Hmmm ... both sides make sense here ...
Civilians carrying firearms on a military base? I’m not so sure about that. What if 5,000 civilians all came walking up to the guard shack, AR-15s over their shoulders, seeking admittance? Then again, there shouldn’t be many civilian visitors and it might become policy to escort them. Dicey stuff.
Troops don’t ordinarily walk around the base (post, for you grunts) carrying sidearms, except for police. That policy should be changed, since we are at war, but we’ll see.
In my own experience ... at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, where civilians vastly outnumber military personnel, the morning rush is a stream of vehicles three lanes across, non-stop for a half hour.
One day the base police were hosting some kind of police brass, and one of the brass hats happened to visit the guard shack during the morning rush. He was APPALLED to see that nearly every pickup truck entering the base had a deer rifle in the back window. Not that there had ever been a problem, but he freaked out at the thought of all those rifles in civilian hands!
A new policy was instituted that afternoon.
These same people might have been carrying handguns, too if there were no anti-gun policy on the base. If so, again the base remained peaceful.
It seems that many of our citizens have a bit of a problem grasping the concept that the criminals should be arrested and prosecuted, and the good guys should be left alone.
If a person has a black heart, as the muzzie at FT Hood did, he will find a way to carry out his nefarious deeds.
The "Gun Free Status" of FT Hood didn't stop him. What it did was pile up the bodies, because no one could stop him, until finally, an armed woman showed up and was able to neutralize him.
Most of the time, it takes a gun to stop a gun. Guns in the hands of the law abiding are a good thing, and the law abiding citizens still outnumber the criminals in this country. It's only the law-abiding citizen that observes a "No Gun Zone" sign.