Registering guns on base - The Next Phase

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Ozzie223

Retired Screen Name
Hi All,

You may remember a previous thread about how a directive had come down Air Force channels about registering POW (Privately Owned Weapons) on base with the security police forces. It has now been implemented, months later, with a twist not mentioned earlier.

First let me say, I live in South Dakota and the AFB in question is Ellsworth AFB. South Dakota does not require you to register your firearms. Pistol, shotgun, rifle, whatever. You buy it, it's yours. Boom. Done. CCW is like license plates, but alot cheaper.

Ellsworth SPS (Security Police Squadron) issued a form to be filled out. It wants TYPE, MAKE and SERIAL NUMBER. So my AR-15 would read RIFLE, COLT, CCHXXXect. The "Routine Uses" line of the form reads as follow, and is my major problem....

To maintain accountability of firearms, record when firearms are removed and returned to the facility (they mean police storage for barracks guys) and determine the numbers and location of privately owned firearms on an installation. Routine use could include DISCLOSURE TO OTHER INVESTIGATORY AUTHORITIES, SSN USED FOR IDENTIFICATION AND RETRIEVING OF FILES.

What they are saying is that they intend to post the information to any law enforcement/government agency that wants the information.

South Dakota does not require registration. They say the primary purpose of collecting the information is so that SPS personnel responding to calls (burglary, domestic abuse, ect,ect) will have foreknowledge of firearms at the residence. That is a bald faced lie. Why would they need your serial number to know you have a shotgun in the house? Knowing the TYPE (rifle,shotgun) and MODEL (Match Target, Persuader,ect) seems much more impoprtant than the serial number, but they only want the type, make and serial number.

I suspect one of two things.

1. Anti's in the Clinton administration have succeeded in bullying the soccor-mom soldiers we have running the pentagon. Anything they can do to hurt gun rights is a victory for them, so they ram this down the pentagons windpipe 'cause they can.

2. Our military leadership is not the friend of America we thought it was, and it has it's own control agenda.

Once or both of these may be right. I don't know at this point, except that their actions defy logical explanation. A serial number will not protect a 18 year old security policemans' life. No matter what you think, tell me what it is. Thanks.

Ozzie223 from Ellsworth AFB.
 
Nothing has been implemented here in Wyoming yet and friends up in Minot (ACC) have not heard anything about this either. They tried tracking it down through ACC but never recieded any firm answer. It has always been the base's choice weather to register all weapons or not. Possibly your base CC feels the need to do so.

If this is the AF Form 1314 that was the same basic statement it had way back in the mid 80's when I worked in the armory. We just ran the serial # through NCIC and LETS (think thats what it was) and then filed the paperwork when the serial # came back clean. Never had anybody inquire about firearms unless some Sq CC called asking about a troop that was in serious trouble.

Why do you think we choose to live off base????? This is just another reason to live off base or keep your weapons with a trusted friend off base.
 
So, if I understand correctly
Your personally owned, non-military issued firearms must be kept in a central area with everyone else's and you need to go thru some kind of check out procedure to go shooting....then you have to check it in? So therefore it really isn't under your or your spouse's control except when its in your hands?


Hmmm....so conceivably someone else has access to it without your knowledge and could use it for something, and well, maybe, say if it was a pump shotgun or even a semi-auto....errrr, something like that...anyway, maybe leave brass or a shell that you happened to load in the magazine, and well, sorta, something went bad and the police came and found an expended round that had your fingerprints........nah....nevermind

------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
For the most part, it doesn't sound much different than when I worked in the Armory at Minot back in the mid-late 80's. If you lived in the barracks, then yes, your firearms had to be stored at the Armory in the P.O.W. room (Privately Owned Weapons). Officers, as well as enlisted. If you lived in on-base housing, there was no such requirement.
Like Joey said, it may be a base requirement, but not an Air Force wide requirement.

DC, hate to burst your bubble about your conspiracy theory, but most of the armorers that I worked with were upstanding folks. Firearms of the barracks personnel were kept in the armory, because the barracks were often the party place. When people signed out their weapons, we didn't care as to why.
We only asked for an approximate return time. When they came back, we just wanted to know how they shot. Besides, having POW's taken in and out of the armory provided us with amusement. I had one butterball Lieutenant who decided to take another officer out shooting. All went well until they came back. Damn officer shot the clearing barrel!
We laughed our butts offs for awhile. Most of us didn't like this particular LT (I scared the S*** out of him on an exercise one day), but we all wanted to be in the Colonel's office hearing him explain how the accidental discharge happened.
 
MissileCop;

Funny story, but I gotta tell you I've seen two guys pop one into a clearing barrel, and heard of several others. The first instance of that was in Vietnam, and ended forever my constant carping about how stupid those barrels were (are). That's what they're for!!

Guy at Ellsworth while I was there, early 80's, without a barrel available (guarding missiles, btw) killed his partner while trying to clear his M-16 and performing the ritual backwards (instead of drop magazine, work action, pull trigger, he worked the action, dropped the magazine, then pulled the trigger BANG.)

I've actually gotten kind of devoted to those "stupid" barrels through the years!
 
Larry and MissileCop: Just imagine the fun when someone zaps the clearing barrel with the OICW. ;) Hmm...we need a bigger barrel.

[This message has been edited by Daniel Watters (edited December 14, 1999).]
 
MissileCop when were you at Minot?? Spent 6 years there working ART/SRT/FSC in the missile complex from 92-98.

Armores do like to "play" with the POW's I caught several of them at Minot. Had a trppo who kept his guns in the Armory. When you get them back with all kinds of finger prints and a sling was missing............

Plus you have to keep your ammo in the armory and not in the dorm. So your weapons and ammo are stored in the armory....anything's possible.

Only if you are married and living in base housing you get the privledge to keep possesion of your firearms and ammo.
 
I am afraid firearms registration on military bases existed LONG before the contemporary "anti craze" and Clinton's politics of popular amorality.

I served as a Naval officer from '69 to '89. Every single base I was quartered on REQUIRED firearms registration. In addition, if one lived in the barracks or the BOQ rather than in public quarters, firearm storage with the base police was also mandated.

I do not necessarily agree with these regulations, but only wanted to point out they are neither unique to Ellsworth nor new.


[This message has been edited by RWK (edited December 10, 1999).]
 
Larry P,
Even as much as they harp on firearms procedures, some people still screw it up. I had a SSgt. and an A1C who did an AD into the clearing barrel, in FRONT of the whole flight that had just come off the flightline for turn in. A1C White ended up cleaning all of our M-60's for us. :)

Joey,
I was at Minot from 85-89. Worked Fire Teams out in the Missile Complex for a year, then hit the armory for the rest of my stay. Sounds like the armorers you had weren't quite as professional as in my day. We had to be professional. We had one hell of an NCOIC that didn't take any crap. Yeah, we liked to see what people had, but we took damn good care of them too. Some of them weren't so well cared for, so we'd throw a quick patch through it and a light coat of LSA to keep 'em from rusting. Just because the owner was an idiot, we weren't going to see the weapon suffer. None of them ever did notice the extra little TLC. A sling was missing? I would have had somebody's A** for that one. We had one missile cook who bought an AR-15 at Scheel's. Thing was, neither Scheel's or the cook knew that the previous owner had installed an auto sear in it. Fully capable of rock -n- roll, and the cook didn't even know it. One of the CATM guys happened to take a look at it one day and noticed it. The cook went through a lot of grief with OSI, but did get it back, minus the auto-sear of course.
 
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