The Brady Campaign for defenseless soldiers

November 16, 2:48 AMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

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Reason Magazine's Jacob Sullum recently wrote a scathing criticism of the policy that rendered the victims of the Ft. Hood atrocity defensless against their cowardly attacker.

Neither Smith nor the other victims of Hasan’s assault had guns because soldiers on military bases within the United States generally are not allowed to carry them. Last week’s shootings, which killed 13 people and wounded more than 30, demonstrated once again the folly of “gun-free zones,” which attract and assist people bent on mass murder instead of deterring them.

The soldier disarmament policy to which Sullum refers is not just a Ft. Hood rule--the Ft. Hood victims were disarmed pursuant to a military-wide policy, institued presumably with the approval of former President Bill Clinton in 1993.

Among President Clinton's first acts upon taking office in 1993 was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases. In March 1993, the Army imposed regulations forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection. For the most part, only military police regularly carry firearms on base, and their presence is stretched thin by high demand for MPs in war zones.

In other words, in 1992, the Ft. Hood carnage would have been vastly less likely.  In the wake of the attack, one victim's spouse made a brutally penetrating observation.

The wife of one of the soldiers shot at Fort Hood understands all too well. In an interview on CNN Monday night, Anchor John Roberts asked Mandy Foster how she felt about her husband's upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. Ms. Foster responded: "At least he's safe there and he can fire back, right?"

Can there be a worse indictment of stateside military policy than the fact that troops stationed in war zones are safer?

Brady Campaigner Doug Pennington, in a piece expressing his contempt for Sullum's position, could just as easily been showing his contempt for Ms. Foster's.

So, even as the National Rifle Association tries to arm America to the teeth, soldiers — America’s professional gun users — do not carry weapons on base “as a matter of practice.”

Why?  Because it’s their home.

You just knew that had to hit the gun zealots where it hurts most.

"Gun zealots," presumably, is Mr. Pennington's term for gun rights advocates.  Fair enough--coming from a forcible citizen disarmament pusher, Pennington's opinion would not seem to be worth getting oneself worked up over.  I do take exception to the last part, though.  What hurts most is that many of the deaths at Ft. Hood were very likely preventable, by simply not stripping the troops of the tools of a soldier's trade.  But to an idealogue like Pennington, his side's imagined "victory" is evidently more important than human life.

Pennington goes on to make a few more snide--and irrelevant--observations, such as the fact that Hasan had been issued a Virginia concealed carry permit in 1996, as if A) a '96 permit would still be valid, B) the permit would make any difference on an Army post (given the Clinton-era soldier disarmament edict), and C) a mass murderer would care whether or not carrying a firearm was permitted.

He also makes the obligatory reference to the supposed "cop killer" nature of the FN Five-seveN pistol used, despite the gun never having been used to kill a law enforcement officer in the U.S. (much less kill one by virtue of the 5.7x28mm round's vaunted "armor piercing" ability).  In fact, the argument could be made that the death toll would have been much higher, had the killer made a different choice.  Pennington also couldn't resist mentioning the "high capacity magazines" of the pistol--as if magazine changes impose much of an obstacle to killing unarmed victims.

Finally, he picks up on the "terror gap loophole" ridiculousness.

In short, Pennington blames the Ft. Hood deaths on the lack of a whole laundry list of gun laws--despite the fact that implementing every one of them would not have served to stop the killing.  The only thing that would have stopped it would have been less restrictive gun regulation.