On sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs

I never thought I would have anything nice to say about an article that encourages more people to carry guns, including into church, but this one is very well written and makes good points:

"I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"

Even more than the United States, Canadian citizens have a "sheep" mentality in the terminology of the article. Most individual Canadian citizens would be thoroughly unprepared if violence broke out. As a country, we also spend vastly less per capita on our military. Of course, it works for us; as a country, we get into fewer wars, and as individuals, we get into fewer fights, and in both cases our fights are (at least somewhat) less violent and better justified.

I've often thought that Canada is cheating a bit, however. The reason Canada doesn't need a huge military is that if someone seriously thought about attacking us, the U.S. is right next door. The Canadian pacifist system is highly efficient and desirable - as long as someone bigger and stronger is nearby to scare off the predators.