If You Want To End “Gun Free Zones” Endangering Our Troops, Pick Up your Phone

By Bob Owens

Last week’s Islamic terrorist attacks on Navy facilities in Chattanooga left four Marines and one sailor dead, and immediately restarted debate on the long-standing George H.W. Bush-era policy that effectively turned military bases into “gun free zones.”

The thought behind the 1992 Department of Defense directive seemed to be focused on reducing the threat of negligent discharges on-post. It may be shocking to many civilians, but most people in the military rarely touch firearms, and most have minimal training with them.

Quite frankly, it was a reasonable policy issued after the Soviet Union collapsed and we didn’t see any credible threats against stateside military bases.

Unfortunately, we’ve now had a string of five mass shootings on domestic military facilities since 2009, causing 88 gunshot casualties, 34 of whom were killed. Quite clearly, the risk of attack is greater than the risk of negligent discharges, and the old policy is not adequate to deal with current threats.

The civilian response to the failure of military leadership in the Department of Defense and the White House has been heartwarming.

There has been a massive public outcry to update this failed DoD directive, and in the absence of an immediate military response, some civilians have taken it upon …read more

Source:: Bearing Arms