"If George Washington had learned that soldiers under his command had died from a turncoat attack within an American Fort — not because arms weren’t available for his men to defend themselves but because an American officer didn’t trust American soldiers to bear arms — I’m fairly certain that the American officer would have been summarily executed by the same firing squad as the turncoat."
-- J. Neil Schulman
In recent years, one piece of stupidity that has kept resurfacing in America is the idea that you can make a place safe by simply declaring it to be a "gun-free zone". Whenever we read about a shooting spree, one of the things we check for is whether people are allowed to carry self-defense weapons at the location where the shooting occurred. In nearly every case, we’ve found that the victims were prohibited (by law, or by policy, or by both) from being armed. Common sense tells us that an evil man who wants to kill a lot of people is more likely to succeed if his intended victims are unable to shoot back. We don’t know for certain whether most mass murderers deliberately seek out gun-free zones for this specific reason, but we do know that most successful shooting sprees occur in gun-free zones.
Once in a blue moon, a would-be mass murderer picks the wrong sort of target, as occurred a couple of years ago at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where the pastor had privately asked a number of parishioners to carry concealed weapons inside the church. When a heavily armed gunman intent on murdering scores of people burst into the chapel during services one Sunday and opened fire, an armed female worshipper shot him multiple times before he could injure anyone. Targeting the New Life Church turned out to be a poor choice on that guy’s part. One might, therefore, reasonably assume that a large U.S. Army base populated with thousands of highly trained soldiers would be an even poorer choice for a lone gunman wanting to wreak havoc. Not so.
When we read that a U.S. Army psychiatrist by the name of Nidal Hasan, armed with a revolver and a low-powered small-caliber semiautomatic handgun, had allegedly killed 13 people and wounded at least 30 others inside the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, America’s largest Army base, we were baffled as to how this could have happened. Hundreds of soldiers were at the facility when the shooting started. Most were either deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq or had recently returned from there. All had presumably gone though basic training, many had undoubtedly graduated from infantry school, and some were probably combat veterans. One would therefore expect that Major Hasan, an Army psychiatrist with no combat experience, would have been riddled with bullets within a few seconds.
But he wasn’t. Major Hasan allegedly continued to fire and reload for several minutes (up to 10 minutes by some accounts) before anyone shot back at him. And the first person to shoot back, according to news reports, was not a solder but a civilian policewoman, Officer Kimberly Munley. According to the Times of London, Officer Munley normally directs traffic at the base but happened to be walking past the Readiness Processing Center while the massacre was underway. Officer Munley reportedly shot Hasan multiple times, putting him out of commission. We speculate that if Officer Munley hadn’t happened upon the scene, Hasan might have killed and injured a lot more people. We salute Officer Munley for her courage and her good shooting skills, but we remain disturbed by the fact that, apparently, no soldiers shot at Hasan while he was killing and wounding their comrades.
So what’s wrong with this picture? American soldiers have excellent training and are able to perform well in combat, as they’ve demonstrated repeatedly in Afghanistan and Iraq.
For comparison purposes, consider the Battle of Kamdesh, which took place last month when a large Taliban force attacked a small American military outpost in a remote corner of Afghanistan. The battle lasted the better part of a day. Eight American soldiers were killed and 24 were wounded. An estimated 100 Taliban fighters were killed. This battle was one of the bloodiest of the Afghan War. But it shows that our troops know how to fight back very effectively when attacked and outnumbered in the field.
So why was a psychiatrist with no combat experience and armed only with a couple of pistols allegedly able to kill 60% more American soldiers in a few minutes than a large Taliban force was able to kill during the day-long Battle of Kamdesh? And why was he not stopped until a courageous traffic cop happened to wander by and intervene? Something seems fishy about this. Could it be that Fort Hood is a "gun-free zone"?
As reported by The Economist, when asked at a press conference why the soldiers didn’t shoot back in self-defense, Fort Hood spokesman Lieutenant General Robert Cone responded by saying: "As a matter of practice, we do not carry weapons. This is our home."
That’s a pretty weird statement. Many of you keep a loaded gun handy "as a matter of practice" when you’re in your own residence, precisely because it IS your home.
