Anyone having trouble believing the scenario to be plausible should have a look at the trial of Jane Hurshman, who killed her abusive husband, Billy Stafford, in 1982, in Halifax. Billy was a known bully, tolerated by the community for years, who was well known for terrorizing whole families if one member got in his way for the smallest of offenses. Everyone knew that if you cross him in any way at all, you would have to end up killing him. Most people, of course, don't want to kill people over small offenses, and let him have his way.

Jane wasn't getting any help from the community and knew that if she left him, he would go after her parents and then kill her. She did the only thing she could think of - she waited till he passed out drunk one night and shot him. Jane was convicted of manslaughter and spent six months in prison.

On the night she killed him, she fully believed he would kill her when he woke up. In Canada, you cannot use undue force in self defence i.e. you cannot use a weapon on an unarmed attacker. Billy was passed out. Jane shot him. She did time. The courts were sympathetic, she did the least possible time in a minimum security prison. Her story was dramatized in "Life with Billy" and drew attention to the whole problem of domestic abuse.

If Clancy was a bully like Billy, this explains the inaction of the onlookers in the bar. He would also have enjoyed bullying someone not likely to fight back, like a pacifist.

I am the daughter of a Mennonite. I am not a pacifist myself, but respect the tremendous courage that often has been shown by people of true pacifist convictions. My mother's people fled pogroms in Russia to settle in Canada. Her great uncle told stories of whole villages being herded into wooden buildings which were then set on fire by Cossacks. Pacifists have been jailed and even lynched for their refusal to go to war.

On October 26, 2006, a number of Amish school children were shot and killed in the community of Nickel Mines. The community publicly forgave the shooter. They also also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter. Knowing the kind of conformist pressures exerted in religious communities, I am extremely dubious about ritualized forgiveness ceremonies. The salient fact is, however, the community most definitely did not call for vengeance or punishment.

As for the "bitch slap", some men just don't take no for an answer. They see any verbal response as coyness, and a tease, on the part of the woman; and often take this as an invitation to be even more aggressive. Maybe the wife sized him up as beyond reason and acted accordingly. Since most women are less physically powerfull than most men, most bitch slaps don't do any real harm.

It's true that around 50% of Mennonite men in Canada did respond to the call up for military service during World War II. But the other half did not.