GOP Rep. Stockman Urges House to Repeal Gun Ban on Military Bases

The grievous shooting at Fort Hood Wednesday claimed three innocent lives and left 16 wounded—the deaths occurred in a gun-free zone due to former president Clinton’s 1993 policy to disarm soldiers on military bases.

townhall.com...

“Only the most out-of-touch radical would try to disarm soldiers,” Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) noted in a press release.

townhall.com...

This is the third mass shooting on a military base in five years, and it’s because our trained soldiers aren’t allowed to carry defensive weapons. Anti-gun activists have turned our military bases into soft targets for killers.

Read the rest.

Stockman’s bill would repeal two military gun control regulations and nullify any additional provisions which prohibit trained military personnel from carrying “officially issued or personally owned firearms on military bases.

It would also bar the Secretary of Defense and the Secretaries of military departments from reinforcing these types of regulations and bar the President from issuing an executive order.

t 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. Mr. Clinton’s deadly rules even disarmed officers, the most trusted members of the military charged with leading enlisted soldiers in combat.

Yes it is hard to believe.

Not so much that this snip came from the same guy who gave us the ASW ban of the 90s.

So I wonder if Cintons rules were never created because of his political agenda of the time.

If any those shootings would ever have happened.

And when they do ?

They call the guys (girls) with guns.

Just one point. Why are all the conservative headlines including the word "Clinton" (as did one of the quotes in the OP)? This was a DoD directive, was it not?

From 1992: www.dtic.mil...

The wake of the September 2013 fatal shooting of 12 people by a civilian military contractor who went on a rampage at Washington Navy Yard saw the recirculation of a rumor that gained currency after the November 2009 fatal shooting of 13 people by a U.S. Army psychiatrist at
Fort Hood, Texas: that one of the reasons these mass shooters had not been stopped earlier in their killing sprees was because President Bill Clinton had issued an executive order back in 1993 that prohibited personnel on military bases from carrying firearms while on duty.

While there was at least a small kernel of real information underlying such claims, the gist of the rumor was wrong on two major counts.

A change in U.S. Army regulations issued in March 1993 (just two months after President Clinton assumed office) did affect the issue of personnel carrying firearms on military bases, but that change in regulations was issued by the Department of the Army and was not implemented by President Clinton via an executive order. Moreover, that change in regulations came about in response to a U.S. Department of Defense directive issued in February 1992, during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, and not at the sole behest of President Clinton.

Additionally, that change in regulations (which applied only to the Army, not other branches of the U.S. armed forces) did not ban the carrying of weapons by soldiers on Army bases; it restricted the authorization to carry firearms to personnel engaged in law enforcement and security duties, and to personnel stationed at facilities where there was "a reasonable expectation that life or Army assets would be jeopardized if firearms were not carried":
a. The authorization to carry firearms will be issued only to qualified personnel when there is a reasonable expectation that life or Department of the Army (DA) assets will be jeopardized if firearms are not carried. Evaluation of the necessity to carry a firearm will be made considering this expectation weighed against the possible consequences of accidental or indiscriminate use of firearms.

b. DA personnel regularly engaged in law enforcement or security duties will be armed.

c. DA personnel are authorized to carry firearms while engaged in security duties, protecting personnel and vital Government assets, or guarding prisoners.
Last updated: 19 September 2013
Read more at www.snopes.com...

Does Snopes have this wrong?

And why does the base commander disagree with the (primarily) chicken hawks?

MILLEY: If you have a weapon and you're on base, it's supposed to be registered on base. This weapon was not registered on base.

[...]

REPORTER: What are your thoughts on soldiers carrying weapons for self-defense?

MILLEY: You're not allowed to carry concealed weapons on base.

REPORTER: Do you think that should change?

MILLEY: No I don't think so, we shouldn't have concealed weapons on base. We have law enforcement agents, with trained professionals, and I don't want to endorse carrying concealed weapons base.

reply to post by ~Lucidity

Just one point. Why are all the conservative headlines including the word "Clinton" (as did one of the quotes in the OP)? This was a DoD directive, was it not? - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Who is the 'commander in chief' ? ?

Last time I checked the military worked for the government.

That one post about concealed weapons, who said anything about it having to be concealed weapons. All military personnel who carry weapons from my observation do not conceal their weapons.

Anyway, I agree, security personal should be armed. However, fully allowing open weapons on a base can open a can of worms that nobody wants to see. The military may work for the government, but the government knows that all of these guys are highly trained and could cause chaos at any moment should they choose to.

I believe it was done in the first place to pretty much prevent any kind of coup d'etat scenario from every gaining ground.

Looking at it from my perspective, if a revolution ever breaks out, unarmed bases is a good thing for the people, just saying.

reply to post by neo96


Why would they disarm soldiers on military bases in the first place? Sounds completely stupid.

Disarming people in general is a stupid concept, military or otherwise. It obviously has failed, or at least on the levels they have tried to implement.

Keep word in gun control is the word CONTROL.

-SAP-

reply to post by neo96


Instead of repealing the gun ban on military bases the government will probably try to ban the use of .45 handguns for everyone.