Congress blocks military orders that restrict gun rights

Yes, we have to report and register our private firearms to avoid the legal trouble. Furthermore, we have to know how to use it...

This is long overdue! Overzealous Provost Marshalls have at various posts tried to regulate or register arms possessed by soldiers off-post. In the mid 70's the PM on Fort Knox had MPI making the rounds of gunshops and pawnshops "requesting" to look over 4473 weekly. After witnessing one FFL comply with a request I quit trading there. I remember him and the incident clearly as the same Provost Marshall caused MP's to be hassling troops traveling between their quarters and hunting areas on post. I was a First Sergeant and had to go sign them out from the MP station and also explain to Hunt Control why the soldier hadn't signed out of his hunting area as required while the MP's had him cooling his heels in the "D" cell.

When the "good Colonel" retired he did a short stint as the Chief of Police in a nearby city before being asked to resign. He was quite the collector, picked up a couple of nice guns at the hypocritical bastard's estate sale.

When I was stationed at Ft. Campbell in the late 80s a friend called me from the hanger, I was working in the BN S3 shop on main post at the time, to tell me CID was there asking about me owning full autos. I got the CID goobers name and called his office the next day to tell him that I did own NFA firearms, they were registered with ATF, kept at my home off post and none of his damn business. That ended his "investigation".

Jim:

OMG, a military type person who has access to full autos, OMG!

They are really brainless somethings.

This is a good first step. But it does nothing for members of the military or their families who live in the baracks, or on-base housing.

I can't figure out why this doesn't apply on post, not just off. When I was in the army in the 70s and 80s, I kept several guns in my quarters and it never occurred to me that this was in any way a problem. After all, the army paid to ship them from place to place along with all my other personal property. I even sold a couple through the post newspaper at one point.

Soldiers ought to be required to carry weapons on post. If they were, there probably wouldn't be so many "soldiers" in high places who are afraid of weapons, nor would there be so many negligent discharges on the part of people who aren't used to handling loaded firearms.

Maybe it about time to change the phrase "Armed Forces" to "Disarmed Fodder".

Political Correctness has nearly completed its emasculation of America.

Weapons in barracks? At Polk we had to keep *airsoft* locked up in the arms room. This was in '08. Yeah, we worked with everything from 5.56mm to 25mm, and we couldn't keep airsoft in our rooms. I probably should have turned in my metal scissors...

"Soldiers ought to be required to carry weapons on post. If they were, there probably wouldn't be so many "soldiers" in high places who are afraid of weapons, nor would there be so many negligent discharges on the part of people who aren't used to handling loaded firearms."

There's a certain group that is consistently bad at this; starts with a P and rhymes with rogue... I predict what would happen is that they'll just carry an empty magazine with them, or you'll just have a ton of NDs by senior officers; there's no way your typical craven CG is going to write up his golfing buddies.

In country, everyone is carrying and they do go through the motions, but that's not helpful: you need to learn awareness. I constantly saw these idiots at the clearing barrels who were clearly not inspecting the chamber. Christ, half the officers wore their holster like a purse, with their Beretta just swinging around bouncing off their ass.

Some TRADOC schools have you carry an unloaded rifle everywhere and clear it when you go in a building. Being TRADOC, of course, everything is about going through the motions, and people get into the habit of "charge twice and pull the trigger." You'd be surprised how many people don't realize that step one of clearing a weapon is "remove the source of ammunition."

Damn, this is depressing.

My service was in the IDF, not the American Armed Forces, so naturally, the rules were different. But we were taught most forcefully to treat a personal weapon, not as equipment, but as clothing. You don't step out of your barracks without your pants; don't step out without your automatic rifle or sidearm either.

In some places (e.g. city centers), there were regulations against carrying loaded automatic rifles... so we carried them unloaded. But even then, we were expected to carry ammunition with us.

Why on Earth would we have an Army base full of disarmed soldiers? As Fort Hood demonstrated, that's another way of saying "sitting ducks". Does someone believe that, for public safety, we must disarm the people most experienced and most thoroughly trained at using firearms? To whom does that make sense?

DiB

I am a federal agent (not a criminal investigator). I work for OPM/ Federal Investigative Services. We do background security clearance investigations. We are prohibited from carrying firearms while on duty. We go into every community in America to obtain residence coverage. Imagine knocking on a door in (any ghetto, USA) and announce the fact that you are a special agent and are there to.... Why should our right as a private citizen to carry a concealed weapon be forfeited because we are doing our job? Especially when we go into neighborhoods that as a private citizen one would avoid due to safety concerns. I was once chased from a neighborhood by what appeared to be gang members and as I drove away at high speeds (being chased by a car full of men), I realized I had no other recourse than to call the police. I had no means of self-defense, other than my Chevy.