EDITORIAL: End Clinton-era military base gun ban

The Washington Times ^ | November 11, 2009 | John R. Lott, Jr.

[Just A Nobody]

It is disgusting how the malignant thoughts of their disturbed brains became policy for the USA.

It certainly is!

It is not just military bases that are unarmed. The recruiters stations follow the same rules. That is why it took a SWAT team, and a hand full of FReepers, to thwart another attack on the recruiting station in DC in March 2008. The week before this photo, the commies stormed them and trashed the place.

[6SJ7]

Until this PC mentality is stopped - arming the troops on base would be deliberately arming the enemy within the ranks.

"Lt. Col. Les Melnyck, a Defense Department spokesman, said that as of August, 3,557 active duty troops of roughly 1.4 million identified themselves as being Muslim."(Fox News)

1.4 million to 3,557. I'll take those odds. Arm our soldiers. (It sounds crazy to even have to say it!)

[Windflier]

With the stroke of a pen, President Obama can end Mr. Clinton’s folly and allow U.S. soldiers to protect themselves.

This needs to be posted large, and often.

Obama has the power to restore a basic self-defense capability to our military people. If he does not use the executive power of his office to do this, then he is leaving our military open to more attacks by deranged jihadists - BY CHOICE.

[upcountryhorseman]

Where they have gun-free areas on military bases, they must
have armed guards to prevent such massacres.

[nonsporting]

[Because of Mr. Clinton] terrorists would face more return fire if they attacked a Texas Wal-Mart than the gunman faced at Fort Hood.

That's a keeper.

[Moonman62]

Yes, yes, let’s BAN GUNS from our military on the base.

It's like not allowing fighting in the war room.

[BBell]

I did read the article. One comment I made to my coworkers after the most recent shooting is that a gunman could go farther on a military base than in my neighborhood before being shot. I explained to them why.

The military was anti-gun before Clinton. I guess he just made it official. My father retired from the Navy in 76 and they were anti-gun back then. When I was in during the Reagan/Bush years they were anti-gun. If you were caught with a weapon or ammunition in your car or barracks room you would face charges. You were treated like a criminal for exercising your second amendment right. I can go on but I won't.

[BBell]

The military does no like big knives either.

[Swiss]

Realistically how many soldiers would of brought their sidearms to a deployment screening if allowed before this?

I am thinking that knowing you would have to take off the sidearm for medical exams and such and that everybody there is either military or DOD civilians so what’s the risk?

[HonestConservative]

So everyone in Texas has a gun EXCEPT those people in the military base.

BRILLIANT!

[nmh]

Thanks - thats totally NUTS.

[Clinging Bitterly]

It seems pretty crazy when you look at the policy in the context of knowing there IS, in fact, an enemy within.

I can maybe understand a distinction between issued and personal weapons and following certain protocols, but what is the underlying rationale for almost nobody being allowed to carry any type of weapon on post? If it is that the facility is supposed to be "base" and therefore a zone of safety, well here's a news flash - the giant wooden horse rolled in a long time ago.

Anything about it that makes sense just isn't apparent to me.

Hopefully is has just been inertia which is, unfortunately, a fact of life. And hopefully it has just been overcome. We'll see I reckon.

[rustyboots]

I am retired Army, live in Copperas Cove, Tx, just west of Ft. Hood. I have a TX CHL and this rule is why you see me on Ft. Hood maybe once every 6 months. They give 18-19 year old kids a couple of months training as MPs and give them guns, but I can’t be trusted to carry and defend myself and possibly others? Does the Army take FULL responsibility for the safety and well being on everyone on base? They can’t and won’t.
I am sorry, but my safety and the safety of my loved ones is best left to me, not those the military says can be trusted with a gun. I still cling to the idea of personal responsibility for my actions.

[neverdem]

BTTT!

[HonestConservative]

Go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/freedom and you will hear me speak with Uncle Jimbo of BlackFive on this very subject.

Page in about a quarter of the way and you will hear Uncle Jimbo and I going over this very thing!

[El Gato]

It was an OFF BASE police woman that shot the TERRORIST.

That was an early confused report. But she was not from off base, she was a civilian Police Sgt working for the post's Department of Emergency services. An Army employee, not a civilian contractor (like the gate guards, who are also armed), nor a police officer from any of the jurisdictions around the post. The Senior Sgt, who also shot the terrorist after she did, was her partner and also a Civilian police officer from DES.

[El Gato]

The military should be able to have armed military police anywhere large groups of personnel will be forming or this will be repeated.

MPs do carry firearms routinely when on duty. They could provide such guards, if there were enough of them. Most are deployed guarding terrorists, protecting convoys and such as that.

But the argument that somehow the solders (and our own civilian Allegra) are safe to be armed while on a base in Iraq or Afghanistan but somehow become irresponsible and too dangerous to be armed because they are walking around a US post/base rather than an overseas one, is just..stupid.

[El Gato]

Until this PC mentality is stopped - arming the troops on base would be deliberately arming the enemy within the ranks.

But as we have seen, they are armed if they choose to be. Like all gun bans, this only affects those who follow the rules, not the homicidal few who do not.

[El Gato]

as of August, 3,557 active duty troops of roughly 1.4 million identified themselves as being Muslim."

Major Hasan was not one of them. His records show "No religious preferance.