by Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
After the deadly terrorist attack on unarmed military service facilities in Chattanooga, TN, on July 16, there is a two-pronged debate on security in the age of Al Qaeda and ISIS. One part of the debate focuses on the question of whether or not active US military personnel should be trusted to bear arms and ammunition, for which they are fully trained and often have used in combat situations. The other part focuses on the even broader question of whether or not it is time to take down all or many of the “gun-free zone” signs.
The Chattanooga attacks are only the latest in a long string of active shooter murders perpetrated in the United States and in several other foreign countries.
On television, on the Internet, in saloons and restaurants, and in homes, there seems to be very broad support for giving the professionals in the military the means to defend themselves from homegrown or foreign terrorists as well as other criminals. Even among law-enforcement people I’ve spoken with in the past two days, there seems almost universal support for doing so.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff have already announced that they will review a policy that has been around since the early 1990s with respect to the military.
Governors in at least a half-dozen states didn’t wait for lengthy reviews before taking some steps to balance the scales of security. Within two days of the latest attack on the military, the governors have ordered National Guardsmen to be armed in the wake of the July 16 attack on two military facilities in Tennessee, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott went a step further July 18 by immediately relocating recruiters to armories from storefronts.
In an executive order, the Republican governor said he wants Guard recruiters to move from six storefront locations into armories until state officials can evaluate and make security improvements, including possibly installing bullet-proof glass or enhanced surveillance equipment.
Scott went much further. He ordered the Guardsmen to be armed, as did governors in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Indiana, according to Associated Press.
Needless to say, security for military recruiting centers also has come under scrutiny since the Tennessee shootings because some people believe they are too vulnerable. US military officials have said security at recruiting and reserve centers will be reviewed, but the Army’s top officer, Gen. Ray Odierno, said it’s too early to say whether the facilities should have security guards or other increased protection.
0dierno’s caution suggests that this administration is not very likely to take steps to reverse a policy for the military that dates back to President George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
“I think we have to be careful about over-arming ourselves, and I’m not talking about where you end up attacking each other,” Odierno said during a morning breakfast, according to news reports. Instead, he said, it’s more about “accidental discharges and everything else that goes along with having weapons that are loaded that causes injuries.”
Tucked in strip malls in small rural communities and in high-traffic city spots like New York’s Times Square, military recruiting and reserve stations are designed to be open and welcoming to the public. The troops inside aren’t allowed to carry weapons. The ban is largely due to legal issues, such as laws that prohibit the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement, so troops don’t routinely carry guns when they are not in combat or on military bases.
Truth is that when I was in the Army so many years ago, I was never given ammunition when on guard duty of important parts of a military facility, only a few rounds when assigned to guarding military prisoners outside the guardhouse bars.
“We’re always going to be somewhat vulnerable to a lone wolf, or whatever you want to call it, a surprise shooter, because we are out there with the population and that’s where we have to be,” said Odierno. “We can’t separate ourselves as we continue to recruit and interact with the population.”
In the wake of previous shootings at military facilities, the services have reviewed and allegedly strengthened security precautions at the centers. But most of those involve safety precautions and the need to be aware and watchful of surroundings.
Odierno said that there are currently no plans to have security personnel posted at recruiting centers, but added that there will be a review. He said a notice went out the same day as the latest shooting to all Army locations reminding them of protection measures.
But that doesn’t sound like the military will give up its “no guns for military personnel” policy. Apparently, the death toll at two Fort Hood mass shootings in Texas didn’t move them, nor did the Washington Navy Yard massacre.
Meanwhile, many in the civilian community are discussing the whole gun-free zone policy, even as devout anti-gunners are trying to figure out how they can further disarm American citizens who are also at risk of attack by domestic criminals as well as terrorists. Some of those citizens might even be able to help protect military recruiters somewhere in the US from future attacks.
The Internet has been loaded with comments about the foolishness of the gun-free zone policy, most of it coming from pro-gunners who have given the subject much thought after all of the movie theater, school and church mass shootings that have taken place in gun-free zones.
Megan Kelly devoted much of her July 17 Fox News Kelly File show to ferret out support for abandoning the gun-free zone policy that has taken such a toll of innocent lives because it promises safety when no safety in fact exists. Kelly does not represent the mainstream of American journalists on such an issue, but she seems to have taken the public pulse.
We’ve seen the failure of so-called gun free zones where only criminals and terrorist have guns. Isn’t it time for us to go back to the normality that existed years ago, and give the innocents a chance to preserve their own lives?
