Posted on 11/18/2009 2:34:16 PM PST by neverdem
This month’s tragic — and probably preventable — mass shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas, certainly raises questions about why a lone shooter was able to unload not one but several magazines of ammunition over a several minute period – shooting and wounding more than 30 soldiers and killing 13, at a heavily restricted US Army base. Just as legitimate questions were raised following the mass killings on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007, both military personnel and civilian citizens alike ought now to be asking of themselves and our elected and appointed leaders, not only whether the perpetrators of such carnage could reasonably and appropriately have been identified in advance and prevented from carrying out their obviously well-planned mass murders; but also, whether it makes sense to disarm a captive group of citizens (at Virginia Tech, the student body; at Ft. Hood, the military personnel assigned to the base).
In the case of Ft. Hood, it is important to bear in mind that since 1993, thanks to a policy ordered by then-President Bill Clinton, it has been essentially unlawful for individuals on military bases to carry firearms unless they are military police, or are training in firearms at a firing range. Many of those who support this gun-free military base policy have reacted to calls to review it, by simply echoing the standard refrain of gun-control advocates that, “we don’t want everyone on a military base running around with a gun on their hip.” (Of course, had this been the case at Ft. Hood, it is doubtful Maj. Hasan could have squeezed off more than a couple of rounds before being himself felled by an armed soldier.) It is a false dichotomy that we either allow no one (except MPs) or everyone on military bases to possess firearms. Rather, the debate should center on why is it made virtually impossible for any soldier on a military base to carry arms, even if they have in fact been properly vetted and trained in their use?
Why, after all, should a citizen be forced to surrender his or her right to keep and bear arms, simply because they have entered military service; service expressly supposed to teach the proper and safe use of firearms?
In the case of the students at Virginia Tech two years ago, it was Virginia legislators who decided to disarm them and make them sitting ducks for a single crazed gunman, Seung-Hui Cho. For the military victims at Ft. Hood this Fall, it was three commanders-in-chief (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama), and a series of politically-correct base commanders, who rendered those who serve under them vulnerable to an apparent religious zealot bent on killing as many of his fellow service men and women as he could. Continuing to stick our heads in the sand and refuse to even reconsider amending such policies as those that apply to campuses in Virginia (and other states across the country) and at Ft. Hood (and virtually every other military post across the country), vastly improves the chances that our students and our military personnel will be victims of other deranged individuals in the future.
It’s a damned crying shame when in the name of PC, even our military are rendered helpless cringing sheep in a slaughterhouse.
That is bit of hyperbole. It's not that hard to get on an Army post. Air Force bases are harder, and have been for decades.
During Desert Shield, I took a wrong turn in Junction City Kansas and ended up at some unit's motor pool on a nearly deserted Ft. Riley. I'm told that I could have done the same thing on Ft. Hood at the time, by a coworker whose husband was the senior NCO of the MPs here at the time.
Only after 9-11 did most Army posts become "closed", with gates and gate guards, base registration and ID required. (or easily obtainable one day pass, longer for those with military IDs).
No. The National Firearms Act was passed in 1934. You could not own so much as a short barrelled shotgun, withou paying a tax and registering it. A tax was several times the worth of the gun. Same with machine guns.
Semi-automatic 20mm cannon, those you could own. :) (An advertisment from the 1950s
The idea of having additional assigned and identified soldiers carrying openly is a good idea, though. More attacks are probably being planned as we speak, probably by more numerous and trained fanatics. The little test by Hasan showed how easily this can be done. Expect the bad guys to pick up the ball and run with it.
How would Ft Hood (or any base) have fared withh 20-30 trained killers armed with AKs and RPGs on the loose and with a plan, instead of one poorly trained one with hardly a plan? Does anybody else realize the speed and ease of penetrating the single fenced, sporadically patrolled perimeters most bases have for security? It shouldn't be hard at all to increase the readily available, trained fire power and do it cheaply.
I don't expect it to happen. After all, that would be "jumping to conclusions" about a lone nut-case, right?
I knew that. I forgot to add the restrictions of machine guns, short barreled rifles, sawed off shotguns and a few other types of firearms.
But the Solothurn was a semi-auto and did not require any type of registration until 1968 and then it had to be registered as a destructive device.
What political agenda do you allude to? Did you read the article?
“Issue weapons to all? Negatron. “
It wasn’t THAT many decades ago that this was exactly what happened in garrison. What happened to the Army?
Back in the old days, when soldiers slept in squad bay wood barracks, their rifles were kept in racks at the ready.
On Fort Jackson where I work, the trainees are issued their individual weapons and eat/sleep/train with them and do not turn them back to the arms room until they graduate.
Discharge barrels and amnesty boxes are everywhere. Not like it once was, but similar. Ammo, however, is under unbelievably tight control.
“Ammo, however, is under unbelievably tight control.”
Back in the real old days (SpanAm War), even ammunition wasn’t under such tight control. Where I work, only a handful of MilPo and contractor security are armed. Maybe they should stop calling them “Forts”....
Oops...my bad...I just skimmed it...sorry.
Thanks for the ping!
I never knew of a firearms policy other than nothing in the barracks. Guns were in the cars. (Guns were in the barracks as well but nobody really cared).
There was a guy from west Tennessee that cleaned game in his dorm room. The squuadron commander could care less as long as it was clean.
What? You can’t hunt them on military posts?
There’s an idea....
; )
Many, many years ago some relatives from Minnesota came to Wyoming for an antelope (pronghorn) hunt with my dad and uncles. The visitors were to use "borrowed" rifles as we more than enough to go around. One of my uncles had one of these rounds, or one very similar, and placed it on the table beside the rifle and told them that is what they were using for the hunt. Lots of laughs all around. The cartridge base was bigger than the receiver of the rifle it was beside.
Did you or anyone you know ever get one of the BB machine guns you could order in Boy's Life? I always wanted one, but had to do with my Red Ryder.
Oh, for the good old days to return!
IIRC, the deck guards on the USS Cole had no ammunition.
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