CDZ Gun-free zones in VA Hospitals - Open invitation to terrorists

[320 Years of History]

Obama has made the VA hospitals gun-free zones. With practically zero security in our hospital - James Haley (you never see a cop), the hospital is red meat to terrorists, with no one inside able to defend themselves.

Police chief supports the gun-free zone. Sure, he's working for Obama's appointee. And in general. most cops don't want anybody having guns except them.

Bottom line - gun-free zones need to be abolished. They are open invitations to terrorists, and there's no reason why a law-abiding citizen with a license, should be banned from carrying his gun ANYWHERE. This is especially true in VA hospitals, since terrorists, more than once, have picked military targets to hit. With everyone (veterans, doctors, nurses, etc) unarmed, the stage is set for a major massacre.

Red:

Tell us, please...in what way is a gun helpful in defending oneself or others against an explosive device, particularly ones activated by suicide bombers? Seems to me a physical shield might be more useful than a gun in such circumstances, and particularly to people outside the central impact radius of a bomb. Better still are preemptive informative measures such as screening stations set up in perimeter locations.

Where were the 300+ million gun toting Americans who ostensibly should have been able to protect themselves and/or others at any one of the terrorist or so-called terrorist events over the past decade? Surely one would think that if having a gun were going to be an effective means of self-defense, at least once one person having a gun would have used it to neutralize the terrorists who didn't use bombs to effect injury. Yet, so far, not one such person has, at least not that I've heard of.

More relevant to any discussion on gun control/rights than is the impact of having a citizenry that ubiquitously (or not) "packs heat" is the fact that of all the gun-related, or just violent, crimes (with or without a gun) that occur in the U.S., terrorism doesn't even rate in even the top ten. Moreover, by the time someone having a gun were to use it to stop a terrorist, the terrorist has already accomplished what they aimed to do. Terrorism and its effects are nothing but a red herring to the gun control/rights discussion; the overwhelming majority of gun-related crime has nothing to do with terrorism (or mass shootings, for that matter), that is unless you want to define terrorism as "anything caused by another human and that might be scary to a person when it happens."

Why? Terrorists don't, and don't have to, think as you and I do when trying to accomplish something, and it's naive to think that they do and measure one's success in thwarting them using the same terms we use to gauge success and failure. Unlike many of the remarks I read on this site, it's clear from their actions that terrorists, particularly radical Islamist ones, can see both the forest and the trees. It's clear that when evaluating the success of their terrorist deeds, they see their "glass" as half full, not half empty.

Terrorists have two factors on their side that cannot be ignored and that having a gun as self-defense is unlikely (given the results so far) to stop: (1) the element of surprise, and (2) having either a low enough or no specific measure of harm that must be caused in order for the terrorist to consider him-/herself successful.

For example, do you think Timothy McVeigh was pissed that the whole Murrow building didn't collapse, or do you think he was thrilled that the front of it was destroyed? Consider the fourth 9/11 plane. Do you think that crashing a plane of U.S. passengers was something Al Qaeda's fans and members didn't cheer over, even though flying the thing into the Capitol or Washington Monument or whatever was the intended outcome? They most certainly were not put off; they were thrilled they, in a very dramatic way, killed some 200 more "infidels."


Blue:
It's curious that anyone advocating for gun control would mention anything having to do with military installations. The fact is that military installations are among the most heavily gun controlled places in the U.S. And what does recent history tell us about the prevalence of gun-related illegal shootings on military bases? It tells us that one can almost count all of them from 1994 to 2014 on one's fingers and toes.

It's hard to get crime statistics for military installations, but some were apparently released for Camp Pendleton. They had one murder and one successful suicide. (The info at the link doesn't say whether a gun was involved in either incident.) Given the base's population of ~5K people -- mostly people in the age range (20-45) that commits among the greatest quantities of crime than do the remaining cohorts of the population -- regardless of whether guns were involved or not, that translates to a far lower violent death rate than is found in any number of other places in the country. (As an interesting exercise, check out how that compares with your own town's or section of town's murder/suicide rates.)

