Unless you receive a lot of training, many and probably most of those in the military are relative strangers to small arms. I remember vividly the night the Petty Officer of the Watch fired off a 45 caliber round, that ricocheted off the bulkhead and blew out a search light during the mid-watch (0000-0400). "Mr. xxxxx, you need to get up. The POOW just shot out a search light." "Great, I'll be up there in a minute." I posted the picture simply for its iconic nature.
My Dad was a Navy recruiting officer early in WWII before he got shipped off to the Pacific. I never thought to ask him whether he carried a sidearm while he was doing recruiting duty. It would probably make a good recruiting tool even if the firearms were unloaded. A recruit walks into a Navy/Army/Marine office and sees a 45 strapped on to the recruiter and thinks, "Hey, cool. I wonder if I get to carry one if I join."
The South Carolina shooter dude shouldn't have gotten a gun, but he did because the laws we have weren't enforced properly. We can't enforce the laws we have why make new ones. The ONLY people it hurts are the people who obey the law. Now added fines for people who have children that use their parents guns to kill others I think is fair, if their gun was used and there was no attempt to conceal it or lock it away that is.
Actually I think they were, I think he tried and was declined, his dad bought for and gave to him the gun is how I understand it. If true then I have no issue whatsoever with Dad standing trial for accessorie to 9 counts of murder 1 and spending the rest of his life in jail. These issues will never get better if we continue to let idiots walk amongst us unsupervised and unpunished when the screw the pooch. Sorry Mr. Roof, away you go.
The way I heard it was that his Dad gave him some money for his birthday and he used it to buy the gun. If his Dad actually was the one who gave him the gun he is one of the few people who should have known how nuts he was. Dylan Roof had never been convicted of a felony and I don't think he had been treated for mental illness so when the store or gun dealer ran the require check he would have come up OK. His few drinking buddies probably knew what a wacko he is but even if they wanted to do something about it they would have had no legal authority to have him committed
Nah, he bought it, but the background check didn't check his arrest record. It was a failure of the enforcement of the existing laws. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/10/fbi-chief-roof-gun-shooting/29966337/
They have to be very careful about this. Guns and live ammo are dangerous and not everybody wearing a uniform is an expert on their proper use. Many soldiers are very young and not terribly responsible yet. Soldiers have jobs to do on base and lugging around a weapon interferes with a lot of that. Many would get laid around and get lost. Hell, that shit happens in combat zones. Worse . . . cooks, clerks, and mechanics on base are not under line command from a senior NCO or a responsible combat officer. I think we may be seeing more very serious MP's guarding more facilities, but I don't expect them to start arming all soldiers, all of the time. It would be just like arming schoolteachers . . . it causes more problems that it solves. The army knows it better than most. It also would make accountability for weapons extremely hard to manage. Guns would get stolen a lot more frequently. Fistfights could turn into gunfights. Lots of accidental discharges. No, the military has very good reasons for the policy. It could turn into a snowballing clusterfuck with no one in charge of it. Weapons are issued when soldiers are in combat conditions under proper combat command. Well, that's why I said I expect them to consolidate and move recruiting offices into more secure federal buildings.
They might have to but that would probably hurt recruiting. Having them in strip malls they are seen by a lot of people and probably get a lot of drop-in signups from people who have driven by every day and decide to join. In a federal building somebody would have had to already decided to join and seek them out.
yep yep yep wrong here but I think I know what you meant This is the big one here. Seen so many good buddy of mine was playing quick draw with his 9mm one night inside of a C-130 on guard duty. If you EVER want to see just how angry a flight crew can become just go on a fire off a live round INSIDE one of their birds oh man was that ever funny. He was forever known as one bullet Barney after that. In Iraq they always have clearing barrels at the entrance to the chow hall, the Px any building really where you stick the muzzle of your weapon into the barrel, drop the mag, pull the slide back and then pull the trigger. That damn barrel got shot so many damn times it isn't even funny. The thing that got me was the brass would always get highly pissed off when someone did this. I never understood why, that is what it is there for yet they bitched to the point of NJP on some.
I was an SP and we were the only ones carrying stateside on post. We would take checked weapons especially if someone forgot one in their car. They could park off base or check it with us. When we ate in the mess hall, we ate as a group, backs to the wall with a weapon rack right there. Strength in numbers in case of a wackadoo or fight. As far as the clearing barrel, we worked it in pairs or had one checker along with the person turning in the weapon. I heard a couple go off while in the armory, which was a big deal because during peacetime, as we weren't supposed to have one in the chamber unless something had escalated. Lots of reports and unhappy people when two people miss a round in place. The majority of AF personnel only qualified once a year (scary times for us at the range) and certainly didn't carry them around the planes. That is what they had us for.
