Time to Put An End to Army Bases as Gun-Free Zones

[ericire12]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/10/john-lott-ft-hood-end-gun-free-zone/

It is hard to believe that we don't trust soldiers with guns on an army base when we trust these very same men in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Shouldn't an army base be the last place where a terrorist should be able to shoot at people uninterrupted for 10 minutes? After all, an army base is filled with soldiers who carry guns, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Beginning in March 1993, under the Clinton administration, the army forbids military personnel from carrying their own personal firearms and mandates that "a credible and specific threat against [Department of the Army] personnel [exist] in that region" before military personnel "may be authorized to carry firearms for personal protection." Indeed, most military bases have relatively few military police as they are in heavy demand to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unarmed soldiers could do little more than cower as Major Nidal Malik Hasan stood on a desk and shot down into the cubicles in which his victims were trapped. Some behaved heroically, such as private first class Marquest Smith who repeatedly risked his life removing five soldiers and a civilian from the carnage. But, being unarmed, these soldiers were unable to stop Hasan's attack.

The wife of one of the soldiers shot at Ft. Hood understood this all too well. Mandy Foster's husband had been shot but was fortunate enough not to be seriously injured. In an interview on CNN on Monday night, Mrs. Foster was asked by anchor John Roberts how she felt about her husband "still scheduled for deployment in January" to Afghanistan. Ms. Foster responded: "At least he's safe there and he can fire back, right?" -- It is hard to believe that we don't trust soldiers with guns on an army base when we trust these very same men in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, most of CNN's listeners probably didn't understand the rules that Ms. Foster was referring to.

The law-abiding, not the criminals, are the ones who obey the ban on guns. Instead of making areas safe for victims, the bans make it safe for the criminal. Hasan not only violated the army's ban on carrying a gun, he also apparently violated the rules that require soldiers to register privately owned guns at the post.

Research shows that allowing individuals to defend themselves dramatically reduces the rates of multiple victim public shootings. Even if attacks still occur, having civilians with permitted concealed handguns limits the damage. A major factor in determining how many people are harmed by these killers is the amount of time that elapses between when the attack starts and someone is able to arrive on the scene with a gun. Ten minutes must have seemed like an eternity to those trapped in the attack at Ft. Hood. All the multiple victim public shootings in the U.S. -- in which more than three people have been killed -- have all occurred in places where concealed handguns have been banned.

For several days now, some in the media and various gun control groups have focused on a so-called "cop killer" gun that Hasan used. The five-seven is a conventional semi-automatic pistol. In fact, the bullets that it fires are relatively small, only being in the .22 caliber class. Unlike rifles, even higher caliber handguns don't fire publicly available ammunition at sufficient velocity to penetrate a police officer's vest. There is a special type of handgun ammunition that can penetrate some types of body armor, but under federal law it is not legal to manufacture or import that ammunition for sale to the public.

For the safety of our soldiers and citizens, we hope that this simple fact about the Ft. Hood attack and the role that gun-free zones played in allowing yet another multiple victim public shooting becomes part of the news coverage itself. The political debate about guns would be quite different if even once in a while a news story clearly explained that there has been another multiple victim public shooting in a gun-free zone.

[tombogan03884]

 To logical to be anything but more "Right wing extremism" from those "Partisan nut jobs" at Fox.
Those lunatics probably believe that this was some kind of "Islamic terrorism" too.

[JC5123]

I never have understood this. You train these men and women to carry weapons, and to use them. But the military is so strict about having all the weapons, and ammunition out of the hands of the soldiers. So, WTF? You train them to use a weapon, but you don't trust them to carry one ON BASE, where you probably have need to protect both military, and intelligence secrets.

I guess all those signs about the use of lethal force being authorized is just a scare tactic, since no one on the inside of that fence has the ability to employ deadly force. 
 

[Timothy]

Since 50% of commisioned officers are ROTC, they're probably afraid of getting shot by their own troops.....

 

[PegLeg45]

I never have understood this. You train these men and women to carry weapons, and to use them. But the military is so strict about having all the weapons, and ammunition out of the hands of the soldiers. So, WTF? You train them to use a weapon, but you don't trust them to carry one ON BASE, where you probably have need to protect both military, and intelligence secrets.

I guess all those signs about the use of lethal force being authorized is just a scare tactic, since no one on the inside of that fence has the ability to employ deadly force.  
 