I realize I haven't any info that will allow me to determine whether those rates are consistent across all military bases. The referenced article states, "The overall rate for all the services was two reports of sexual assault per 1,000 service members. The Army's rate was 2.6 per 1,000; Navy, 1.6 per 1,000; Air Force, 1.4 per 1,000; Marine Corps, 1.3 per 1,000." That statement's placement in the article makes it unclear, however, whether that is with regard to sexual assaults, crime overall, or some other crime metric. (I suspect it pertains to sexual assaults, but it's hard to know since in typical "newsy" fashion, the writer has made nearly every damn sentence its own paragraph rather than putting related stuff in one paragraph.)

 

[protectionist]

You are the poster child.

Go back and look at the reaction Paris had to those attacks. They didn't all get armed and start patrolling the streets, they came out in unarmed masses in solidarity with each other to tell everyone they won't be intimidated. .

This weird over-the-top fear and paranoia is something specific with the conservatives in the US. We already ARE fighting the enemy where they are and all of our assets here ARE already on heightened lookout and searching for any of these bugwits. If you see something you contact the authorities.

YOU choose to live your life in abject fear, I and most people don't. You argument about 'gun free zones' is ludicrous. When you drive past any school see how 'terrified' all those children AREN'T. If a child can live their life without fear I think you can man up and at least give the effort to do the same.

Nice try, Mohammed. Incredibly, irresponsible, culpable liberals (possibly jihadists) like to use the "fear" angle to try to shame responsible Americans into disarming, and thereby creating easy targets for jihad. At this point, IssacNewton, I'm am more inclined to think you are a jihadist than not.

Your position here is right on the money for an ISIS killer. You couldn't be saying it any more ISIS strategy than any of them.You would like to leave veterans, doctors, nurses, technicians, visitors, etc. in VA hospitals defenseless if a team if ISIS killers arrived. And you want us to think we should be cool with that.

Three possibilities >>>

1. You're an ISIS cyber terrorist.

2. You're out of your mind.

3. You're the dumbest fool that ever walked the earth.

EARTH TO IN >> By the time the "authorities" you mention are notified, and arrive, the bloodbath has ALREADY occured (as we saw in Paris, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, etc). Great strategy there > FOR ISIS.

My guess is you're a jihadist (which this forum has a few of).

PS - the cyber jihadists usually have very western-sounding names (to cover up their Middle Eastern backgrounds) - IssacNewton fall right in line.

 

[protectionist]

You can't define a gun-free zone as a place where less than 100% of the people are armed. Nidal Hasan was fired on by two individuals during his ten minute long rampage. The army is not the NRA. They're not insane. They understand the nightmare that a free-for-all could cause. In the army you're only supposed to shoot your guns when you're told to.

My point was that there is no correlation between the target a terrorist chooses and the ability of people to shoot back at them. All terrorists/mass shooters know they're likely to be facing armed opponents within minutes. Many have already given themselves up for dead. The notion that we can cut down on response time by making everyone in the world an armed and deadly peace officer is way out there.

There is only one rational response to terrorism. Go about your business.

1. Nobody was defining a gun-free zone "as a place where less than 100% of the people are armed", Mr Straw Man. Those are YOUR words, not mine.

2. You sound like a jihadist too. Your post is right in line with what they wish to program Americans to. "No correlation between the target a terrorist chooses and the ability of people to shoot back at them" ?? Wow. What a thing to say. What could be more purely ISIS then that ? Of course there's a correlation. Does anyone with a brain think that ISIS is going to attack an NRA meeting ? Or a gun show ? Nope. They attack what they think are SOFT targets. Occasionally, they might get stupid, as in the the Garland TX case, where they rqan into opposition, and paid the price for their stupidity.

3. What terrorists/mass shooters know is that in soft targets (gun-free zones) there will be plenty of "minutes" for them to conduct a massacre, before the armed opponents you mention arrive.

4. Of course we cut down on response time (to zero) by making citizens with the right to carry a gun, ecercise that right, and this should be ANYWHERE. There is no reason why anyplace should be off limits to law-abiding CCW holders, from carrying their guns, and 1). creating a deterrent factor to terrorists and 2). stopping the terrorists cold, as saving lives. What you suggest is a formula for the massacres of innocent people. You're a jihadist (or may as well be).

