A mass shooting took lace today at Fort Hood; three people were killed, and the shooter, reported to be a soldier named Ivan Lopez, is said to have taken his own life.
Now, how long does it take for an incident like this to be politicized? Well, you know:
'Oh the irony': Tweeter on lockdown at Fort Hood frustrated 'soldiers unable to defend themselves' http://t.co/uGKrckN6ar
— TwitchyTeam (@TwitchyTeam) April 3, 2014Go to the linked thread at Twitchy and you see some grumbling from C.J. Grisham, a master sergeant at Fort Hood and, according to his Twitter profile, the president and CEO of Open Carry Texas:
@RichardUSA No one on base is armed because Clinton banned firearms on military installations.
— CJ Grisham (@cjgrisham) April 2, 2014Among President Clinton's first acts upon taking office in 1993 was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases. In... http://t.co/wEPi0GWSuM
— CJ Grisham (@cjgrisham) April 2, 2014AR 190-14, Carrying of Firearms and Use of Force for Law Enforcement and Security Duties, Paragraph 2-1 states:... http://t.co/TBLKrnGBtD
— CJ Grisham (@cjgrisham) April 2, 2014Army Regulation 190-14 is brought up whenever there's a shooting on a military base; it came up last fall after the D.C. Navy Yard shooting.
But the policy wasn't Clinton's doing. Yes, the regulation was issued in March 1993, early in Clinton's presidency. But:
the impetus for the Army regulation was, in turn, Department of Defense directive 5210.56, which was issued on February 25, 1992, and was considered "effective immediately" for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines....The aim of that directive, issued in the last full year of the George H.W. Bush presidency, was, in the words of the directive, to
limit and control the carrying of firearms by DoD military and civilian personnel. The authorization to carry firearms shall be issued only to qualified personnel when there is a reasonable expectation that life or DoD assets will be jeopardized if firearms are not carried. Evaluation of the necessity to carry a firearm shall be made considering this expectation weighed against the possible consequences of accidental or indiscriminate use of firearms.So when you see this shooting blamed on Clinton, remember: that's a distortion of the facts. (And please note that President George W. Bush and a GOP Congress had six years to overturn this regulation and never did it.)
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C.J. Grisham, by the way, was convicted last fall of interfering with police duties after he was arrested while openly carrying an AR-15 on a hike. Now, when I go hiking, I don't carry an AR-15, so this seems odd to me. I should point out, however, that open carry of a rifle is legal under Texas law under those circumstances, so there you go.
