Shooting and FT HOOD TX

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shot_on_target wrote:

SNIP; This incident could have been prevented.

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Nothing can be complete prevented, prepared for yes, measures in place to minimize yes. A criminal will always find the way to commit an offense. The major was no exception,he knew the system and used it to his advantage, and he planned this. He should be treated as a terrorist who attacked a military installation, not as a nut with a gun. IMO it will show that his metal state had little to do with and everything to do with ties to extremists; these facts are already showing up.

Three fence lines penetrated lines at Bangor (different event, same day) but still nut cases penetrated the base, what if this had been an extremists group with different intention. Holy Sh**.

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Nitrox314 wrote:

SNIP; Naval bases are even worse. The Navy personnel are not allowed to carry pocketknives and/or multitools with knives on them.

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So not true.

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jbone wrote:

Nitrox314 wrote:

SNIP; Naval bases are even worse. The Navy personnel are not allowed to carry pocketknives and/or multitools with knives on them.

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So not true.

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Then maybe it may have been the one base, but on Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, the sailors are not allowed to keep knives of any sort on them. I worked there for two years, and it was the same thing across base. I found this out when I forgot my tools in my car and asked a sailor to borrow a knife.

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Nitrox314 wrote:

jbone wrote:

Nitrox314 wrote:

SNIP; Naval bases are even worse. The Navy personnel are not allowed to carry pocketknives and/or multitools with knives on them.

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So not true.

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Then maybe it may have been the one base, but on Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, the sailors are not allowed to keep knives of any sort on them. I worked there for two years, and it was the same thing across base. I found this out when I forgot my tools in my car and asked a sailor to borrow a knife.

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I'll PM, so we don't high jack the thread.

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jbone wrote:

shot_on_target wrote:

SNIP; This incident could have been prevented.

Click to expand...

Nothing can be complete prevented, prepared for yes, measures in place to minimize yes. A criminal will always find the way to commit an offense. The major was no exception,he knew the system and used it to his advantage, and he planned this. He should be treated as a terrorist who attacked a military installation, not as a nut with a gun. IMO it will show that his metal state had little to do with and everything to do with ties to extremists; these facts are already showing up.

Three fence lines penetrated lines at Bangor (different event, same day) but still nut cases penetrated the base, what if this had been an extremists group with different intention. Holy Sh**.

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Yea, you simply cant prevent things like this. They cant even prevent them in the UK where NO ONE, is allowed to carry or even own most firearms, including many of their own police officers who have to have a job or specific assignment that warrants the need.

If a person is suicidal and determined enough, you simply cannot stop them, you can only minimize the damage they can effect on others by having a equalizing force in the IMMEDIATE vicinity. Law enforcement cant be everywhere at once, as evidenced by the 3 minute (reported) initial reponse time of the first responder on scene to this tragedy.

THREE MINUTES!!! Can you imagine how much damage can be done in three minutes?
Apparently, the anti-gun mentality driven types cannot. Here is a test....take a lighter and light it, then hold it under your hand at about 3 inches for 5 seconds....now do it again on the other hand for 3 minutes. Which would YOU prefer?

Yea, thought so.

Even if you took ALL private firearms off of military bases, and even if you screened and searched ALL vehicles and people that came onto these bases, there is STILL a dozen ways to sneak or ship or steal a firearm to do these kinds of crimes.

Penn and Teller said it best. "You cant stop insane people from doing insane things by passing insane laws, that would be insane!!"

What it comes down to, is you cant stop violence by burring your head in the sand and singing the same old lame song of "less guns equals less violence". (tell that to the poor sheeple in the UK and in Australia) You can only mitigate violence by preparing to meet it with an equalizing force the moment it is presented against you or others.

Ok...rant off.

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I think you made a very good point.

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Sorry, must have forgotten my <sarcasm> tag. I was commenting on how silly it is to use ONE violent act in multiple years to judge hundreds of thousands of military personnel carrying automatic weapons in a testosterone-rich violence-glorifying environment.

It's equally silly to use isolated tragic incidents in the civilian population to judge the millions of gun owners/carriers who save lives without tragic incidents.

Once again, though, it's a PR battle, and anti-gunners have more firepower than we do in that department. These days, it doesn't matter whose side the law is on.

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antispam540 wrote:

Sorry, must have forgotten my <sarcasm> tag. I was commenting on how silly it is to use ONE violent act in multiple years to judge hundreds of thousands of military personnel carrying automatic weapons in a testosterone-rich violence-glorifying environment.

....

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Who said anything about them needing to carry automatic weapons? A simple semi-automatic sidearm would do.

Any soldier not on a medical hold, who clearly cant be trusted even to carry a pistol shouldn't be in the military, plain and simple. If a soldier steps out of line with his sidearm, you treat it exactly as a drug incident and you kick them out.

And mass shootings in "gun free zones" are not isolated incidents. The overwhelming number of these kinds of shootings happen in these areas, enough to make it clear to any thinking person that a "gun free zone" that is open to the un-screened public is not a good thing.

And yes, most military bases in the US are open to the un-screened public requiring only a decal on the windshield and perhaps the flash of a military issued ID.

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I agree. What I was saying was, in the presence of a large force armed with automatic weapons, there is only an occasional rare incident like this. I was only making the point that, since people seem to consider automatic weapons more dangerous, it should therefore be even more likely that their presence would cause more incidents - and it hasn't.