5. Oh sure. "Go about your business" (UNARMED) > Precisely, the ISIS line.

 

[protectionist]

You are the poster child.

Go back and look at the reaction Paris had to those attacks. They didn't all get armed and start patrolling the streets, they came out in unarmed masses in solidarity with each other to tell everyone they won't be intimidated. .

This weird over-the-top fear and paranoia is something specific with the conservatives in the US. We already ARE fighting the enemy where they are and all of our assets here ARE already on heightened lookout and searching for any of these bugwits. If you see something you contact the authorities.

YOU choose to live your life in abject fear, I and most people don't. You argument about 'gun free zones' is ludicrous. When you drive past any school see how 'terrified' all those children AREN'T. If a child can live their life without fear I think you can man up and at least give the effort to do the same.

Nice try, Mohammed. Incredibly, irresponsible, culpable liberals (possibly jihadists) like to use the "fear" angle to try to shame responsible Americans into disarming, and thereby creating easy targets for jihad. At this point, IssacNewton, I'm am more inclined to think you are a jihadist than not.

Your position here is right on the money for an ISIS killer. You couldn't be saying it any more ISIS strategy than any of them.You would like to leave veterans, doctors, nurses, technicians, visitors, etc. in VA hospitals defenseless if a team if ISIS killers arrived. And you want us to think we should be cool with that.

Three possibilities >>>

1. You're an ISIS cyber terrorist.

2. You're out of your mind.

3. You're the dumbest fool that ever walked the earth.

EARTH TO IN >> By the time the "authorities" you mention are notified, and arrive, the bloodbath has ALREADY occured (as we saw in Paris, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, etc). Great strategy there > FOR ISIS.

My guess is you're a jihadist (which this forum has a few of).

PS - the cyber jihadists usually have very western-sounding names (to cover up their Middle Eastern backgrounds) - "IssacNewton" falls right in line.

 

[Vandalshandle]

Let's see. Today is jan. 9, 2016. What does the Republican fear mongering calendar say is the thing to preach fear about today. I thought it was Syrian refugees raping children in our churches.

No, Protect is correct. That is next Saturday. Today it is terrorists attacking gun free VA hospitals!

 

[protectionist]

Red: Tell us, please...in what way is a gun helpful in defending oneself or others against an explosive device, particularly ones activated by suicide bombers? Seems to me a physical shield might be more useful than a gun in such circumstances, and particularly to people outside the central impact radius of a bomb. Better still are preemptive informative measures such as screening stations set up in perimeter locations.

Where were the 300+ million gun toting Americans who ostensibly should have been able to protect themselves and/or others at any one of the terrorist or so-called terrorist events over the past decade? Surely one would think that if having a gun were going to be an effective means of self-defense, at least once one person having a gun would have used it to neutralize the terrorists who didn't use bombs to effect injury. Yet, so far, not one such person has, at least not that I've heard of.

More relevant to any discussion on gun control/rights than is the impact of having a citizenry that ubiquitously (or not) "packs heat" is the fact that of all the gun-related, or just violent, crimes (with or without a gun) that occur in the U.S., terrorism doesn't even rate in even the top ten. Moreover, by the time someone having a gun were to use it to stop a terrorist, the terrorist has already accomplished what they aimed to do. Terrorism and its effects are nothing but a red herring to the gun control/rights discussion; the overwhelming majority of gun-related crime has nothing to do with terrorism (or mass shootings, for that matter), that is unless you want to define terrorism as "anything caused by another human and that might be scary to a person when it happens."

Why? Terrorists don't, and don't have to, think as you and I do when trying to accomplish something, and it's naive to think that they do and measure one's success in thwarting them using the same terms we use to gauge success and failure. Unlike many of the remarks I read on this site, it's clear from their actions that terrorists, particularly radical Islamist ones, can see both the forest and the trees. It's clear that when evaluating the success of their terrorist deeds, they see their "glass" as half full, not half empty.

