…for cop-killer weapons. They may have saved lives in Fort Hood.
13 thoughts on “Thank Goodness”
It is a ‘so-called’ Cop Killer weapon yet my research this weekend has turned up zero evidence that any Law Enforcement Officer has lost their life to this weapon.
Getting facts on guns from the Brady idiots is like getting facts on Israel from Hamas.
Off-topic question for Mike Puckett (or other people with military experience): What is the policy in the armed services for very disgruntled but not obviously dangerous servicemen? If the shooter at Ft. Hood had openly said, say, “I think the USA is evil and I don’t want to be deployed in Iraq”, but hadn’t suggested that he was going to shoot anyone, what would have happened? Do they lock up servicepeople for expressing opinions? Do they just deploy deeply disgruntled people anyway, even if there is obviously going to be a morale issue with them? Just curious, no hidden agenda.
What is the policy in the armed services for very disgruntled but not obviously dangerous servicemen? If the shooter at Ft. Hood had openly said, say, “I think the USA is evil and I don’t want to be deployed in Iraq”, but hadn’t suggested that he was going to shoot anyone, what would have happened?
Whatever the policy is, I think that we’ll find out in the coming investigation that it was not followed. This man was reportedly openly advocating insurrection against US troops, which is a clear violation of the UCMJ. The more we learn about all of the behavior that was ignored, probably for political correctness, the more appalling it will become. It’s already quite so.
Bob-1: The answer is really “it depends.” In the Navy at least, unit COs have several ways to not deploy with somebody they don’t want. The problem is that most of those ways mean you deploy a person short. Also, even in peacetime, people really don’t want to deploy. (I had a guy on my ship deliberately break his arm so he didn’t have to go on a peacetime deployment.)
I have deployed with people who were deeply disgruntled about the Navy in general, not just the deployment. If you think you can get useful work out of them, you take them.
Veering even further off-topic, I think we need to remember that Hasan’s CO at Fort Hood had only seen him for at most six months. (COs rotate in and out too.) He or she may not have known how wacked out Hasan was. I think the reporting CO at Walter Reed is going to be asked some very pointed questions about why Hasan wasn’t quietly shown the door.
“I think the USA is evil and I don’t want to be deployed in Iraq”, but hadn’t suggested that he was going to shoot anyone, what would have happened? Do they lock up servicepeople for expressing opinions?”
One would hope his superiors at a minimum would question him and try and find out what he meant.
This joker, at a minimum, should have been seperated from the Army years ago.
If it had been one of my Privates or Spec-4’s, you can bet your sweet Bippie I would have had a talkin’ to with them.
I think the USA is evil and I don’t want to be deployed in Iraq”, but hadn’t suggested that he was going to shoot anyone, what would have happened? Do they lock up servicepeople for expressing opinions?
There is less freedom of speech in the military. Someone openly expressing such an opinion can get into trouble. If they fail to deploy with their unit, they can spend some hard time in jail. An officer’s speech is even more constrained than an enlisted member’s under the UCMJ. For example, an officer can be prosecuted for publicly critizing the president or a member of congress. Anything that even has the appearance of undermining civilian leadership of the military is severely frowned upon as it should be. See Article 88 under Punitive Articles:
ART. 88. CONTEMPT TOWARD OFFICIALS
Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
Yah, but Mike this guy was a major in the USA and a doc. That means you need pretty high-level and self-confident brass to do the “talking to,” don’t you? It’s not the same as PFC Nobody. For one thing, he can’t just be given a general discharge. He’s got a commission. Doesn’t it take some kind of fancy board to actually boot his ass out, or do something equally final? And imagine what happens if The Washington Post gets ahold of the story that an Islamic major is being court-martialed because (according to him) he has made no secret of his Islamic beliefs and he doesn’t want to deploy to a “useless” and “evil” war? Wouldn’t it take a particularly confident CO, who felt certain of being backed up by his own higher ups, to take that step? The only thing worse would be if he was also openly gay…
Besides, I’m guessing his deployment was a punishment for being a useless dickhead. Instead of being kept stateside for important research duties or whatever he was going to be sent to the front to dig ditches, roughly speaking. I have little doubt he felt advising soldiers at the front was humiliating labor for a brilliant psychiatrist and philosopher such as himself.
