Police officer killed with elephant gun.

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jsalcedo

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Laval cop was killed with rifle powerful enough to stop an elephant
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Laval police officer Maxim Rheault lights a candle at a makeshift shrine in front of the building where Const. Valerie Gignac was shot and killed. (CP
Published: Thursday, December 15, 2005


LAVAL, Que. (CP) - A female police officer who was gunned down with a weapon powerful enough to kill an elephant had already met her alleged killer, whom she had arrested for harassing another policewoman.

Francois Pepin was charged Thursday with the first-degree murder of Const. Valerie Gignac and possessing a firearm. Pepin was also charged with breaking a 1999 probation condition by having a gun outside hunting season. He did not enter a plea and remained in custody. His next court appearance is Feb. 15 and his lawyer Robert La Haye said Pepin will likely be examined by mental health experts.

Laval police, already reeling from the death of their colleague while answering what appeared to be a routine noise complaint on Wednesday, were blunt in their assessment that the justice system let them down.

"How come if you have a ban, you're not allowed to possess a firearm for 10 years, how come you can allow it for the hunting season?" asked Denis Cote, president of the Quebec municipal police federation.

"If you're a threat for everybody, make sure you're a threat for all 12 months in a year."

Gilles Lemieux, president of Laval police union, said the system usually works, but not this time.

"For me, it's hard to believe and understand."

A civic funeral will be held Tuesday 25-year-old Gignac, a Quebec City native who had been a cop for almost four years.

Laval police Chief Jean-Pierre Gariepy said the weapon that killed Gignac was a .338-calibre rifle, which can drop a target from a kilometre away.

"It's a hunting gun," Gignac said. "It's used in the jungle for the hunting of elephants. It's a very powerful arm."

It was not immediately known if the gun was registered. Quebec provincial police are investigating the case.

Gariepy also said Gignac and her partner had met up with the suspect a week ago.

"They knew that guy because they arrested him," he said.

"He was harassing a female police officer. There was a complaint and an investigation and we did arrest him a week before. He was brought to court and he was set free with some conditions by the judge."

Gariepy said Pepin had been fixated on the other woman officer.

"He was in love with her and he was always trying to get in touch with her. We couldn't let him act like this without pressing charges against him."

Lemieux said Pepin was arrested Friday for that incident in the parking lot of a community police station as he swept snow from a patrol car. Gignac worked at a different station than the harassed officer.

Gignac was shot in the back just above her left hip, just below her bullet-proof vest, on Wednesday as she spun away from a door where she and her partner responded to a 911 call. Two high-powered slugs ripped through the closed wooden door and delivered the fatal wound.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=750a6697-7724-46eb-a496-8fce5f6d3d07&k=46971
 
MY prayers for the fallen officer, her family and loved ones.

It does seem kind of ridiculous that if you are going to restrict someone from possessing a firearm due to some sort of a conviction for a crime, that you would let the same person possess firearms during the hunting season. I kind of like the idea though of restricting someone for a limited number of years as opposed to restricint them from forever possessing firearms - that is of course so long as the crime was not one of violence in which a firearm was utilized.

As to a .338, are they really used to hunt elephants? I would have thought Moose, bear, elk and so on.
 
Most people I know using .338 back up in BC hunt the exact animals you just described, Swamp Donkey (Moose), Elk etc...

Elephants...uh :uhoh: okay... Can't say I've seen any of those outside a game farm or zoo in Canada...



MD
 
Sure, it is technically powerful enough to kill an elephant, but so is a .357 Magnum revolver, in the right hands. It is not an "elephant rifle" though. That's just hype for the story.
 
Glenn Bartley said:
As to a .338, are they really used to hunt elephants? I would have thought Moose, bear, elk and so on.
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Sympathies to the family. A .338 would be considered way under gunned for elephant.
 
michakav said:
Sympathies to the family. A .338 would be considered way under gunned for elephant.
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Likewise. As for the .338, with heavy solids you could penetrate the skull, and you wouldn't need to do it through the eye like you would with anything less powerful, but generally an "elephant gun" starts at .375 H&H, and that's considered entry level for elephant. A .338 Win Mag is considered ideal for the largest North American game, such as moose, elk and grizzly.
 