Terrorists have two factors on their side that cannot be ignored and that having a gun as self-defense is unlikely (given the results so far) to stop: (1) the element of surprise, and (2) having either a low enough or no specific measure of harm that must be caused in order for the terrorist to consider him-/herself successful.

For example, do you think Timothy McVeigh was pissed that the whole Murrow building didn't collapse, or do you think he was thrilled that the front of it was destroyed? Consider the fourth 9/11 plane. Do you think that crashing a plane of U.S. passengers was something Al Qaeda's fans and members didn't cheer over, even though flying the thing into the Capitol or Washington Monument or whatever was the intended outcome? They most certainly were not put off; they were thrilled they, in a very dramatic way, killed some 200 more "infidels."

Blue:
It's curious that anyone advocating for gun control would mention anything having to do with military installations. The fact is that military installations are among the most heavily gun controlled places in the U.S. And what does recent history tell us about the prevalence of gun-related illegal shootings on military bases? It tells us that one can almost count all of them from 1994 to 2014 on one's fingers and toes.

It's hard to get crime statistics for military installations, but some were apparently released for Camp Pendleton. They had one murder and one successful suicide. (The info at the link doesn't say whether a gun was involved in either incident.) Given the base's population of ~5K people, regardless of whether guns were involved or not, that translates to a far lower violent death rate than is found in any number of other places in the country. (As an interesting exercise, check out how that compares with your own town's or section of town's murder/suicide rates.)

I realize I haven't any info that will allow me to determine whether those rates are consistent across all military bases. The referenced article states, "The overall rate for all the services was two reports of sexual assault per 1,000 service members. The Army's rate was 2.6 per 1,000; Navy, 1.6 per 1,000; Air Force, 1.4 per 1,000; Marine Corps, 1.3 per 1,000." That statement's placement in the article makes it unclear, however, whether that is with regard to sexual assaults, crime overall, or some other crime metric. (I suspect it pertains to sexual assaults, but it's hard to know since in typical "newsy" fashion, the writer has made nearly every damn sentence its own paragraph rather than putting related stuff in one paragraph.)

From the very beginning of your post I question your sincerity. You ask a foolish question that appears to be designed to divert attention from the truth. Since your post is so long, I will address it by your paragraphs/

Red section: Paragraph 1 - Guns in the hands of citizens are "helpful in defending oneself or others against" terrorists who engage in shooting attacks (like Paris, Fort Hood, San Bernardino). In the case of "explosive devices", like ones "activated by suicide bombers", sure a physical shield might be more useful than a gun in such circumstances. Nobody said it wouldn't be. "Preemptive informative measures", good also. Nobody spoke against them. But these things pertain to the bombers. The abolishing of gun-free zones, and having CCW licensees armed, pertains to the shooter terrorists. Form follows function. Get it ?

Paragragh 2 - the "300+ million gun toting Americans who ostensibly should have been able to protect themselves and/or others", at "terrorist events over the past decade" were AT THOSE TERRORIST EVENTS. And they got shot and killed, BECAUSE THEY WERE IN A GOVT-MANDATED GUN-FREE ZONE, and were therefore unarmed (which is precisely what I'm talking about)

Paragragh 3 - Abolishing gun-free zones serves to stop ANY criminal who starts a crime of ANY kind, terrorist or not.
No, the terrorist has NOT "already accomplished what they aimed to do" "by the time someone having a gun were to use it to stop a terrorist", because that "time" you speak of, is exactly ONE SECOND. That's how long it take to pull a gun out of a pocket and fire it.

Paragraph 4 - It doesn't matter how the terrorists see their activity. Fact is , terrorists continue to use mass shooting as a way to conduct terrorism. Together with that they pick SOFT TARGETS (ie, Gun-Free Zones) as places to do it. So, it is elementary that by hardening these targets with armed CCW holders, 2 things happen.
1) a deterrent is created, where the terrorists no longer have an easy path in a soft target of unarmed people, and 2) shooter terrorists who do show up and start shooting will be stopped, avoiding any further killing
(Example; the 2002 LAX terrorist, Ahmed Mohammed Hadayet, who was shot dead by a security guard after he shot and killed 2 people. He had 2 semi-automatic pistols & hundreds of rounds of ammunition in an airport filled with people) If the armed guard had not been there Hadayet surely would have conduct an bloodbath. The armed guard (who could have been just any civilian), saved hundreds of lives.)

