Wednesday’s deadly shooting at Ft. Hood leaves several grieving families, a community deeply wounded for the second time in recent years and Washington once again debating whether military personnel ought to be able to carry guns while on base.
However, opposition from the Obama administration and disinterest from a Congress bracing for midterm elections mean nothing is likely to change soon.
After last September’s murders at the Washington Navy Yard, Texas Rep. Steve Stockman introduced the Safe Military Bases Act. He says Wednesday’s killings are just further proof the men and women tasked with defending our nation should be able to arm themselves on the job.
“They’re trained. They’re experienced, and we trust them to fend off evildoers and other people trying to attack our nation. This would reinstate that right to carry a weapon,” said Stockman about his legislation.
“For 20 years, they lost that right. Since those 20 years have ensued, we’ve had killings on the base. I can assure you, in Texas, had this individual [gone] out in a public area and tried to do that, there would have been many Texans which would have returned fire.”
Service members had that freedom until a 1992 Department of Defense rules change. It was initiated in the George H.W. Bush administration and took effect in the early weeks of the Clinton administration.
“The comments I’m hearing from people that supported that was primarily that (the soldiers) are young people and they shouldn’t have guns on base. The ironic thing is since we have the ban in place, we’ve had more deaths because people see it as a soft target and they want to make a statement because Ft. Hood is one of the largest bases in the nation. It’s a soft target and easy to shoot because everybody’s disarmed,” said Stockman.
Stockman says he is finding more members interested in co-sponsoring his legislation following Wednesday’s killings, but he confesses getting the Obama administration on board will be virtually impossible.
“This administration is always for more gun control. I don’t think there’s a situation in which he [thinks] that more gun control is bad. Obama, I think, clearly articulates that nobody would have a weapon. The only people who would have weapons is the IRS agents and people like that,” said Stockman.
Following the 2009 Ft. Hood shootings, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he did not favor lifting the ban on arming soldiers while on base.
“I believe that we have our military police and others that are armed and I believe that’s appropriate. I think I believe that allows us the level of protection necessary,” said Odierno under questioning from South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who strongly suggested he wanted to reverse the ban.
Stockman says Odierno’s response is a political statement and may not even reflect his true feelings, much less the members of our military. The congressman says even he didn’t fully understand that until fellow Texas Rep. Pete Olson, a U.S. Navy veteran, briefed him on why presidential appointees in the military take public positions that may come as a surprise.
“I brought this very issue up to him. He said, ‘Steve, he works for the commander-in-chief. He’s not going to contradict what the commander-in-chief says. He’s being a good soldier and restating the policy.’ I think if you listen to him in that clip, he really is very much demure in what he’s saying. It’s not an emphatic statement. It’s more almost factual as opposed to his own opinion,” said Stockman.
But the congressman also points out that the Obama administration is not the only hurdle. He says election year politics also make this an issue many members don’t want to touch.
“I think in this mode of Congress, in which we’re now turning to elections, I don’t think that will become a paramount issue. But I think as time goes on and more people are injured, this is going to seem more like a rational thought. They try to demonize it as irrational but it actually is very rational,” said Stockman, just moments after the House of Representatives held a moment of silence on Thursday.
“When we walked out of the building just now. I just voted. There were three people there with fully automatic weapons that could kill a lot of people. If we as congressmen expect to be protected, I would think that we should allow our soldiers no less but to allow them to protect themselves,” said Stockman.
While political leaders in Washington may be hesitant to take up the issue, Stockman says the service members that he speaks with are very clear on what they want.
“Most of them say to me, ‘Please don’t use my name. I don’t want to get in trouble, but…’ and then they go on to say, ‘This is crazy. Please let us have the right to defend ourselves. I think that the ones that were lost yesterday, I wish they had the right to protect themselves,” said Stockman.