Not having ever hunted elephant myself, I thought it was NOT too much gun but was uncertain. I figured it was so much bull for the press and the politicos to use as more antigun propaganda. It is a sad commentary that instead of just giving the straight story when something like this happens, and instead of dedicating more space about the fallen officer, the politicians and the press imediately try to chop away at gun ownership rights (even in Canada). It is sad because it would not matter if the officer was killed with an elephant gun, a BB gun, or a rubber band gun - the fact is she was killed by a criminal. The focus should now not be on his choice of weapon but on the government's choice of how it deals with such dirt - the criminals.
 
Sad to lose an officer . They'' blame it on the evil GUN when it's the stupid officials who let him have a gun despite a ban and a history of harassing cops !
 
Feel bad for his family. But a better title for the article would have been "Officer killed by criminal. Last I checked guns aren't capable of choosing their own target and pulling their own trigger.
 
We have no way of knowing, given the usual inaccuracies of the news reports...
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My point of posting the article was the ridiculous notion that it really mattered whether the officer was killed with .577 tyrannosaur or a .22 short.

I'm not sure whether it's real or imagined but I sense an additional spin coming out of canadian liberal media.
 
jsalcedo said:
My point of posting the article was the ridiculous notion that it really mattered whether the officer was killed with .577 tyrannosaur or a .22 short.

I'm not sure whether it's real or imagined but I sense an additional spin coming out of canadian liberal media.
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My brother, I could not agree more.

How much you want to bet that the Canadian PTB make a play to ban "large caliber" rifles that have "no sporting purpose in North America"?
 
How much you want to bet that the Canadian PTB make a play to ban "large caliber" rifles that have "no sporting purpose in North America"?
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Exactly.

Politicians and media rolling in the blood of innocents always makes me physically ill.
 
Professional ivory hunters have been known to take elephants with a 30-06, close to a half-century ago. My question is, if the BG in this scenario was infatuated w/ the cop, why was there no restraining order?!!
 
An aside:
"It's a hunting gun," Gignac said. "It's used in the jungle for the hunting of elephants. It's a very powerful arm."
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Hmmm. Is this an oversight in editing, or simply story telling that doesn't take time and space into consideration?
-

What virtually everyone's already said - Whether the gun could be used for elephant doesn't mean anything. Clearly it was enough gun for a human being. One that probably didn't deserve to die. But what does the liberal press do? Blame the hardware.

They (the press &/or the libs) have no actual interest in this RCMP officer that just gave her life to her community. The only thing that troubles them is the spin control needed to make sure nobody knows that the current gun control laws are meaningless. The public can't be allowed to see that - certainly not while the libs are trying to impliment even further and more draconian measures against law abiding citizens.

Funny thing ... I rant about the libs only focusing on the hardware while I only focus on the libs. What an A$$. :(

My heart truely goes out to officer Gignac's family. This is a horrible, horrible thing and should never have happened.
-
 
Typical anti-gun emphasis on the gun. Note how its power and range (although exaggerated) are emphasized rather than focusing on the criminal.

As for the .338 (Winchester or otherwise) on elephant, most countries that used to allow elephant hunting required a .40 or above. Over the centuries many fools shot elephants with all sorts of small caliber rifles and sometimes they even managed to inflict fatal wounds but the key word here is fool.
 
thatguy said:
Typical anti-gun emphasis on the gun. Note how its power and range (although exaggerated) are emphasized rather than focusing on the criminal.

As for the .338 (Winchester or otherwise) on elephant, most countries that used to allow elephant hunting required a .40 or above. Over the centuries many fools shot elephants with all sorts of small caliber rifles and sometimes they even managed to inflict fatal wounds but the key word here is fool.
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Although the term "elephant gun" (a specialized rifle for hunting elephants) is generally agreed these days to start with .416 Rigby and above, this does not mean that everyone who ever hunted with any lessor calibers were necessarily "fools." Many hunters, who want one rifle to cover all his African big and medium game hunting, have chosen the .375 H&H, which is considered adequate for elephant, so long as you have a P.H. to back you up with a charge stopping gun. Some professional ivory hunters of the past, though, did use much smaller calibers. In fact, a 7mm Mauser was a commonly used rifle for ivory hunting, and Smith & Wesson hired a professional hunter to kill an elephant with their then new .357 Magnum revolver. One shot through the eye did the trick. Naturally, it had to be through the eye, because a .357 Magnum could not hope to penetrate the skull of an elephant, except through the eye socket. It needs to be said, however, that shooting an elephant with anything short of a .375 H&H (or its rough equivalent) is more considered a stunt shot these days than something recommended for the average elephant hunter. A reliable charge stopping "elephant gun" probably ought to start in the realm of the .450 Nitro Express.
 
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