Arming our Service Members

"Anyone agree that it's time that Service Members, at least the senior enlisted and officer corps, be allowed to carry weapons on duty."

I agree that service members, at least some if not many, should be armed on duty. And the ones that are should be properly trained.

Also, we have many justified reasons why or why not. One thing for sure is the gun free zones have to go.
 
We do not need troops carrying personal weapons on base.
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What makes troops on base more dangerous than the adult population elsewhere?
In other words, why do you not support CCW here, if you support it elsewhere?
 
In other words, why do you not support CCW here, if you support it elsewhere?
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Read my post above. i spent a career in the US Army and know what young troops are capable of. The Army has a big time gang problem.

In 1961 i witnessed an SFC murder a PFC with a .45 pistol. My overseas tour was extended so i could testify at the court martial. The SFC who got life in Ft. Leavenworth.

Concealed carry on military installations is not going to happen.
 
Read my post above. i spent a career in the US Army and know what young troops are capable of. The Army has a big time gang problem.

In 1961 i witnessed an SFC murder a PFC with a .45 pistol. My overseas tour was extended so i could testify at the court martial. The SFC who got life in Ft. Leavenworth.

Concealed carry on military installations is not going to happen.
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We were talking SNCO types. I don't consider an SFC senior. SSG is in there.

Again with the officers. I'm thinking Maj. Maybe Capt.

We are getting close to a consensus. I'm sure we can never totally agree. It's the old expression about opinions.

I hate to say it but it just seems to me that for the most part I had a more dedicated group to work with. When I was on a tender for a deployment We did get a group aboard at the last minute that were considered "untrainable" to do grunt work. Most of them were gone in two months, administrative discharges. Some less than honorable. A couple with BCD.


BTW In my state. to get your license in most counties all it takes is to pass NICS and pay $20. there is no training requirement. It has worked out well. The number of legal revocations doesn't make a statistical blip.

I say legal ravocations because Philly will revoke for any reason they can dream up using the "character clause'. I have not heard of any bad shoots by a license holder. I can't say the same for our highly trained LEO.
 
thallub said:
Read my post above. i spent a career in the US Army and know what young troops are capable of. The Army has a big time gang problem.

In 1961 i witnessed an SFC murder a PFC with a .45 pistol. My overseas tour was extended so i could testify at the court martial. The SFC who got life in Ft. Leavenworth.

Concealed carry on military installations is not going to happen.
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So despite the "gun free" zones like Military installations, someone was still able to be murdered. I suspect that armed people provide some kind of a deterrent and, in any case, someone who is armed can potentially stop an armed rampage before it gets worse. Everyone who is eligible to conceal carry, according to state law, should be allowed to conceal carry on a Military base of that state or other states which recognize that permit. I think it is worth noting that not everyone who is eligible should be required to carry concealed and it is certainly possible to make it into the Army or whatever branch of the U.S. Military and still not be eligible to conceal carry in that state.
 
And all these were in training. NOT combat ops.
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Interesting. A friend of mine once told me about watching one soldier shoot another in the face with a blank during training. No harm was intended, apparently, but that's not how it worked out. Both men were rapidly removed, one on a stretcher and neither returned.
 
Johnska, those two example in this thread sound a lot like gun counter stories like the selector switch story I read earlier.


Anyways, back on topic. Listen to what service members and recent service members are saying about arming the military. They don't want it because they worry more frontier safety around their fellow soldiers than a random jihadist attack. That being said, there should be more handgun training, and certain grades and duties that are not currently armed, should be armed once the training is completed. Recruiters should be able to draw an M9 if they can.

An office local to me wasn't tempted to be firebombed by a mentally disturbed man. The police were right around the corner and caught the guy. And the recruiters were quick to get out. This never made the news, or at least not in the manner I was privy to watching it occur. Those recruiters should had been able to defend themselves. They were lucky the nut job was so incompetent.
 
Read my post above. i spent a career in the US Army and know what young troops are capable of. The Army has a big time gang problem.

In 1961 i witnessed an SFC murder a PFC with a .45 pistol. My overseas tour was extended so i could testify at the court martial. The SFC who got life in Ft. Leavenworth.

Concealed carry on military installations is not going to happen.
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So, because you witnessed a murder in 1961 (tragic and criminal), I should not be allowed to carry concealed to and from work, despite any permits and training I have, simply because I am a service-member. This makes sense how?
 
We were talking SNCO types. I don't consider an SFC senior. SSG is in there.
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If you don't consider SFC "senior" you best brush up on your rank tables. (Army)
SFC = Sargent First Class E-7
SSG = Staff Sgt E-6
Sgt = E-5


Military life is NOT the same as civilian life. Stresses are different. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS ARE DIFFERENT! And, that includes your right to protect your life, and how.

Personally, I think the military should allow CCW to those who meet the civilian legal standards. But its their call. And their choices are never based on what is best for the individual servicemen, but what they decide is best for the service, overall.

By the numbers, the majority of troops wouldn't qualify for a civilian CCW anyway....(less than 21, mostly)...

Advocate for what you think is right, by all means. If you are unhappy with what the BRASS does, the only options I see are, become one yourself, and change policy, become someone with influence on the civilian side (through Congress, etc) or simply don't enlist.

