Friday, April 11, 2014

Why No Guns on Military Bases

USA Today

The overriding concern of those who wrote the rule was safety — the idea that ubiquitous guns, mixed with young soldiers in stressful conditions, could lead not just to accidental shootings but also to fistfights escalating to gunfire, or to more suicides, which already plague the military.
As horrific as mass shootings are at military installations, they're rare. Starting with the 2009 spree at Fort Hood by Maj. Nidal Hasan, there have been three in five years.
The hypocrisy is blatant in this case. Pro-gun fanatics are screaming in unison for guns on military bases because of the extremely rare mass shootings.  Yet, the rare nature of accidental child deaths is the very reason they object to safe storage laws. In fact, according to them, the 30,000+ gunshot deaths each year are rare in comparison to the number of gun owners, therefore no additional restrictions are required.

But now, military personnel need to be armed.

The USA Today article mentioned suicides. Of course the extremists insist that gun availability makes no difference in suicide rates.  And when that bizarre cop-out doesn't work, they say it's a person's right to kill themselves if they want to - it's a free person's right to decide.

But, I would think that reasonable people who are concerned with soldier suicides and who have no gun bias clouding their opinion, agree, allowing guns on state-side military bases would result in more suicides not less.

10 comments:

  1. Since you can't win on the question of mass shootings, you shift to suicides, as though a soldier couldn't buy a gun off base or use a gun during exercises. But, of course, you left mass shootings, since you've yet to give a satisfactory answer to why it's best to disarm potential targets.

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    1. Gun availability makes suicide more likely, as well as accidents and theft and all the other problems inherent in gun ownership. The chances, on the other hand, of thwarting a mass shooting are almost zero.

      I thought you liked arguments that were based on really tiny percentages?

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    2. Really? The chances of thwarting a mass shooting are almost Zero?

      Then why is it that out of the small sample of mass shootings and attempted mass shootings that we have, there are several that were thwarted by someone with a gun? Sometimes a resource officer on site, sometimes a private individual or several individuals with carry permits.

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    3. Mikeb, did you notice what I said? Soldiers who want to kill themselves will find a way. Telling them that they can't carry on base won't stop suicide. Again, what we see here is that you really want to disarm everyone. After all, as long as there are guns around, someone might use one.

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  2. There should be regular mental checkup of the soldier to avoid any type accident by soldiers. It is good that if there is no gun with any soldier in their base camp and give them gun safety training on regular basis.

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  3. My recollection is that during my first active duty enlistment, privately owned firearms had to be kept in the arms room if you lived in the barracks.

    "Pro-gun fanatics are screaming in unison for guns on military bases because of the extremely rare mass shootings."

    So, when the statistically rare mass shooting occurs out in civilian land, why is it adequate reason to enact an assault weapon ban? Yet the same rarity is used as an argument against arming soldiers?
    When someone raises his hand and takes the oath, he is signing on for the surrender of many basic rights, your life really isn't your own. However, suggesting that the same soldiers that can presumably be trusted in a foreign land with automatic weapons and explosives, yet somehow become untrustworthy when in a less stressful environment, seems quite contradictory.

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    1. Mass shootings in civilian land and mass shootings on military bases elicit the same response for the gun control side.

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    2. Yes. A primary response in favor of gun control and a secondary concern for victims.

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  4. "Win" on mass shootings? You treat this like a football game, win/lose. Deaths are a win/lose game with you. How did you come around to such depraved thinking? Death isn't a "gotcha" game. Suicides are a problem in the military, or maybe you haven't been paying attention. Why don't you put your obsessive advocate personality to work saving innocent lives instead of promoting something that is a right without a chance of being taken out of the law? Why do you promote death instead of promoting life?

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  5. The moment you start talking about the Military (especially the professional army) should be able to exercise their "Second Amendment Right", you show you have no idea about what the right actually is

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