Clinton-Bush Gun Control Enabled Fort Hood Massacre

J. Neil Schulman @ Rational Review ^ | November 9, 2009 | J. Neil Schulman

[J. Neil Schulman]

Clinton-Bush Gun Control Enabled Fort Hood Massacre

A Clinton Administration revision to Department of Defense Directive 5210.56 — Army Regulation 190-14, dated 12 March 1993 — permits the Secretary of the Army to authorize military personnel to carry firearms “on a case by case basis” for personal protection within the continental United States, but forbids military personnel to carry their own personal firearms and both requires “a credible and specific threat” before firearms be issued for military personnel to protect themselves. It further directs that firearms “not be issued indiscriminately for that purpose.”

Thus did President Bill Clinton — Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army — apply to American military personnel under his command the same anti-gun policies his administration and a Democratic-controlled Congress applied to American civilians in the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons ban of 1994.

This Clinton policy of restricting military personnel from routinely carrying arms for protection was left in effect for the eight years of the administration of President George W. Bush — even after the 9/11 terror attacks — and even though Republicans held both the White House and majority control of both houses of Congress from January 2003 to January 2007.

John McHugh became the 21st Secretary of the U.S. Army on September 21, 2009, seven weeks prior to U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s November 5, 2009 shooting spree that murdered 13 and wounded another 38. Secretary McHugh — not reported as having the psychic power of precognition — issued no authorization for Fort Hood military personnel to be issued arms for personal protection against the specific threat of attack by Major Hasan.

Veterans Day is this Wednesday. How many times will “thank you for your service” pass the lips of talk-radio gurus who since 9/11 have sported American flag lapel pins, play-listed War-on-Terror country music, and made the Wounded Warrior Project a centerpiece of their swaggering patriotism?

It all rings so hollow now when their punditry following the Fort Hood Massacre makes it clear the bastions of American conservatism hate Jihadis far more than they love G.I.’s.

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 American officer would have been summarily executed by the same firing squad as the turncoat.

Yet radio talkers debate only whether the shooter was driven by ideology or madness, and have no anger — or even questions — about a sixteen-year-old Department of Defense policy that five days ago left both G.I.’s and civilians on an army base in Texas as defenseless as toddlers in a preschool.

Ideology colors emotional responses, and even long-term activists who have worked to advance the right of self-protection have lost their sight-picture in the fog of the War on Terror. The man I’ve often called my Yoda on gun-self-defense issues — Randall N. Herrst, JD, of the Center for the Study of Crime — wrote in a Sunday morning posting to the Individual Sovereignty/Libertarian Yahoo Group his security concerns with Hassan’s anti-Americanism not being acted upon by the Army, President Obama’s not using the term “war on terror,” left-wing media, and civilian police being used to protect a military base post-9/11, but this Lion of the Second Amendment wasn’t even aware of the Department of Defense policy which bans soldiers from routinely carrying arms for protection … much less express seething anger at American soldiers not being trusted to bear arms.

The lack of even a committed Second Amendment activist’s’ concern with the systematic disarmament of American soldiers on base — leaving them defenseless for murder by a single illegally-armed attacker with time to repeatedly reload — bewilders me. The explanation can have nothing to do with Posse Comitatus Act restrictions on the Army being deployed for civilian law enforcement when we’re considering individual soldiers defending their own lives from attack.

Contrast this with libertarian author Brad Linaweaver, who told me he considers American soldiers being armed for protection even more important than the arming of police.

Those directly affected by the vulnerability of American soldiers see the matter even more poignantly.

Brian Singer, an American soldier currently deployed to Iraq but whose home station is Fort Hood, commented on a previous article of mine about the massacre that “It’s not just the military affected by this heinous policy. Our spouses and children suffer under victim disarmament as well. Second, not only are civilian CCWs not recognized, military members are required to register their firearms as well. Can you believe this insanity?”

Chor Xiong, father of 23-year-old Fort Hood Massacre victim Kham Xiong, spoke of his son’s love of hunting, and told KSTP-TV, “The sad part is that he had been taught and been trained to protect and to fight. Yet it’s such a tragedy that he did not have the opportunity to protect himself and the base.”

Where is the shock and outrage for American conservatives to learn that even the Army is made toothless by politically-correct gun control?

Talk radio listeners as angry as I am about the lack of time their favorite talk hosts have spent on the victim disarmament of even American servicemen and women should use this Veterans Day as the opportunity to call in and express their feelings. Arming men and women who take seriously the idea of defending their country from bad guys can be nothing but a gift that keeps on giving.

[Dutchboy88]

"The over reaction by ‘isolation’ of innocent Japanese you cite is a dreadful black mark on our history and was never proven socially or militarily useful, and has been officially repudiated."