+1

I don't understand this either.  

I imagine some boob bureaucrat once said that, "Based on 'statistics' the probability of negligent discharges would be lessened significantly if our soldiers were not armed on bases."

And all the other boobs at the big round table said, "Yeah. Limit the guns on military bases and they'll be much safer."


I say BS.
They're soldiers first.
If you train them, trust them to carry the weapons you trained them with.
Will you have situations of negligence? Sure.
But in the grand scheme of things, they'd be better off armed.

Just my two corroded pennies.

[Sponsor]

[Walter45Auto]

Things like that are one of the reasons I never joined the military. "We'll train you to kill with your hands during boot camp, but we don't want you to have a pocketknife in the barracks after you have made it through boot camp because you might do something crazy, go off, and hurt someone with it."

[m25operator]

Does it disturb anybody else that if 1 half determined terrorist can do this, what could a bread truck with 15 very determined men could do with this kind of security, and now I would think, other terror types are saying " hey, man could we do better than that ".  Sounds like a small team could  easily take over key points of the base. I know red cell did it just to test base security in the past.

There should be at least 2 on guard duty per 100 acres armed with rifles and side arms. More at entrances and exits to sensitive areas or armories. More MP's would be ok, but grunts on guard gives them something to do at less expense and training.

[Timothy]

Does it disturb anybody else that if 1 half determined terrorist can do this, what could a bread truck with 15 very determined men could do with this kind of security, and now I would think, other terror types are saying " hey, man could we do better than that ".  Sounds like a small team could  easily take over key points of the base. I know red cell did it just to test base security in the past.

There should be at least 2 on guard duty per 100 acres armed with rifles and side arms. More at entrances and exits to sensitive areas or armories. More MP's would be ok, but grunts on guard gives them something to do at less expense and training.

It's bothered me for years.  When I was overseas, our base was seven miles out on the pennisula away from the Air Station.  We were completely isolated from everything.  The Soviets could have beached right on our back door and take control of one of the most top secret installations in the world in about two or three minutes.  We had drills on occasion wherein, the watch officer would toss incidiary grenades into the Comm Shack and eliminate the really secret comm equipment and anyone who happened to be in there at the time. 

By the time we were able to get to the arms locker, we would have all been dead or captured.  It was a joke!  It seems that nothing has really changed or gotten worse.

[tombogan03884]

Does it disturb anybody else that if 1 half determined terrorist can do this, what could a bread truck with 15 very determined men could do with this kind of security, and now I would think, other terror types are saying " hey, man could we do better than that ".  Sounds like a small team could  easily take over key points of the base. I know red cell did it just to test base security in the past.

There should be at least 2 on guard duty per 100 acres armed with rifles and side arms. More at entrances and exits to sensitive areas or armories. More MP's would be ok, but grunts on guard gives them something to do at less expense and training.

It would be a waste of resources, I read Marcinko's book (a couple of times    ) The primary factor that Red Cell worked with was the ultimate unbeatable enemy. ROUTINE. The fact that 99.9999% of people doing security patrols never encounter anything of real significance makes it totally impossible for even the best trained, most highly motivated personnel to stay completely alert all the time.
Even in combat zones, guys fall asleep on watch. Boredom and routine were 2 of the key elements of Red cell success.
Think about this, enlisted persons, including sentries are required to salute all Officers and their vehicles, if you are walking a post some where and a vehicle approaches your attention is on the Base sticker to see if it's an officer or not. Bin Laden, Obama or some other notorious America hater could be driving and unless you recognized the car itself you might not notice. (Hey, That's my commander's car, who's that driving it )
The only way to increase safety is to discharge all suspicious troops (Muslims ) and require all troops to be armed while on duty and allow Concealed carry off duty.

[tt11758]

I never have understood this. You train these men and women to carry weapons, and to use them. But the military is so strict about having all the weapons, and ammunition out of the hands of the soldiers. So, WTF? You train them to use a weapon, but you don't trust them to carry one ON BASE, where you probably have need to protect both military, and intelligence secrets.

I guess all those signs about the use of lethal force being authorized is just a scare tactic, since no one on the inside of that fence has the ability to employ deadly force. 
 

Things have been that way for a long time, boys and girls.  On December 7, 1941 the crews of the Pearl Harbor ships had to BREAK INTO the weapons rooms on their ships before they could fire back at the Japanese attackers.