Here’s a band-aid and, now that my horse is gone, can you shut that door?
CNN:
Soldiers assigned to Fort Hood will have to register their personal firearms with the director of emergency services, he added. Fort Hood is home to some 50,000 active-duty soldiers and 18,000 of the soldiers’ family members.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:16 am
The movie “Patton” was on AMC this morning. He was known for carrying personal weapons, and I wonder what he would have said about the new policy. I think that it might be helpful to start thinking about all the “appropriate” measures from the common sense perspective of people who aren’t infected with the PC mental illness.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:21 am
It’s been a while, but I seem to recall if you kept your personally owned weapons on base, they were supposed to be registered with… post MPs? One reason why mine were always either off-post or in, ahem, alternative storage locations.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I can’t imagine that this will accomplish a single damned thing. At least they’re posting some armed guards while they’re at it.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:37 am
So they’re going to require people who DON’T keep them on base to register? So they’re responding to an incident that illustrated the folly of violating their Soldier’s right to keep and bear arms by…further violating their soldier’s right to keep and bear arms.
Makes perfect sense to me.
BTW: Did you catch this part?
“I don’t think necessarily [the security changes] would have had an effect on this event,” [Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, Fort Hood’s commanding general] said.
So, in response to an attack, we’re going to implement new infringements that wouldn’t have prevented the attack because we’ve got to at least PRETEND like we’re doing something about it.
As I said on another blog: In a peacetime military (yes, I know we are engaged in battle in some areas, but we haven’t been “at war” since WWII), it isn’t the Warriors who ascend to positions of leadership, it’s the politicians. By and large, we don’t have military “leadership” at any level at or above unit commanders. We have military management.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:41 am
+1 Canthros
Reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4yteHubJRw
Had all this been in place BEFORE the shooting MAYBE a guard would have taken him out a little sooner, but on such a big base how many guards are we talking about?
In the end we’d have a paralyzed shooter, a body count….and a registration card! Wooo-Hooo!
That card makes all the damn difference, doesn’t it!
Just like it does when the Gang Bangers in Boston decide to shoot an knife each other I’m glad to know the gun used was either grabbed before the registration, or is registered to the person they stole it from!
makes all the dead people so worth it!
November 25th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Ones on base already have to be registered and the registration of ones off base won’t hold up in court so they are actually acomplishing nothing,
November 25th, 2009 at 11:51 am
They’ve tried this before, and the order was rescinded quite quickly when senior officers protested.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Why don’t we just skip the foreplay and simply require that all jihadis in the military register themselves?
November 25th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
In what way would knowing that Hassan had a couple of handguns have stopped this? This is like seeing, “due to a recent outbreak of shitting in the office trash cans, all bathroom breaks must be logged in a logbook.”
November 25th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I fail to see the point, it’s well established that Hassan owned his guns legally. Unless of course they are waiting for the next event like this, to then claim “registration didn’t work, maybe prohibition does”.
Man I’m getting paranoid.
November 25th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Our military can’t even protect themselves on their bases, and they are afraid of violating the rights of terrorist insurgents in the field – http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576646,00.html.
Obama dithers around while troops die in Afpac.
The military can’t even resolve the problem of jihadists in its own ranks (even as officers).
These are very strange times.
November 25th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
They don’t need to do anything except evaluate Muslim members of the armed forces to see if they are going to “go Islamic” on their fellow soldiers.
November 25th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Oh ouch Robert.
Should they also evaluate all Christians to see if they are going to “go Crusader” on their fellow soldiers?
November 25th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Lance,
I also disagree with profiling, but I believe that the crusades have been over for quite a while now, where the Jihad against us is a forever type of thing. I don’t see any Christians over in the sandbox joining the various armies and then yelling, “CHRIST IS LORD” and commence with the murder. Two different wars, two totally different faiths.
November 25th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
“All vehicles entering the post will be required to display a Department of Defense sticker or a secure pass”
Another example of increased security rules that they know would not have stopped the shooter in the first place.
As for profiling, I think Robb summed that up best right after the shooting. Increased scrutiny just because you are Muslim is not good. Increased scrutiny because you think suicide bombers are awesome, however, is a good thing.
November 25th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I worked at a federal lab adjacent to a military base in the 90’s, and started there just after the first Gulf War. For two months when I drove onto base my ID was compared to my face, a mirror was used to inspect the bottom of the car, the trunk and hood were opened, and any large containers in the car were inspected.
After those two months, security was relaxed and my car sticker with a friendly wave became the norm as I sped onto base at 20mph.
This will be no different. And anyone who registers their guns, rather than passing them into the nominal keeping of a relative who will not register them, deserves to be unsurprised when the military decides personally owned firearms are a reason to deny promotion.
November 25th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
“unsurprised when the military decides personally owned firearms are a reason to deny promotion.”
Which is something that .mil will NEVER put in writing.
November 26th, 2009 at 2:15 am
“unsurprised when the military decides personally owned firearms are a reason to deny promotion.”
If they ever do that, and it WOULD become known no matter what the higher-ups say, I’m certain that the Military would see a major drop in enlistments and re-enlistments. Who would want to enlist or stay in a organization that DISCRIMINATES against personnel just for owning firearms? Especially when it’s a organization that USES firearms.
November 26th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Few years back my old boss made a trip out to Tinker AFB, which has a Navy wing stationed there. The Navy area had guards all over the place, pretty much every gate and door. He asked someone about it, they said that after the Walker espionage case they were determined that such would not happen again.
Slight problem: he was a serving officer and had legitimate access to everywhere. So the guards were very nice “SEE?!? We’re DOING something!” window dressing that did pretty much nothing to prevent a similar case.
So now there’s another hoop for the good troops to jump through while any jihadi clown will- Gasp! Horrors!!- not register anything he gets hold of.
Fucking idiots.
November 27th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Aw come on,,, who wants an armed military anyway??
/sarc
Isn’t that the point? An armed military?
Sheesh, somebody, please call the adults back into the room!!!!