I recognize it’s a popular thing to do a lot of Monday-morning quaterbacking whenever someone does something crazy like this. My God, who let him out of jail? Why was he paroled? The signs where there! But, you know, “the signs are there” for 99 out of 100 people who do nothing except bitch and flame and post inflammatory crap on the Internet. It’s the 1 out of a 100 who turns from thought and mouthing off to action. Are you going to set up the Thought Police and put the screws to all 100 so you are certain of catching the one who is truly dangerous? That way likes the police state, unfortunately.
No, I think the correct solution is to get rid of the God-damned gun-free victim zones. Give those men their weapons. Not only will Major Screwloose be taken down before he gets off more than a few shots, but he’s a lot less likely to go on the rampage in the first place if he knows there will be plenty of confident marksmen with their sidearms or rifles strolling about any place he cares to make his Ground Zero. I think this type of personality dreams of the terror of the crowd of unarmed, the momentary Godhead of holding life and death in his own personal hand. Transform that sick dream into merely getting into a firefight with soldiers (or even civilians) who are coolly returning shot for shot, keeping a close eye out for a clear shot at your head, and…well, it doesn’t have nearly the same grandiose attraction, I suspect.
I agree 100% Carl.
It might be a sign of the apocalypse, but I have to agree with Carl Pham when he says “I recognize it’s a popular thing to do a lot of Monday-morning quaterbacking whenever someone does something crazy like this.”
Carl is probably also right about Hasan’s deployment – somebody at least thought “ship that SOB out and make him earn his oak leaves.”
Based on my military experience, I have to question the idea that the decision not to get Hasan out of the Army was due to political correctness. In the modern volunteer military, getting rid of shitbags that don’t want to be in is very easy. You don’t need to courtmartial anybody – you just “accept a resignation,” or in the case of an officer, give a few bad evaluations. They don’t make rank and are forced to leave. And I would be very surprised if, absent some overt act, a court-martial would award much more in the way of punishment than a dishonorable discharge.
Regarding the “give the men their weapons,” although it might have stopped this particular attack, there are plenty of places on base that soldiers wouldn’t want to carry their rifles. Fort Hood has movie theaters, gyms, clinics, and bars – all places crowded with soldiers not looking to lug around an M-16.
Chris, I vaguely recall that one of the problems with Major Screwloose was he had not served the time required to pay off his medical degree. Do you suppose the Army is on some kind of hook in that case?
Also, I’m not suggesting everybody be forced to carry his rifle. That does sound bloody annoying. Maybe it would serve to simply require officers to wear sidearms. That’s not totally unreasonable. In years past your weapon was as much of a badge of rank as your uniform. Maybe that tradition should be revisited.
Wait a minute…I’m agreeing with you. I better say something provocative so as not to leave the impression that I’m an agreeable dog pretending to be that notorious soulless devil and scourge of the left, Carl von Pham.
Obama’s an ass. And a tone-deaf one at that, with his “shout out” nonsense. The man should be slapped upside the head with a dead fish. Meanwhile, that gentleman GEORGE W. BUSH (working on your blood pressure here ha ha) went quietly to visit the families of the Fort Hood casualties. That’s class.
Another smallish matter to remember:
Not all commanding officers are developed equally. In the medical branches, most of the officers are direct commissions, meaning that they don’t have anything like the indoctrination of (say) an infantry officer. There *are* some branch transfers into medicine, but only a small proportion.
SO, it is more likely in the medical branches ,than in the combat arms, that a CO will react to a Hasan from the point of view of “freedom of speech”, rather than “prejudicial to good order and discipline”.
Let Officers and NCO’s carry sidearms. That would provide a quantity that would have a quality all it’s own.
Carl Pham – obviously the Army had a bunch of cash invested in Hasan’s medical training, although since he went to the military’s med school they at least paid wholesale. Typically, when the military pays for your training, you (the trainee) are on the hook for a term of service. Again, these things can be waived or a cash value computed and handed to you as a bill. (If he was medically discharged, for example, the Army would just eat the cost.)
MG – yes, the Medical Corps is a different animal, although even there, the command-level people have been in for a while. What I hope will come out of the investigation is who knew what when.
