A soldier inspects a pistol at a PX at Fort Huachuca. Military.com/US Army.
While gun control in schools have taken up the headlines, President Trump has also called for ending gun free zones in military bases. Military.com Trump made the statement at the CPAC meeting and tied it into arming teachers and veterans to help prevent school shootings. Trump says that schools and military bases are easy targets because attackers know that there won't be armed. At most military bases troops are required to check in their firearms or leave them at home. Trump cited several attacks that have occurred at military bases.
My Comment:
A quick correction for President Trump and the Military.com article. Both cited the Chattanooga shooting where an ISIS terrorist shot up a recruitment center and a Navy Reserve center. While the people at the recruitment center were unarmed, at least two men, a Marine and the commanding Naval officer of the reserve center were carrying pistols illegally.
Obviously, nobody was charged in the Chattanooga shooting for illegally carrying a weapon. One of the men, the Marine, died at the scene while the other, Lt. Commander Timothy White, managed to hold off the attacker until cops arrived and shot him. It is unclear if either hit the attacker but both did fight back.
The Chattanooga shooting told us several things. First of all it was that CCW works in these kinds of attacks. Though the two brave men that fought back against the ISIS terrorist failed to stop him, they bought time for the other people at the recruitment center who were unarmed to escape. Had they not done so, more people would have died. Had they had a little more luck they could have stopped the attack entirely.
Secondly, it's very clear that a lot of people are ignoring the gun free zone signs in the first place. Lt. Commander White thought, correctly as it turned out, that nobody would care if he carrying a weapon in a gun free zone if he ended up using it to stop a mass shooting. Even a man as completely anti-gun as Barack Obama figured out that it would be insane to go with the letter of the law and charge a man carrying a gun in a gun free zone who used that gun to save lives.
I think this policy repealing gun free zones on military bases would be a good one to put into place. I don't buy the counter arguments that soldiers aren't responsible enough to carry weapons. If that's the case, why are they even soldiers in the first place? All of them have been trained in gun safety and operation and a lot of them have been tested in combat. If we can trust anyone to use concealed weapons correctly, it's our nations soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors. I mean we could probably have an exception for recruits in basic training and those too young to own pistols anyways, but those would be the exceptions, not the rule.
Will it happen though? I am not sure. I don't know if Trump can do this without Congress and Congress doesn't seem to do much of anything. I'm not expecting any new legislation from congress in either a pro-gun or anti-gun direction, with a possible exception for the NICS fix or banning bump stocks. I think the status quo where guns are officially banned on base but where people ignore the rule with the understanding that they won't be charged if they actually use them will remain in place.
I do have to say that Trump is completely right about gun free zones though. I am guessing the attacker in the Chattanooga shooting would have targeted somewhere else if he knew that the Naval Reserve center would have armed people. Given he had an AK-47, a pistol and a Saiga shotgun, he could have killed way more than five people if he had chosen a different target.
The same is true with the Florida shooting. We have heard tales of extreme bravery from teachers that tried to stop Cruz but were unable to do so because they were unarmed. Had they had a concealed firearm they likely could have stopped Cruz or at least slowed him down.
And we also have to remember that Cruz was some stupid kid that was doing all this for attention. Unlike the Chattanooga attacker, who was a determined terrorist, he would have likely backed down or killed himself as soon as he was confronted. And even if he hadn't, the teacher could have either stopped or slowed down the attacker.
As for gun control in general, I think that this news cycle is probably ending soon. The narrative has shifted from new gun control laws to how badly local and federal officials screwed up. Once it was revealed that at least four cops had responded to the attack but failed to even try and stop Cruz the narrative completely shifted. There won't be any new gun control laws, except maybe a ban on bump stocks.
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