Repeal Clinton’s Military Base Gun Ban
Former President Bill Clinton is partly to blame:
Among President Clinton’s first acts upon taking office in 1993 was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases. In March 1993, the Army imposed regulations forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection. For the most part, only military police regularly carry firearms on base, and their presence is stretched thin by high demand for MPs in war zones.
Because of Mr. Clinton, terrorists would face more return fire if they attacked a Texas Wal-Mart than the gunman faced at Fort Hood, home of the heavily armed and feared 1st Cavalry Division. That’s why a civilian policewoman from off base was the one whose marksmanship ended Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage.
Certainly his “military gun control” was an ill-conceived idea. “Gun-free zones” don’t work anywhere, much less on a military base. John Lott, Jr. has more on that.
Then, there’s the spectacle of the brain-dead Mayor of Chicago blaming the gun.
Ultimately, though, I put the blame squarely upon Muslim Hasan. He is the mutant that decided that his problems could best be solved by the wholesale murder of his fellow servicemen and women.
8 Responses to “Repeal Clinton’s Military Base Gun Ban”
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on 11 Nov 2009 at 8:09 am # JJ Kavanaugh
There’s BIG mis-understanding going here. Munley was a civilian police officer… a civilian Department of the Army Police Officer. The DoD’s answer to so many MPs and their equivalents in the Air Force, Navy and Marines deploying AND as a cost cutting measure from back in the 90’s began hiring civilian police to do garrison duties. They’re not enlisted or commissioned and so not deployable. This means the bases are cov ered when the units deploy. I helped write the Air Force’s justificaion for doing thius and shared what we wrote with my opposite number at Ft Lost in the Woods. I’m one for another US Gov Department myself now. THe evil “cop killer” gun is bad enough, let’s not add this to the rumor mill…
on 11 Nov 2009 at 8:44 am # Homer
A worthwhile endeavor, but inadequate in scope: As U.S. citizens, why should those of us who have passed background checks and completed the training and qualification procedure, which, in some cases exceed the requirements for sworn police officers, be denied the ability to defend ourselves anyplace in the country? I see no reason why someone who successfully completes the process should not be allowed to carry a firearm everywhere a sworn law enforcement officer may.
Note, I am emphatically not suggesting a national concealed weapon permitting system, nor establishment of a federal standard for one. That, I think, is beyond the constitutionally authorized powers of the federal government, and the states have demonstrated the ability to extend CCW reciprocity to each other based on the established requirements of each. Should higher standards be required, it’s up to the states to establish it through reciprocity standards.
This is the “United States of America,” not “a collection of minor political subdivisions subject to the control of a federal government.” If Illinois persists in denying its citizens the right of self defense, one may choose to not live under those restrictions by moving to one of the other 49 states or band together with like-minded others to change the conditions in Illinois. Federal standards can easily corrupt liberty through imposition of what is frequently termed beneficial universality.
While the permitting concept is certainly in conflict with “shall not be infringed,” one step at a time.
on 11 Nov 2009 at 8:48 am # Muslims Against Sharia
MASH message for Islamic terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan:
Mr. Hasan,
May you be swiftly executed, may you rot in Hell for eternity, and may your family be ashamed of you for as long as they shall live.
With utmost contempt,
Muslims Against Sharia
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2009/11/fort-hood.html
on 11 Nov 2009 at 10:22 am # Oscar
There is no way, no how, that this policy will be rescinded.
First, from personal experience, I can tell you that the upper ranks of the Army are almost uniformly anti-gun. They obviously believe in guns when soldiers are deployed, but are vehemently opposed to soldiers carrying (or owning) guns when back home. Don’t forget that the commander of US Forces Alaska has banned concealed or open carry for all personnel under his command, on- or off-post. That policy remains in place, and is typical of the mindset of which I speak.
Second, the notion that President Obama will rescind this policy (of all policies) is fantasy. While Clinton wore his anti-gun attitudes on his sleeve, Obama is less vocal but just as stridently in favor of gun control (for the “little people” only, of course). Don’t expect any changes. If anything, expect gun control measures to be tightened.
DO expect more of this in the future, however. Such conspiracies will either be foiled (e.g., Ft. Dix plot) or will succeed as the shooter at Ft. Hood did. Still, they will keep on trying. Terrorists are now aware of what much of the rest of the world (including the media) did not know before last week — by Executive Order, military personnel on-post are sitting ducks. Break through the front layer of rent-a-cops at the gate, and head in for a free field of fire.
Imagine what multiple shooters COULD have accomplished on Ft. Hood: the biggest single-day loss of military lives on American soil since Pearl Harbor.
Again, do not expect anything to change.
on 11 Nov 2009 at 2:03 pm # Fûz
” … those of us who have passed background checks … ”
That reminds me:
How did Major Hasan receive, and retain, a security clearance? I’m guessing he had at least DoD Secret. No trivial matter if his parents were not US-born.
on 12 Nov 2009 at 4:33 am # Donna B.
I asked my husband about this and apparently military bases were relatively gun free zones well before Clinton’s time.
He said that as a Marine in the early 60s, their rifles were stored in their barracks, each one locked up separately, with each Marine having his own key.
They had no access to ammunition unless they were at the firing range, where, he explained to me they developed numerous ingenious ways to steal it and take it back to the barracks where they used it to shoot the coke machine outside.
I’m sort of sure that officers may have been allowed to wear sidearms during that time and I realize that’s changed too.
Anyway, while I hope that regulations are loosened, I actually expect great effort toward them being tightened. I’m not an optimist when it comes to the absurd extremes gun controllers will attempt to legislate.
on 13 Nov 2009 at 2:25 pm # bud
Oscar’s hit it.
The military is a hierachial organization, and if you think the culture of “entitlement” is personified by Hollywood celebrities, you’ve never been around a gaggle of general-grade officers.
US and THEM is an ingrained part of the military- see: “Officers and men”. Allow enlisted personnel to carry on post? Fat chance. The military still revolves around the concept of what it takes to be able to order and receive complience of a command to do suicidal things - frontal assaults of fortified positions comes to mind- and having the “commanded” the power to defy the “commanding” is not going to happen.
I did my time long before BillC and I never served anywhere, including beauiful SE Asia, where EM (other than MPs, CID and courier duty) carried sidearms. Rescinding the BillC order may allow civilian employees on US posts CC rights, but EM? Never.
on 08 Jan 2010 at 10:58 pm # Rick
I read this over on [url=buckeye firearms]http://forums.buckeyefirearms.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=6100[/url]:
“executive orders which are contrary to the law (including the the Constitution) are void so far as they are outside the law. They are illegal executive orders. Even more bothersome is the fact that there does not seem to be 1 federal judge in 1,000 who understands this either.”