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Wiki-watching

By Kevin Steel ⋅ September 14, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

It’s always fun to read encyclopedias, but I must confess I have never until this moment sought one out for breaking news. As has been reported just about everywhere, the suspect in the Dawson College shootings Kimveer Gill was pictured on a website holding a Beretta CX4 Storm. This morning I’ve been watching the Wikipedia entry–which can be edited by anyone–on the Storm and note this is the second time it has been updated within the last couple of hours. The first entry, which I found early this morning, made the claim this was the weapon Gill used, though I could not find that claim anywhere in the MSM and was not aware that this was confirmed by police. (However, that he used this gun does seem likely.) The current entry still contains that claim, but now has an interesting detail in the last line (italics mine): "The weapon is considered restricted in Canada, but Gill’s lack of a criminal record cleared him for possession." Has this been reported anywhere in the MSM?

Here is the last paragraph in full, copied at 11:20 AM.

On Wednesday, September 13 2006, a gunman opened fire on students at Montreal’s Dawson College with a CX4 Storm Semi-Automatic Carbine. The gunman, Kimveer Gill, had proudly displayed the weapon on a popular goth website, vampirefreaks.com. One woman was shot to death and 19 people were injured in the incident. The weapon is considered restricted in Canada, but Gill’s lack of a criminal record cleared him for possession.