Could it really be true that soldiers are prohibited from carrying firearms on an Army base, as implied by General Cone’s statement? The news media haven’t said much about this issue. Fortunately, author and Second-Amendment activist J. Neil Schulman has done some research into the official U.S. Army policy regarding the carrying of self-defense weapons on military bases and has posted the findings on his website.
It appears that, in essence, the Army adopted a "may issue" policy for gun-carry permits for soldiers in 1993 under an executive order issued by President Bill Clinton. This policy continues to be in place.
The Army’s policy on carrying weapons, as outlined by Mr. Schulman, goes something like this: If you’re in the Army and you want to carry a firearm for self-defense on an Army base, you have to first persuade the Secretary of the Army that a "credible and specific threat" exists. In other words, you have to prove that somebody is trying to kill you. If you manage to convince the Secretary of the Army that this is the case, he MAY issue a gun for you to carry on the base, along with authorization to carry it. But he’s under no obligation to do so, even if you prove to him that a "credible and specific threat" exists. Army policy prohibits the Secretary of the Army from granting such requests "indiscriminately", and requires that applications to carry self-defense weapons be handled on a "case by case basis." Furthermore, soldiers are prohibited from carrying personally owned firearms on Army bases, and civilian concealed-weapon permits are not recognized.
In other words, permission for an individual enlisted man, non-commissioned officer, or officer to carry a self-defense weapon on an Army base is subject entirely to the whim of the Secretary of the Army (a political appointee), much as the issuance of a concealed-carry permit to a resident of Los Angeles is subject entirely to the whim of the L.A. Chief of Police (who, the last time we checked, was routinely rejecting all applications, even when the existence of a "credible and specific threat" had been demonstrated by the applicant).
Two civilian acquaintances of ours with military connections have provided information that corroborates Mr. Schulman’s findings. Our sources tell us that, unless you’re an MP or a civilian police officer employed by the Department of Defense (like Officer Munley), the only place you can have a loaded gun on a typical military base nowadays is at the firing range. Although the policy uncovered by Mr. Schulman applies specifically to the Army, our sources indicate that other branches of the military may have similar policies. As an aside, we’ve learned that many of the on-base jobs formerly done by MPs have been taken over by civilian police officers and private security guards, perhaps due to the deployment of most MPs overseas in recent years.
Thus, a typical U.S. Army base nowadays appears to be a "gun-free zone" in the same way that a typical American university campus is a "gun-free zone". At most universities outside of Utah, the only places where loaded firearms are allowed on campus are at the ROTC shooting range and in the holster of a campus policeman. At a U.S. Army base, the only places where loaded firearms appear to be allowed are at the shooting range or in the holster of a base policeman or MP (or in the holster of one of the lucky few, if any, soldiers who’ve received special permission to carry from the Secretary of the Army).
Yes, there are a few armed cops and MPs on an Army base at any given time, but, given the size of a typical base (Fort Hood covers 339 square miles), chances are that they won’t be anywhere near the scene of a crime when the crime occurs. If ordinary soldiers had been allowed to routinely carry loaded guns at Fort Hood, we suspect that quite a few of them would have done so and that one or more of them would have shot Major Hasan pretty quickly.
GOUtah! urges President Obama to sign an executive order rescinding the Clinton directive of 1993 and allowing all active-duty military personnel to carry loaded firearms on all military bases in the United States. We don’t expect the President to do this, but we’ll ask him to anyway. If any of you would like to put in the same request, you may do so at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact.
One piece of irony that seems lost on the mainstream news media is the fact that the modern concealed-carry movement got started right next to Fort Hood, in the town of Killeen. In 1991 a mass murderer killed 23 people and wounded 20 more at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, at a time when it was illegal for private citizens in Texas to carry firearms. A chiropractor by the name of Suzanna Gratia Hupp had taken her parents to eat at Luby’s but had left her handgun in the trunk of her car in order to comply with Texas law. She watched helplessly as her parents and 21 others were killed. She subsequently got herself elected to the Texas legislature specifically for the purpose of changing the gun-carry laws of that state in order to enable law-abiding citizens to carry self-defense weapons. She eventually succeeded in this endeavor, and many other states (including Utah) followed suit over the next few years. Dr. Hupp travelled from state to state to testify in front of legislative committees in her efforts to bring "shall-issue" carry-permit laws to as many states as possible.
