On Wednesday, another mass shooting unfolded — this time at Fort Stewart military base in Georgia. A male Army sergeant, who illegally carried a gun on the base, wounded five soldiers before others tackled and disarmed him.
Typically, only authorized designated security forces such as MPs are armed on duty. Any other soldier caught carrying a firearm faces severe consequences, ranging from a rank reduction, court-martial, potential criminal convictions, dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay, and even imprisonment.
So why would a soldier risk such harsh penalties? Because if you’re the attacker, planning to murder fellow soldiers, gun control laws won’t stop you. If you expect to die in the assault, as most mass public shooters do, extra years added to your sentence mean nothing. Even if you survive, you already anticipate multiple life sentences or the death penalty.
But for law-abiding soldiers, those same rules carry enormous weight. Carrying a gun for self-defense could turn them into felons and destroy their futures. These gun control policies disarm the innocent while encouraging a determined killer to attack there as they will know that they are the only ones who will be armed.
Yes, military police guard entrances, but like civilian police, they can’t be everywhere. Military bases function like cities, and MPs face the same limitations as police responding to off-base mass shootings.
Consider the attacks at the Navy Yard, both Fort Hood shootings, and the Chattanooga recruiting station. In each case, unarmed JAG officers, Marines, and soldiers had no choice but to hide while the attacker fired shot after shot.
Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, then commander of Third Corps stationed at Fort Hood, testified to Congress about the second attack there: “We have adequate law enforcement on those bases to respond … those police responded within eight minutes and that guy was dead.” But eight minutes was simply too long for the three soldiers who were murdered and the 12 others who were wounded.
Keep reading
You must be logged in to post a comment.