My sincere condolences to the victims and family members impacted by Yesterday's Fort Hood mass shooting. I'm sure I stand with many when I say thank you to brave hero Police Sergeant Kimberly Munley (and her partner) who confronted the killer, shooting him 4 times and bringing an early halt to his attack. Luckily she was close to the incident directing traffic and was able to respond within 3 minutes of the first 911 call.
I believe 3 minutes is the fastest Police response I've ever heard of to a mass shooting incident. Once she arrived she went straight in and confronted the shooter. She didn't waste any time waiting around for a swat team to arrive, which I believe saved many lives.
There remains however an urgent question in my mind: Why does Military policy disarm our trained military men and women while they are on base? I'm sure many of the 13 dead and 30 wounded would have wanted to fight back and defend themselves had they not all been disarmed by bad military base policy.
Did the gun free zone created by base regulations which ban weapon carry by anyone other than on duty Military Police prevent the madman from bringing both of his handguns to his attack? Of course not. Anybody willing to break the law in such a gruesome attack is not going to worry about a gun free zone policy. I imagine that the three minutes, while very fast for a Police response, seemed like an eternity to the defenseless victims who were stuck in the gun free zone while being shot at by the mad man.
I believe that the military gun free zone policy was probably created by a group of brain dead bureaucrats without any basis in fact. It is high time such idiotic policies be stricken down, as it is immoral to victimize the very men and women who have fought and died off shore protecting our freedoms by denying them the fundamental right of self protection while on US soil on our US military bases.
Update 1: Stephanie Gutmann, The Armorer, Dave Workman, Daniel White, Kurt Hofmann, and Howard Nemerov ask the same question. It is also being discussed on defensivecarry.com and glocktalk.com.
It's worth noting that the police response time at Virginia Tech was also 3 minutes, and entry was attempted immediately. It still ended with 32 dead.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you talking about?
ReplyDeleteIf any of the military men in that building had been armed someone might have gotten hurt!
Seriously though...as a 21 year Navy vet and Concealed Handgun Permit holder who still works on base, this is something that's irked me forever.
Gate security is a joke and once they get past the gate, they pretty much have free reign to wreak havoc at will until the base Police can get there.
In this case it was a military member who would have no trouble getting past the gate...but even a criminally minded civilian wouldn't find it too challenging, especially during rush hour when they're struggling to get thousands of vehicles past the choke point at the gate as quickly as possible.
If any of the military men in that building had been armed someone might have gotten hurt!
ReplyDeleteOK...my snark needs some refinement. Obviously, someone WAS armed and people DID get hurt.
It would have worked better had I said: "If any of the OTHER military men in that building..."
Whatever. You get the point.
My prayers to the familys of the wonded and killed. That being said I second your thoughts. This being a gun free zone just made things eaiser for the bad guy. . . . all that training and no weapon to use to defend youself. Whomever made this rule should be ashamed of themselves
ReplyDeleteThe rule has been around since 1969 that I know of, and probably earlier.
ReplyDelete1969 was the first time I was stationed PCS and had to lock up all my guns in the base armory. I only had 4: a Colt Woodsman, a Savage 99, an LC Smith 12-ga and later, a Springfield Mdl 30 12-ga.
The longs guns got treated like crap in the armory, with the trigger guards almost destroyed by the naked steel cable that was run though them while they sat in an open gun rack gathering dust and rust.
Just as an exercise in frustration I watched a bit of the CNN coverage to see how they were spinning the incident. They were ranting about the "semi-automatic" handgun that allowed the madman to shoot so many people so quickly. To top it off, a correspondent was asked if any of the victims on base had been armed and she said "No, they had no reason to be armed"
ReplyDeleteI screamed at my television "Are you kidding me! Tell the 13 dead & 30 wounded that they had no reason to defend themselves!"
As usual, she failed to acknowledge my input.
I don't recall being told not to bring guns on base back in my Air Force days. It was just something you didn't do. Back then there were no civilians on base except for families of service members who lived in base housing. Any place of military security interest, including the gates to the base, were covered by armed security. Back in the "old days" on would never dream of hurting another member of the military or their family so the base was in fact the safest place to be. And if someone was acting a little weird you'd make sure they got help and it would be done in such a way that very few people would know about it in order to preserve his or her dignity. We were all family.
ReplyDeleteIf I recall correctly, then president Jimmy Carter was responsible for disarming our U.S. military on U.S. soil (i.e. military bases). Why did he do this? Perhaps because he was such a crappy president he feared a military coo! The only thing the government fears more than an armed citizen is the military!
ReplyDeleteSuey is a typical POG who has never served a day in the armed forces. The military IS part of the government, nitwit. I was there in the 70's when we were disarmed on bases. There was no fucking threat of a coup. Typical conspiracy dipshits always making up shit to fit their narrow world-view.
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ReplyDelete