Monday, November 09, 2009

Fort Hood

Why is it that a mere 120 miles away from Ft. Hood (or 70 miles when I was in Austin) I am able to carry a weapon, but our soldiers, while on base, are not? Is it remotely possible that the major would have done this (or at least had had the impact he did) knowing every one of his targets was actually armed.

I qualified for my permit and practiced at a huge range south of Killeen where many of the Ft. Hood soldiers trained and competed on their own time with their own weapons. The idea that they should not be able to carry while on base seems outrageous to me. OK, maybe if they've just come back from a tour there should be a time-out to worry about PTSD and all that, but as a general rule this seems nuts...in the virtual shadow of the Lubys that ended up the catalyst of my right to carry.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

It's the result of military policy, right, and not a matter of a limitation placed on them by either state or fed law?

Stephanie said...

Read an article or two and it sounds like it is indeed military policy.

Stephanie said...

Do you know anything about the history of the policy. I know there was some change in 1993, but it's not clear to me exactly what the policy was before that.

Stephanie said...

I can find the rule that went into effect in March 1993. There's a summary of the changes to the rule, but it doesn't offer a redline and I can't find the prior version of the rule so I can't tell exactly how it changed in March 1993. Were guns not previously banned on base or did the 1993 change just make adjustments to a prior ban. (Yes, I see there's blogger ire directed at Clinton for it, as if in his first month in office he put this in motion, and nevermind that the rule was kept in place during Bush's eight years.) I am really interested in the rationale, because I assume the military has one.