If personal firearms were allowed to be carried on base

jimpeel

Well-Known Member
SOURCE

Updated November 10, 2009
Time to Put An End to Army Bases as Gun-Free Zones

by John Lott, FOXNews.com

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." (I think that "credible and specific threat" has now been defined by the likes of Maj. Hasan. - j) 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.

John R. Lott, Jr. is a FoxNews.com contributor. He is an economist and author of "More Guns, Less Crime."
 

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
Cute..Lott uses his own paper, based on his own research and conclusions (circa 2000) in order to prove that his arguments are valid now in 2009.

Try finding someone else's research and get back to us, MrLott
 

H2O boy

New Member
Cute..Lott uses his own paper, based on his own research and conclusions (circa 2000) in order to prove that his arguments are valid now in 2009.

Try finding someone else's research and get back to us, MrLott

well theres a bunch of dead soldiers we cant ask any more
 

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
well theres a bunch of dead soldiers we cant ask any more

I'll bet that if you'd asked them the day before, they would've said that keeping gun-free zones in effect, even on military bases was (and continues to be) a good idea.
 

Winky

Well-Known Member
Personal firearms? No way M-16's!

Oh no they wouldn't.

Soldiers with concealed carry permits
can carry weapons off base but not on!

Bishy bishy bishy, do ya really think soldiers want to be disarmed? huh?

After 9-11 they had to give bullets to the guys guarding the gates
of military bases.

This is a left over from the Clinton administration.

The Israelis have the right idea, everyone should be armed.
If someone starts shooting they get stopped right away.
How nutty is it that on an American Army base defenseless
soldiers had to wait for a 5’ 2” 110 pound girl cop
from off base to shoot the bad guy.

One would expect military bases to be heavily armed
but you’d find more guns ready to go in any high school ;)
 

catocom

Well-Known Member
I've still got about 3 lics. of 3.11, and dos 6.22! (w/disks and books)
You in the market? I let um go cheap. :D
 

catocom

Well-Known Member
yeah, I remember a comp tech telling me one time that a 1 gig hd would be more space than I'd ever need. :D
 

Winky

Well-Known Member
640 Meg of RAM is all you'll ever need

I recall when a 170 Meg hard drive WAS
bigger than I needed!

DOS 5.0 was a lean mean OS!
 

H2O boy

New Member
I'll bet that if you'd asked them the day before, they would've said that keeping gun-free zones in effect, even on military bases was (and continues to be) a good idea.

guess we will never know now. i bet if we asked them the day before plus told them that some islamic whack job planned to shoot the place up they might have a different response too. but speculation is pointless. theyre dead now


maybe we could ask the widows and the children if they would have wanted their loved ones to have a gun while moosy mowed them down

why do we train military people to shoot and then take the gun out of their hand? this aint canada
 

Gato_Solo

Out-freaking-standing OTC member
I'll bet that if you'd asked them the day before, they would've said that keeping gun-free zones in effect, even on military bases was (and continues to be) a good idea.

I thought it was stupid from day one. :shrug: They give me rounds when I'm in Afghanistan, but not at home? For the record, I never fired a shot at another human being. Of course...the Clinton ban came after a couple of incidents at Ft Bragg...
 

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
guess we will never know now. i bet if we asked them the day before plus told them that some islamic whack job planned to shoot the place up they might have a different response too. but speculation is pointless. theyre dead now

Bet that if you'd told the military on 9-10-01 that some islamic whack jobs were going to fly planes into buildings that they would've had soldiers with rifles on every plane on 9-11 - so whats your point?
 
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