2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paragraph 5 & 6 - No matter what the terrorists think about their deeds, having armed citizens on hand, is both a deterrent and a cure to stop an mass shooter attack just as it begins (as in the case of the 2002 LAX shooter shown in the link provided here)

Blue section: Regardless of the statistics on violence in military bases/installations over the span of decades, the fact is there have been quite a few just within the past few years, since the 2009 Fort hood attack, and no matter how many there have been, the fact remains, that VA hospitals are US military, and as such are prime targets for jihadists who have specified that these are their top choice. That together with the rash of jihadist shooting massacres, is more than enough to validate the abolition of gun-free zones, especially in VA hospitals.

 

[2aguy]

Obama has made the VA hospitals gun-free zones. With practically zero security in our hospital - James Haley (you never see a cop), the hospital is red meat to terrorists, with no one inside able to defend themselves.
Police chief supports the gun-free zone. Sure, he's working for Obama's appointee. And in general. most cops don't want anybody having guns except them.


Bottom line - gun-free zones need to be abolished. They are open invitations to terrorists, and there's no reason why a law-abiding citizen with a license, should be banned from carrying his gun ANYWHERE. This is especially true in VA hospitals, since terrorists, more than once, have picked military targets to hit. With everyone (veterans, doctors, nurses, etc) unarmed, the stage is set for a major massacre.

Was the Army base where Nidal Hasan went on his rampage a gun free zone? How about the USS Cole?

the area the shooter attacked at Fort Hood was a gun free zone...notice that he didn't go to a live fire range or the MP station to do his shooting.......

 

[protectionist]

Let's see. Today is jan. 9, 2016. What does the Republican fear mongering calendar say is the thing to preach fear about today. I thought it was Syrian refugees raping children in our churches.

No, Protect is correct. That is next Saturday. Today it is terrorists attacking gun free VA hospitals!

Lots of jihadists showing up mouthing off the jihadist talking points ("fear-mongering') Do they really think they are going to somehow shame somebody into lowering their guard ?

Hey Vandalshandle! You wanna tell us we're fearful because we have a police force ? Or maybe we shouldn't have one so we could appear to be brave, you think ? Or maybe we should disarm our cops and have them walk around without a gun, like the ones in England, huh ? Maybe you think we're fearmongering by having a US military, or state National Guards too. Maybe there should be no guns at all, anywhere in America, and just let ISIS walk in and kill us all. What do you think of that idea, Mohammed ?

 

[2aguy]

Timothy McVeigh slaughtered 168 people, many of them children and there have been numerous mass shootings the last 40 years. I don't remember anyone living their life as if they were going to get attacked tomorrow.

The paranoia is out of hand and not consistent with the possible threat.

Relax.

NO, DO NOT relax. That is the line spinned out by al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, et al of the international jihad. That's exactly what they want Americans to do. Lower our guard. What a stupid post. The USA IS AT WAR with these lunatics. You don't "relax" when you're at war. You fight your enemy. you kill them, and you minimize their capabilty to kill you.

I remember lots of people living their life as if they were going to get attacked. I see that right now, as we have CCW licenses, carry guns, and are ready to deal with the terrorist if/whenever/wherever they show up - EXCEPT IN THE LUDICROUS GUN-FREE ZONES.

PS - wanna tell the family & friends of the people killed in Paris and San Bernardino to "relax" ? Or the soldiers at Fort Hood ? Or in any of dozens of the terrorist attacks in the US, in recent years ?

You are the poster child.

Go back and look at the reaction Paris had to those attacks. They didn't all get armed and start patrolling the streets, they came out in unarmed masses in solidarity with each other to tell everyone they won't be intimidated. .

This weird over-the-top fear and paranoia is something specific with the conservatives in the US. We already ARE fighting the enemy where they are and all of our assets here ARE already on heightened lookout and searching for any of these bugwits. If you see something you contact the authorities.

