A fellow at one of the newspapers here once identified all the various police agencies in DC and defined all the spaces they had jurisdiction over.
Sometimes the jurisdictions conflicted ~ one such place was the Carillon near the Capitol. There were something more than a dozen types of cops had some sort of jurisdiction there and yet muggings were frequent!
Whatever goes on at Walter Reed is between the traveler on the property and provost marshall. You leave that place you are traveling interstate again.
We have this situation down here where you go to the town of Quantico VA to the gunstore THROUGH Quantico marine base ~ you actually have to stop at a couple of stop signs to make this trip.
I've done it several times and each time I had firearms in my vehicle. The Constitution protects my right to travel on that road which is actually part of the base ~ and hundreds of people each week do the same. The SPs could stop me or anybody and do whatever they wanted, but properly packed away and stored they really can't do anything about the firearms. And think about it, in this case we are not actually involved in INTERSTATE TRAVEL since these trips start and stop in Virginia.
The FBI and CIA agents who go there for training carry their own personal weapons on and off the base, and may actually go to restaurants in Quantico VA ~ whether they are on duty, off duty, or whathave you, the rules on the base are one thing, and the rules in Virginia are another, and the situation the soldier faced in DC never arises because the Virginia cops and the DOD cops know the rules.
I thought Walter Reed was closed and moved to the Naval Hospital grounds in Bethesda, Maryland.
He was not arrested on federal property, he was arrested by DC cops within their jurisdiction. Walter Reed is way the heck off the interstate, and isn’t exactly a sprawling institution.
It is good you have not been stopped while carrying contraband on federal property, but if you continue, you just might get that chance.
I have driven all over several military bases with loaded weapons, guns, ammo, etc. I had reason to be in some areas, but not all. Had I been stopped and searched (consent to search is automatic on military property) I would have been arrested, even though I meant no harm.
This guy screwed up and needs to do what his lawyer tells him to do. If he wanted to do business in DC, he needed to pick up his weapons after he was done with his appointments. Traveling “through” does not include local stops, case law abounds on this.
I’m not an Army guy, so I am only going on what I’ve learned from in the past...
I am glad you brought up the “Provost Marshall” issue...That is key to what I understand about the Army community...If you are under orders, and you have complied and are transporting under Federal Interstate requirements regarding firearms, and make the notification before you get to the post, to the Provost Marshall, I have heard it is no big deal...
I stand to be corrected by my Army friends...And anyone else who has gone through this issue...
Just seems to me the more that these law enforcement agencies (anywhere in this country) bust our chops about this issue, the more people educate themselves and do what is required if they have to attempt to transport firearms...
Or...
D.C. becomes another deteriorating social blight on the south end of an extinct northbound wooly mammoth...
Which I am absolutely ok with...
Not even the SCOTUS and the Heller Case, seems to lessen the grip these local government socialists have on our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms as WE see fit...
A truely sad situation, and one those that live in D.C. voted for...I have very little sympathy...