RCMP beefs up Hill security
Officers will be equipped with submachine-guns over coming months
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Anyone foolish enough to attack the seat of Canada’s government may soon be met with machine gun fire. RCMP officers charged with patrolling Parliament Hill will be equipped with Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine-guns over the coming months, which “should level the tactical playing field for our members,” says RCMP assistant commissioner Pat McDonell. The move to beefier firepower, even though the submachine-guns will be a “secondary” weapon in the Mounties’ arsenal, reverses the changes put in place in the 1990s, when the RCMP took the MP5s out of officers hands as a result of the transition toward 9-mm pistols. But Liberal Senator Colin Kenny says it’s a necessary change if officers are to stop a coordinated attack: “Bluntly put, it is hard as hell to hit someone with a handgun.”