Incidentally, Bob Owens has an interesting piece about the actual weapons allegedly used by Major Hasan. The media have been reporting that Major Hassan was equipped with some sort of super-duper extra-deadly "cop-killer assault pistol", and we predict that the anti-gun people will try to use this as an excuse to call for more "gun control" laws. In reality, his semiautomatic pistol was an FN Five-seveN chambered for the tiny 5.7x28 cartridge. Major Hassan’s other gun was reportedly an older model Smith and Wesson .357 magnum revolver. We don’t yet know how many people were shot with each gun.
Barr Soltis and Chuck Hawks present detailed ballistic information about the 5.7x28 round, debunking the bizarre urban legends that have grown up around it. Non-military factory 5.7x28 loads typically push a 40-grain .224-caliber bullet out of the Five-seveN pistol with a muzzle energy not much greater than that of the 40-grain Winchester Super-X .22 WMR rimfire round (popular with squirrel and rabbit hunters) fired from a handgun with similar barrel length.
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Disclaimer:
This article contains GOUtah!’s interpretation of certain sections of the Utah Code regarding the carrying of firearms. We’re not lawyers. We’re just regular people. Our opinions are purely layman’s opinions. We suggest that, if you have any question about the legality of carrying a firearm in a specific location, you contact a qualified attorney who’s familiar with the relevant state and federal laws and regulations.
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Here’s a link to a pamphlet dated 9/28/2009 purporting to be a guide for University of Utah police officers on how to deal with someone who openly carries a weapon on campus. The document is in PDF format (readable with Adobe Acrobat Reader) but the file is quite large (approximately 2 megabytes) because it appears to be a direct scan of a paper document.
We haven’t been able to verify the authenticity of this document. However, regardless of whether it’s an authentic police document or a hoax, somebody clearly went to considerable of effort to produce it.
Here’s a link to an online discussion forum regarding the pamphlet, for those of you interested in pursuing the matter further.
According to the document, U of U police officers are not supposed to allow people with valid concealed-firearm permits to openly carry their weapons on campus. The document gives detailed instructions on how an officer should confront someone with a valid permit who is carrying openly on campus.
It’s our opinion that the University of Utah Police shouldn’t hassle you unless you’re doing something illegal. So the big question is whether Utah law prohibits a permit-holder from openly carrying a firearm on campus. Our own purely amateur interpretation of the Utah Code (see disclaimer above) is that it doesn’t, and that under state law a concealed-firearm permit (in places where it’s valid, including the U of U) gives you the option of concealing your weapon but does not require you to do so. But we’re not lawyers, and we could be wrong. If you want to research the matter on your own, check out section 76-10-505.5 of the Utah Code.
The pamphlet, which purports to be official U of U Police Department policy, seems to indicate that whoever wrote it isn’t certain about the meaning of the law in the event that a person openly carrying a weapon has a valid permit. If it were clearly illegal for a permit-holder to carry openly, one would expect that the pamphlet would instruct the officer to immediately arrest the person for violation of section 76-10-505.5 of the Utah Code (which is what the pamphlet says to do with a person who gets caught openly carrying a weapon on campus without a concealed-firearm permit). But that’s not what the pamphlet says to do in the event that the person has a permit, in which case the officer is instructed to go through an incremental series of requests and threats, starting with a polite request that the suspect conceal his weapon, followed by a warning not to openly carry in the future, and culminating (in the event that the suspect refuses to conceal his weapon) in the confiscation of the firearm and a promise that the U of U Police Department will "screen criminal charges through the District Attorney’s Office." One could easily get the impression that the purpose of the pamphlet, assuming that the pamphlet is authentic (which may or may not be the case), is to encourage campus police to use intimidation tactics in order to persuade permit-holders not to carry openly. Another plausible interpretation is that whoever wrote the pamphlet is hoping for a "test case" to take to the courts in order to get a judicial opinion regarding this matter.
We emphasize here that all of this is speculation on our part, and we don’t know whether the pamphlet is what it purports to be, or whether it’s a hoax. We don’t want to jump to conclusions here. We’re just submitting this document to you for your consideration.
That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #322 for 13 November, 2009. We hope this information will be of assistance to you in defending your firearms rights.
Remember that getting this information is meaningless unless You Act On It Today. If you just read it and dump it in the trash, your gun rights, and the gun rights of future generations go in the trash with it. Get involved, get active and get vocal!
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