It was not an "over reaction", but a grim reality of war. Had there been a massacre at Ft. Hood by a Japanese American, would you have said that? The "official" repudiation you cite is the PC reaction by a government you don't support because it has gun control. You support the government when it suits your own ends, but not when it causes you to bristle? There is a logical fallacy.

So you blame Bush instead of the Islamofacists wielding the guns? Bizarre.

[Dutchboy88]

Your friend over in Dutchess Cty. NY looks like he is enjoying the freedom you espouse.

It probably would be better if the principal and he were equally armed and had a shootout. Maybe, even the kids that knew how to bag deer could join in.

[ExGeeEye]

Yes, I do believe you are right.

And I am not kidding.

[GI Joe Fan]

"One guy here in AZ just drove up to the photo radar car and shot the attendant through the window. He was mad at photo radar."

It is sad and terrible that someone was murdered, but the guy's anger toward the Orwellian camera system is not unusual.

The Orwellian photo-radar system is nothing more than a cash grab, so the guy must have been sick and tired of being ripped off by the Orwellian types that put the camera systems into place.

[J. Neil Schulman]

Dutchboy88 wrote:
“’The American solution is to let a free people defend themselves — and that certainly applies to the American army.’

“If this is that pot-smoking hazy America of Woodstock, then we don’t want any. Hold hands and sing KumByYa with the Dums.”

Wow. It sounds like you’re an army officer who hates America almost as much as Major Hasan.

[Dutchboy88]

“Orwellign photo-radar” is nothing more than finding a way to enforce a speed limit. If it were 150mph, guys that are angry with it would go 160mph. It is the inside rebellion that makes compliance with anything distasteful.

“It is sad...BUT...” tells us exactly what we need to know.

[LibTeeth]

“So you blame Bush instead of the Islamofacists wielding the guns? Bizarre.”

I most certainly did not. You have confused me with someone else. I clearly stated the criminal is at fault. But our public servants are guilty of contributory negligence. Not wanting to discuss that is itself a form of political correctness.

Your historical/hysterical characterization of the Japanese internment without due process doesn’t hold up. There were no subsequent convictions of any interned Japanese for spying or sabotage. Even J. Edgar Hoover was against the move. Many of the grim realities of that war on the home front (bogus rationing, wage and price controls, women in the work force) sewed the seeds of a destabilized american family and culture and the growth of centrally planned big government intrusions that today conservatives have all but given up on fighting. As to PC reaction, that was supported and approved by none other than Ronald Reagan, hardly a practitioner of hollow PC glutei kissing.

I also indicated that the specific example of the mishandled Japanese internment is not an indictment of the limited and targeted use of such tactics with due process. Militant islamists represent a far more real and demonstrable threat than the Japanese farmers in California were. Mexican gangs represent an even greater threat to public safety and social stability than a few rock worshipping fetishists. In all cases, the bad guys are encouraged by the environment of victim disarmament zones.

If it takes more than a few seconds for someone with matching force to put suppressive fire on the perp, then the OODA loop is stalled at the Act stage long enough for mayhem to be successful.

Put another way, any time there is delay in the feedback loop (and here the feedback is to return fire to the threat) there will be failure to control. This is true of social control situations as much as with a servo mechanism. The dial-911 mentality always creates delay by removing the authority to act from the knowledge that there is a problem to be countered.

Fortunately these attacks are rare, so the policy is seen as pragmatic as well as PC feel-goodism. The policy’s effects on general social morals and character is far more corrosive than its failure as a practical security matter.

Specialization and division of labor works most efficiently and effectively in so many situations that the fallacy is in believing that self-defense can also be delegated to specialists. Centrally planned constraints and solutions will never solve this problem. At some point trust in individuals has to be applied. We trust cops not to get drunk and shoot each other, and the few that do are the exception. If the military can’t do that, perhaps they better dialog to consensus some more about the utility of their diversity programs (speaking of PC reactions). Japanese Americans have the lowest crime and homicide rate of any identifiable ethnic group. Perhaps the US military needs to rethink what cultures would best make up their ranks for attributes such as self control, loyalty, adaptability, social cohesion, and coping skills.

The problem we are facing(internal security) is an economic and moral problem as much as one of tactics. This has nothing to do with supporting or not supporting government or the military. It has to do with understanding that the character of the problem we are facing has more dimensions than 1)ID bad guy and 2)eliminate bad guy. But even if it were that simple, gun control as a blanket policy clearly works against that as an effective strategy.

[cycjec]

May I quote you on the “feedback loop” off FR? Also,
what do you know about the “bogus rationing” in WWII?