It is a ‘so-called’ Cop Killer weapon yet my research this weekend has turned up zero evidence that any Law Enforcement Officer has lost their life to this weapon.
Getting facts on guns from the Brady idiots is like getting facts on Israel from Hamas.
Off-topic question for Mike Puckett (or other people with military experience): What is the policy in the armed services for very disgruntled but not obviously dangerous servicemen? If the shooter at Ft. Hood had openly said, say, “I think the USA is evil and I don’t want to be deployed in Iraq”, but hadn’t suggested that he was going to shoot anyone, what would have happened? Do they lock up servicepeople for expressing opinions? Do they just deploy deeply disgruntled people anyway, even if there is obviously going to be a morale issue with them? Just curious, no hidden agenda.
What is the policy in the armed services for very disgruntled but not obviously dangerous servicemen? If the shooter at Ft. Hood had openly said, say, “I think the USA is evil and I don’t want to be deployed in Iraq”, but hadn’t suggested that he was going to shoot anyone, what would have happened?
Whatever the policy is, I think that we’ll find out in the coming investigation that it was not followed. This man was reportedly openly advocating insurrection against US troops, which is a clear violation of the UCMJ. The more we learn about all of the behavior that was ignored, probably for political correctness, the more appalling it will become. It’s already quite so.
Bob-1: The answer is really “it depends.” In the Navy at least, unit COs have several ways to not deploy with somebody they don’t want. The problem is that most of those ways mean you deploy a person short. Also, even in peacetime, people really don’t want to deploy. (I had a guy on my ship deliberately break his arm so he didn’t have to go on a peacetime deployment.)
I have deployed with people who were deeply disgruntled about the Navy in general, not just the deployment. If you think you can get useful work out of them, you take them.
Veering even further off-topic, I think we need to remember that Hasan’s CO at Fort Hood had only seen him for at most six months. (COs rotate in and out too.) He or she may not have known how wacked out Hasan was. I think the reporting CO at Walter Reed is going to be asked some very pointed questions about why Hasan wasn’t quietly shown the door.
“I think the USA is evil and I don’t want to be deployed in Iraq”, but hadn’t suggested that he was going to shoot anyone, what would have happened? Do they lock up servicepeople for expressing opinions?”
One would hope his superiors at a minimum would question him and try and find out what he meant.
This joker, at a minimum, should have been seperated from the Army years ago.
If it had been one of my Privates or Spec-4’s, you can bet your sweet Bippie I would have had a talkin’ to with them.
I think the USA is evil and I don’t want to be deployed in Iraq”, but hadn’t suggested that he was going to shoot anyone, what would have happened? Do they lock up servicepeople for expressing opinions?
There is less freedom of speech in the military. Someone openly expressing such an opinion can get into trouble. If they fail to deploy with their unit, they can spend some hard time in jail. An officer’s speech is even more constrained than an enlisted member’s under the UCMJ. For example, an officer can be prosecuted for publicly critizing the president or a member of congress. Anything that even has the appearance of undermining civilian leadership of the military is severely frowned upon as it should be. See Article 88 under Punitive Articles:
ART. 88. CONTEMPT TOWARD OFFICIALS
Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
Yah, but Mike this guy was a major in the USA and a doc. That means you need pretty high-level and self-confident brass to do the “talking to,” don’t you? It’s not the same as PFC Nobody. For one thing, he can’t just be given a general discharge. He’s got a commission. Doesn’t it take some kind of fancy board to actually boot his ass out, or do something equally final? And imagine what happens if The Washington Post gets ahold of the story that an Islamic major is being court-martialed because (according to him) he has made no secret of his Islamic beliefs and he doesn’t want to deploy to a “useless” and “evil” war? Wouldn’t it take a particularly confident CO, who felt certain of being backed up by his own higher ups, to take that step? The only thing worse would be if he was also openly gay…
Besides, I’m guessing his deployment was a punishment for being a useless dickhead. Instead of being kept stateside for important research duties or whatever he was going to be sent to the front to dig ditches, roughly speaking. I have little doubt he felt advising soldiers at the front was humiliating labor for a brilliant psychiatrist and philosopher such as himself.
