contradictory commands at you from the dark?
OK, I'll be over tonight to sneak into your kids room and wake them up by screaming commands at them, they'll have .7 seconds to comply before the bear mace comes out, and I'm terribly sorry but I'll be forced to shoot you dead if you interfere. That's perfectly acceptable behavior, right? (not a real threat, simply an example of what you claim is OK for you to do)

Goly, you mean a cop who's stopped by other cops might not have a problem (because you say first and foremost 'hey guys, I'm also a cop'). Well, I guess that makes all this insane violent abuse just fine then, so sorry to have complained about it.

You've heard MANY instances of sifters being arrested improperly, you discount them all or completely ignore them. I'll repeat just one of mine for you....again.
Pulled out of my car at gunpoint, violently thrown to the ground and jumped on, then handcuffed/arrested. (I was FULLY compliant with all directions given.) All that happened because the cop read my clean, well lit license plate wrong and then wrongly assumed my car was stolen. No apology when he realized his mistake, only threats that he 'knew where I lived now' if I reported his actions...which I did. Lucky for all he was just 'bluffing' with his threat, or I might be in prison still for shooting a cop in my home.

What we need are far more prosecutors that are willing to hit cops with the full power of law EVERY time they are criminal, or even appear criminal. Those cops need to go into gen pop in prison and live with the full consequences of their actions, not get separated into a special 'prison' for cops with special rights, cells, privileges, food, and far less abuse by jailers and other prisoners...that's not real prison. It's almost like club fed.

You apparently think those are the two choices....either bend over and take it up the ass by criminal cops that are liars (bluffers), thugs, thieves, and murderers OR live in Mad Max times with no cops at all. It's incredibly sad and telling that you can't see the third option, of hold cops to at least the same legal standards private citizens are held to (or higher) and insist they work FOR their community and it's residents (even the black one's) instead of against it, and PROSECUTE them when they violate those standards. To you that's ridiculous, to us it's necessary.

How expensive is it? Could you put it in a spray can?

New improved super mace! Deters attackers by melting their faces!

Now can also be used as a replacement key (warning: house may not exist after use)

edit: hang on, what was the point of the "dabal"? I get that it's handy to have stuff not explode, but we already have tonnes of stuff that doesn't spontaneously catch fire, why do you need to take the cool stuff that does spontaneously catch fire and make it boring?

I agree. Normal/medium sized two handers seem to pretty much all be designed to allow you greater control rather than to add power (an axe or mace is always going to be better for that).

Wieldyness is much more important for them than power. As Lindy himself mentions in another vid swords like the Katana and longsword are backups and personal protection weapons not primary weapons of war. Convenient to carry around, and handy for parrying blows & grappling but second fiddle to almost any dedicated battlefield weapon (Spears, Naginata, maces etc.).

The most notable exception that springs to mind is the Roman Gladius, but it could be described as a glorified short spear with bonus cutting abilities rather than what most people think of as a sword. Rapiers and scimitars could also be thought of as more like spears and axes respectively in this sense.

And then there's the huge specialised warswords like claymores and Zweihanders but as lindy suggests in yet another vid they are a specialised tool for berserker charges and maybe advancing through a pikewall. Certainly not something you'd want to have a duel with or carry around at your waist.

Longswords and Katanas are like modern pistols. Good side-arms, but almost never a primary weapon of war. (Hollywood fails again)


Also.....Longsword totally > Katana. A well made longsword can hold just as sharp an edge as a Katana, has quillons to hook and lever an opponent and a straight focused point that can puncture steel plate. Katanas can maybe dismember someone easier, but that's about it.(all IMHO obviously)

You know what?
Samuel L Jackson does kinda look like Laurence Fishburne. They've also played some similar roles (Morpheus, Mace Windu?)

Guess what else? Elijah Wood looks a bit like Tobey Maguire.

And Summer Glau looks like Olivia Wilde.

And Reese Witherspoon looks like ... well, pretty much every hollywood blond apparently.

People look like other people, and funnily enough, a huge defining factor in your look is your skin tone. I personally have often been compared with a young Harrison Ford*..... Billy Dee Williams.... not so much....

*not actually true.

You're awesome.

In other news, the mace to the face, that made me LOL and I'm sure @deathcow supports my right to laugh if I want to, but doesn't approve of said laughter.

I laughed really hard at this video. Why? Because it took a stereotype we're all familiar with, inflated it to absolutely absurd levels and made a mockery of it. (Just like their other video...) If that's not comedy, I don't know what is.

And it also had a guy getting maced in the face. That's CERTAINLY comedy gold.

Follow up please...I want to see the video of her going ape shit on the cop that was just going to talk to her until she went insane.
I would also have liked to see her maced or tazed. As I understand it, they just needed to say the magic words, you're under citizens arrest, and they could have used any necessary force to detain her, up to and including including killing her if she tried to escape before the cops got there.

I can attest, I worked at lucasarts around that time. for a game we were making, we had made a light saber color generator that let the player pick their own personal color. George sent an email to us that said we had to nix that and that there were only red for bad, green or blue for good and purple for Mace Windu. we had to kill the whole system and remove it from the game. it was a bummer for us, but I guess it kept things consistent so that's ok.

Speaking of slow, I'm way slow to reply -- sorry.

All I was doing was typing the text into a Google search (with the quotes) and hitting enter. Then in the search results list the pops up, at the top it says something like "about xxx results" -- that is where I got my numbers.

Just now I typed "I catch the waves down in Africa" into Google again, and it has gone from 48 hits when I did the search originally to 22,500 now. Mostly from Google crawling Videosift and people blogging/tweeting/whatever about that thread here on the sift, I think. Even "I swing a mace down in Africa" is up to 107 hits.


In reply to this comment by Unsung_Hero:
>> ^siftbot:

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Hey, I was wondering how you got the info for the Google search statistics. If this is very obvious, I'm sorry... I'm a little slow. lol

Thanks!