Found on Bloomberg’s “The Trace”:
The argument that all military service members should be armed with guns to protect themselves — proffered by GOP presidential candidates Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Donald Trump in the wake of the shooting deaths of four Marines and a sailor last week in Chattanooga, Tennessee — is so basic that there’s not much argument to it at all.
…Most service members — 99 percent of airmen, 88 percent of sailors, and about two-thirds of soldiers and Marines — are not in direct combat roles, but instead are technical workers whose specialties support those “tip of the spear” troops. These include navigators, supply clerks, water purification specialists, and camera crews. Roughly the same breakdown applies to the backgrounds of recruiters and reservists. Practically speaking, this means that your average military member’s firearms experience may only go as far as some boot camp familiarization with a service rifle on a “static range,” plinking at paper targets to qualify for a marksmanship ribbon. Some services are more stringent than others — “every Marine is a rifleman,” the old saw goes, but even most Marines only qualify annually in the narrow realm of target marksmanship, not tactical handgunning or law enforcement uses of firearms. Civilians may believe that all members of the military are “stone-cold killer weapons experts” — but their files say otherwise, as former Army Special Forces officer and Pentagon official Steven P. Bucci told the Boston Globe.
Let’s get down to brass tacks here. You don’t see mass shootings at Police Stations, you don’t see them at the NRA Convention, you don’t see them in public venues where carry is legal an the local isn’t posted. When two terrorists tried to do some killing in Texas they got their asses dirt-napped, and we laughed and laughed! Ha Ha, idiots you tried to shoot up TEXAS!
Yet Military bases and recruiting offices are SOFT TARGETS in this country. Despite the fact, as this article mentions, that no matter what your post is in the Armed forces, you know how to fight, and are in good physical health.
Warriors in Peak Physical form….and any dipshit with the stones to run a suicide mission can stack up the bodies before anybody with a gun can intervene! This is SO beyond Wrong, it’s ridiculous!
Hell in Grand Theft Auto Vice City (I know most of the other GTA games have one as well) there is a military base with cool, unique hardware you can steal. But you need to be good because the moment you enter the airspace, the air becomes thick with gunfire from the troops.
Obviously the team at Rockstar Games didn’t do any research, because in reality one idiot with a pistol can bring the whole base to it’s knees. No the fictional world makes more sense, that crossing into a military base with ill intent should be like crossing into the front line with a target on your back.
That out of the way, let’s get back to the “Rebuttal” by the Bloomberg drone. Yes indeed, most military folk aren’t trigger pullers. Military needs trucks driven, gear repaired, infrastructure erected, the sick and injured attended to. Yep, the military doesn’t give a damn about the service sidearm, it’s a stopgap that shouldn’t ever really be used, so your training is in a rifle, and that training likely didn’t go beyond static range training with paper targets.
You know what that sounds like? THE POLICE FORCE!
These days many cops have never fired a gun until they get to the police range at the academy. They will be issued only a handful of guns, and if they take no initiative beyond their basic teaching, these will be the ONLY guns they know anything about. Some of the bigger cities have some more dynamic training, but the bulk of all police officers are trained on a square range on paper targets with VERY lax time constraints. They will only shoot their gun once, possibly twice a year depending on how often they are REQUIRED to qualify with their weapon.
And we arm EVERY DAMN COP out there. Note that most of them are assigned to sleepy towns, and will spend the bulk of their day writing traffic citations, and clearing up domestic disputes where the anger is between the two partners, not the cops. Most cops go an entire career without clearing leather outside of that square range.
And we arm EVERY DAMN COP out there. Hell, today I saw a guy wearing a “Police” vest and what looked like a uniform, directing traffic. Yet there was no visible sidearm. Just this aspect made me wonder what that guy’s deal was.
Now step back to the armed civilian. They are more likely to have interest in guns beyond basic requirements, but honestly that’s FAR from 100%. They are only required to fire a handful of rounds through a gun, which may not even resemble any guns they own, and they need not repeat this when they renew. They likely weren’t “Tip of the Spear” Operators operating operationally, and they’re likely not even a good shot. Also their personal firearm very well might be the cheapest piece of shit they found at the local pawn shop.
Yet they can successfully defend themselves with a firearm without harming innocent bystanders.
So yeah, interesting argument you’re making. Too bad we’re already comfortable with that scenario already.
Arm the troops at home already! The US Military should not be a soft target for domestic terrorism!