I recognize it’s a popular thing to do a lot of Monday-morning quaterbacking whenever someone does something crazy like this. My God, who let him out of jail? Why was he paroled? The signs where there! But, you know, “the signs are there” for 99 out of 100 people who do nothing except bitch and flame and post inflammatory crap on the Internet. It’s the 1 out of a 100 who turns from thought and mouthing off to action. Are you going to set up the Thought Police and put the screws to all 100 so you are certain of catching the one who is truly dangerous? That way likes the police state, unfortunately.
No, I think the correct solution is to get rid of the God-damned gun-free victim zones. Give those men their weapons. Not only will Major Screwloose be taken down before he gets off more than a few shots, but he’s a lot less likely to go on the rampage in the first place if he knows there will be plenty of confident marksmen with their sidearms or rifles strolling about any place he cares to make his Ground Zero. I think this type of personality dreams of the terror of the crowd of unarmed, the momentary Godhead of holding life and death in his own personal hand. Transform that sick dream into merely getting into a firefight with soldiers (or even civilians) who are coolly returning shot for shot, keeping a close eye out for a clear shot at your head, and…well, it doesn’t have nearly the same grandiose attraction, I suspect.
I agree 100% Carl.
It might be a sign of the apocalypse, but I have to agree with Carl Pham when he says “I recognize it’s a popular thing to do a lot of Monday-morning quaterbacking whenever someone does something crazy like this.”
Carl is probably also right about Hasan’s deployment – somebody at least thought “ship that SOB out and make him earn his oak leaves.”
Based on my military experience, I have to question the idea that the decision not to get Hasan out of the Army was due to political correctness. In the modern volunteer military, getting rid of shitbags that don’t want to be in is very easy. You don’t need to courtmartial anybody – you just “accept a resignation,” or in the case of an officer, give a few bad evaluations. They don’t make rank and are forced to leave. And I would be very surprised if, absent some overt act, a court-martial would award much more in the way of punishment than a dishonorable discharge.
Regarding the “give the men their weapons,” although it might have stopped this particular attack, there are plenty of places on base that soldiers wouldn’t want to carry their rifles. Fort Hood has movie theaters, gyms, clinics, and bars – all places crowded with soldiers not looking to lug around an M-16.
Chris, I vaguely recall that one of the problems with Major Screwloose was he had not served the time required to pay off his medical degree. Do you suppose the Army is on some kind of hook in that case?
Also, I’m not suggesting everybody be forced to carry his rifle. That does sound bloody annoying. Maybe it would serve to simply require officers to wear sidearms. That’s not totally unreasonable. In years past your weapon was as much of a badge of rank as your uniform. Maybe that tradition should be revisited.
Wait a minute…I’m agreeing with you. I better say something provocative so as not to leave the impression that I’m an agreeable dog pretending to be that notorious soulless devil and scourge of the left, Carl von Pham.
Obama’s an ass. And a tone-deaf one at that, with his “shout out” nonsense. The man should be slapped upside the head with a dead fish. Meanwhile, that gentleman GEORGE W. BUSH (working on your blood pressure here ha ha) went quietly to visit the families of the Fort Hood casualties. That’s class.
Another smallish matter to remember:
Not all commanding officers are developed equally. In the medical branches, most of the officers are direct commissions, meaning that they don’t have anything like the indoctrination of (say) an infantry officer. There *are* some branch transfers into medicine, but only a small proportion.
SO, it is more likely in the medical branches ,than in the combat arms, that a CO will react to a Hasan from the point of view of “freedom of speech”, rather than “prejudicial to good order and discipline”.
Let Officers and NCO’s carry sidearms. That would provide a quantity that would have a quality all it’s own.
Carl Pham – obviously the Army had a bunch of cash invested in Hasan’s medical training, although since he went to the military’s med school they at least paid wholesale. Typically, when the military pays for your training, you (the trainee) are on the hook for a term of service. Again, these things can be waived or a cash value computed and handed to you as a bill. (If he was medically discharged, for example, the Army would just eat the cost.)
MG – yes, the Medical Corps is a different animal, although even there, the command-level people have been in for a while. What I hope will come out of the investigation is who knew what when.