Big flap two years ago over whether Canadian border guards should be allowed hand guns while on duty. They were fearing for their safety. Americans had them why not us? They were threatening a strike.

They got them in July ‘07. Canadian border guards are packing.

And, according to the Globe and Mail, they pull their pistols from the holsters about three times a month.

But they haven’t actually fired at anything. Until last August. That’s when a border guard, or more accurately, an intelligence officer with the Canada Border Services Agency, at the request of an RCMP officer, offered the coup de grace to a dying moose.

Well, good news. The intelligence border guard, after a mandatory investigation, has been exonerated of all blame: “The drawing, pointing and discharge of the duty firearm … was justified.”

A spokeswoman said all procedures worked as intended. “As in all cases in which CBSA officers use their defensive tools, agency officials thoroughly reviewed the incident,” reported an official by email to the Globe.

Happily, the CBSA officer did not use his issued 9 mm Beretta P4X Storm but a “defensive tool.”

Many Canadians were against what seemed like the Americanization of our borders. Obviously, they were wrong and the mercy killing of the dying moose offers reason enough “to arm 4,800 guards at all land and marine border points by 2016.”