Ramblings

There is a huge number of people saying stupid stuff like "if only military bases weren't essentially gun-free zones, the Ft. Hood tragedy wouldn't have happened." This is retarded. I mean, if even the relatively smart commenters at The Volokh Conspiracy are holding this opinion, then this viewpoint needs to be addressed.

First, trying to formulate policy based on an incredibly rare event is stupid. Especially when such a policy is guaranteed to have unintended negative consequences. People who say that soldiers should carry weapons must have never seen soldiers get in stupid fights for stupid reasons. I don't know if the accidental discharge/negligent discharge reports are available to the public, but armed soldiers quite obviously increase risk of potentially fatal accidents. In a war zone, the risk is worth it. At home, it isn't.

Second, saying that this policy would do much to prevent such an occurrence is blissfully naive. You know, I remember a base where EVERY soldier carried weapons and ammo EVERYWHERE they went. It doesn't help prevent these things.

Finally, proponents of an armed soldier policy implicitly suggest that MPs and on-base police departments are insufficient. At Ft. Hood, a civilian cop (who by the way is a badass and deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom) responded and exchanged fire within 3 minutes of the start of the shooting. That is nearly ideal. In many ways, arming the soldiers would have made this situation MUCH worse. Even if the shooter was taken down before reloading, having many armed people working independently could have gotten more people killed. Initial reports were that there were at least 3 shooters. If the cops believed that, and everyone had guns drawn, it's not hard to see how additional innocent victims would have died for the crime of being proactive.

So. Again, I stress that there aren't much in the way of lessons to be learned, and that people shouldn't use isolated tragedy to advance political agendas.