Senior rank implies age, and wisdom, etc., but that's no more than an assumption.

Wasn't the mass murdering fanatic at Ft Hood A MAJOR?????

So much for that theory....:rolleyes:
 
We were talking SNCO types. I don't consider an SFC senior. SSG is in there.

If you don't consider SFC "senior" you best brush up on your rank tables. (Army)
SFC = Sargent First Class E-7
SSG = Staff Sgt E-6
Sgt = E-5
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Sorry I misread SFC.

Allthough I'm Navy I know most of the other branches. It was required for joint ops.

My son is retired army. As he was a navy brat he knew navy too. Once he had to straighten out others in his command that a navy Capt is the same as a Col. (O6) .Conversely an army Capt is the same as navy LT. (O3).
 
Chattanooga

To offer a little perspective to the general argument....here the shooter pulled up in front of the recruitment offices (located in a "L" shaped strip center), stopped parallel to the building, fired a single shot, hesitated a (accounts vary) few? seconds, and then fired up to fifty rounds into the front glass of the offices.

Facing out of the offices to the immediate left is a restaurant, to the right a cell phone sales store. Directly in front is a multilane parking lot. From about 4 o'clock to 11 o'clock is a high traffic, signaled, multi lane highway. Across the parking lot, about two hundred feet is the exit ramp from a multilane, limited access highway.

Across the two highways in an arc from about 12 o'clock to 4 o'clock - a bank, cell phone call center, college, gas station where I filled up about an hour before, and another strip center.

Multiple witnesses were in their cars just outside the recruitment center.

At the Navy support facility, a gated, purpose built, stand alone complex, local reports today say that one of the soldiers is thought to have discharged a weapon. While in a commercial area, the immediate grounds are far more isolated than the recruitment center.
 
We're at war. And something we're not used to in modern history is fighting an enemy within our borders. Our servicemen are wearing uniforms and as such should be outfitted with side arms. I think TN's event sort of proves the argument - once again. You wouldn't expect a police officer to put on his uniform but then prohibit him from carrying his side arm. Men and women in uniform, either police or military, make a nice target in today's world.
 
We're at war. And something we're not used to in modern history is fighting an enemy within our borders. Our servicemen are wearing uniforms and as such should be outfitted with side arms. I think TN's event sort of proves the argument - once again. You wouldn't expect a police officer to put on his uniform but then prohibit him from carrying his side arm. Men and women in uniform, either police or military, make a nice target in today's world.
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But thats why we have police, and we have soldiers and sailors. So the military isn't policing. If the military beings policing, then the terrorists have won in the same way they "won" by already changing the landscape to the point where we are strip searching children and grannies at the airport, and recording everything I say or type.

We have seen this before. Do you recall the Weather Underground?

That being said, there really isn't anything wrong with arming some .mil folks. They need to define a requirement to protect themselves stateside and they need to address it with better training.
 
I don't think anyone here is suggesting that our service men and woman should be given or act like they have police powers. Merely that they be allowed to defend themselves with firearms.
 
Double jeopardy...

44 AMP said:
Military life is NOT the same as civilian life. Stresses are different. YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS ARE DIFFERENT! And, that includes your right to protect your life, and how.
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You really don't have a lot of freedom in the Military compared to the civilian sector. So in the Military you don't get stuff like freedom of speech or the individual right to bear arms. What gets me though is, for the same offense(s) you can be punished in the civilian courts and then punished again by the Military under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). A kind of legal double jeopardy. And if you somehow manage to do something that isn't covered under the UCMJ, they can just hang you under the general article.
 
You really don't have a lot of freedom in the Military compared to the civilian sector. So in the Military you don't get stuff like freedom of speech or the individual right to bear arms. What gets me though is, for the same offense(s) you can be punished in the civilian courts and then punished again by the Military under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). A kind of legal double jeopardy. And if you somehow manage to do something that isn't covered under the UCMJ, they can just hang you under the general article.

I never saw anyone tried in both civilian court and by court-martial. I have seen offenders discharged after landing in prison. Usually an administrative of some sort. In far off lands who you were tried by was controlled by the status of forces agreement with that country.
 
Dan-
So the military isn't policing.
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Totally wrong point. There would be no difference between having designated individuals on guard duty of the day at any said unit, and all the troops who are on guard duty anyways at ASP's, Disciplinary Barracks, Rail Heads, Depot, Secret Squirrel Signal facilities (which never let us MP's use their Chow Halls), Nuke, Chem, and Bomb sites. And typical MP's running amuck and doing their things on installations. They wont be there to 'police' you, me, or anyone else- they'll be there to hopefully aggressively return fire to whoever initiates it against them first with the end goal of not having a lot of wounded and dead friends. Sounds like it ought to be Armed CQ duty to me- not policing.
 
10-96, I'm fine with exactly what you suggest. You actually are suggesting what I'd like to see happen.

My point was simply to illustrate the original demarcations and intent of the professional military in our nation's civil organizations and law.
 
I never saw anyone tried in both civilian court and by court-martial
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It sometimes happens. An Army troop stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC was tried for the murder of a lady in civilian court and was acquitted. Decades later, with DNA evidence, the US Army called the retired M/Sgt. to active duty. The Army court martial board found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to life in Leavenworth.
 
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