US Army Major Nidal Malik Hassan.
(AP Photo/Uniformed Services University
of the Health Sciences, file)
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Fort Hood tightens restrictions on guns--would Hassan have given up? (Part II)
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Fort Hood tightens restrictions on guns--would Hassan have been stopped? (Part III)
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Fort Hood tightens restrictions on guns--what would stop "the next Hassan"? (Part IV)
Need to catch up? Start with Part I, Fort Hood tightens restrictions on guns--the wrong response, too late?
In the last installment of the Chicago Gun Rights Examiner, we relayed a report that Fort Hood's commanding officer has signed new regulations requiring that privately owned firearms be registered and declared before they can be brought onto the base, and that personnel living on base must store their registered, privately-owned firearms only in official arms rooms. That left your Chicago Gun Rights Examiner with three questions, and it's time to answer the first:
"Might Major Hassan have been dissuaded from carrying out his attack if he had been required to register his pistol and declare it to base guards before bringing it onto the base?"
It must be stressed that the investigation into Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan's alleged attack is not complete, and he has not been convicted of any crime. However, this column will proceed as if Major Hassan's guilt is not in doubt because, frankly, it is not in doubt in any but a technical legal sense. That investigation has turned up enough facts for usto put together a fair idea of Maj. Hassan's motivation and his level of dedication. We know, for instance, that Maj. Hassan expressed sympathy, not only with Muslims caught up in war, but with suicide bombers and other Muslim terrorists. We can safely presume that Maj. Hassan must have expected to be killed as part of his attack--he seems to have made no plan or attempt to escape--so it wouldn't make sense to hope that fear of consequences could have dissuaded him.
And that's really the problem with any method that rests on the idea that people will comply with any regulation either out of goodness or fear . . . if Maj. Hassan had cared more about right and wrong or the consequences that would follow his day of mass murder than he did his grievances against the United States and its armed forces, we wouldn't be having this discussion (such as it is) about ways to stop the next terrorist. New regulations that depend on the forces that weren't enough to stop Hassan in the first place are doomed to fail again.
Comments
The solution is simple: If only we had had a law that said murder was illegal, obviously, the major (like all good liberals) would have obeyed it and there would be no need for him to be in the fix he's in.
Always had to register firearms for storage on post. No problem. This protected both the service member and the Army. Storage was in the Unit armory. If you needed your weapon for personal use you signed it out, and went on your merry way. Again, no problem. This would not have stopped this carnage, He purchased and brought the weapons from off post. He was not concerned with rational behavior this day. He was intent on action. Which is why I repeat that if other officers or senior enlisted had had side arms the damage this day may have been lessened. God Bless the soldiers!
I can't quite comprehend the madness of military commanders, who represent the most patriotic of all those who have sacrificed and given so many lives, so much pain, suffering, and blood in order to protect the Constitution and the freedoms it represents from the tyranny of despots like Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Saddam Hussein, and many more, and who then give totally unconstitutional orders restricting their OWN MILITARY PERSONNEL'S CONSTITUTIONAL right to keep and bear arms on a MILITARY BASE in a TIME OF WAR so that they were totally unable to defend themselves from a SWORN ENEMY right on their own military base! Truly insanity now reigns in America! Traitors to America and the U.S. Constitution now oversee and rule the insane asylum that our country has become.
contd.--- Then this begs the question also,"Would Major Hassan have been dissuaded from carrying out his attack if he had known that many, if not most, or even ALL of his fellow soldiers were armed and ready to defend themselves?" Any thinking person knows the answer. Even if he had not been dissueded, retribution would have been swift and sure, and most of his victems (created by the de facto gun free zone on base) would have been either saved or at least had a fighting chance. Major Hassan's crime pales in comparison to the treasonous, traitorous scum that illegally disarmed and made U.S. military people cannon fodder for their enemy.
I used to serve at Ft. Hood.
According to the summary by the Killeen newspaper, the "new" regulations only require gun stroage in unit arms room if you are in barracks or temporary living quarters - this is the same as the old reg at Ft. Hood and most posts - military members in on post family housing are exempt from storage but not registration (there is not enough room for every family's guns in unit arms room, trust me!)- seems to me the only new part of the registration reg is that failure to register has a criminal aspect, and, the part about declaring weapons everytime you come onto post.
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