YOU choose to live your life in abject fear, I and most people don't. You argument about 'gun free zones' is ludicrous. When you drive past any school see how 'terrified' all those children AREN'T. If a child can live their life without fear I think you can man up and at least give the effort to do the same.

Go back and look at the reaction Paris had to those attacks. They didn't all get armed and start patrolling the streets,

Really....? That is what you saw...you didn't see the imposition of Martial Law.....and the way they put armed soldiers on every street corner? You know....guys with select fire, fully automatic rifles.....and kicked in doors of known and suspected jihadi supporters.........guys with guns again, kicking in doors...under Martial Law that is still in place....

 

[2aguy]

Timothy McVeigh slaughtered 168 people, many of them children and there have been numerous mass shootings the last 40 years. I don't remember anyone living their life as if they were going to get attacked tomorrow.

The paranoia is out of hand and not consistent with the possible threat.

Relax.

NO, DO NOT relax. That is the line spinned out by al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, et al of the international jihad. That's exactly what they want Americans to do. Lower our guard. What a stupid post. The USA IS AT WAR with these lunatics. You don't "relax" when you're at war. You fight your enemy. you kill them, and you minimize their capabilty to kill you.

I remember lots of people living their life as if they were going to get attacked. I see that right now, as we have CCW licenses, carry guns, and are ready to deal with the terrorist if/whenever/wherever they show up - EXCEPT IN THE LUDICROUS GUN-FREE ZONES.

PS - wanna tell the family & friends of the people killed in Paris and San Bernardino to "relax" ? Or the soldiers at Fort Hood ? Or in any of dozens of the terrorist attacks in the US, in recent years ?

You are the poster child.

Go back and look at the reaction Paris had to those attacks. They didn't all get armed and start patrolling the streets, they came out in unarmed masses in solidarity with each other to tell everyone they won't be intimidated. .

This weird over-the-top fear and paranoia is something specific with the conservatives in the US. We already ARE fighting the enemy where they are and all of our assets here ARE already on heightened lookout and searching for any of these bugwits. If you see something you contact the authorities.

YOU choose to live your life in abject fear, I and most people don't. You argument about 'gun free zones' is ludicrous. When you drive past any school see how 'terrified' all those children AREN'T. If a child can live their life without fear I think you can man up and at least give the effort to do the same.

Britain is giving guns to more police units........are they afraid?

 

[Moonglow]

Obama has made the VA hospitals gun-free zones. With practically zero security in our hospital - James Haley (you never see a cop), the hospital is red meat to terrorists, with no one inside able to defend themselves.
Police chief supports the gun-free zone. Sure, he's working for Obama's appointee. And in general. most cops don't want anybody having guns except them.


Bottom line - gun-free zones need to be abolished. They are open invitations to terrorists, and there's no reason why a law-abiding citizen with a license, should be banned from carrying his gun ANYWHERE. This is especially true in VA hospitals, since terrorists, more than once, have picked military targets to hit. With everyone (veterans, doctors, nurses, etc) unarmed, the stage is set for a major massacre.

Not true as there is VA police forces..

 

[protectionist]

Here's what you get when citizens and even police are unarmed >>

 

[2aguy]

Was the Army base where Nidal Hasan went on his rampage a gun free zone? How about the USS Cole?

Yes it was. And the soldiers were all unarmed. And the military bases still are gun-free zones, as we speak (in addoition to the recruiting center in Chattanooga, that was also hit)

You can't define a gun-free zone as a place where less than 100% of the people are armed. Nidal Hasan was fired on by two individuals during his ten minute long rampage. The army is not the NRA. They're not insane. They understand the nightmare that a free-for-all could cause. In the army you're only supposed to shoot your guns when you're told to.

My point was that there is no correlation between the target a terrorist chooses and the ability of people to shoot back at them. All terrorists/mass shooters know they're likely to be facing armed opponents within minutes. Many have already given themselves up for dead. The notion that we can cut down on response time by making everyone in the world an armed and deadly peace officer is way out there.

There is only one rational response to terrorism. Go about your business.

The shooter was shot at by Military Police who came to the scene minutes after it started and he killed one of them and wounded the other.......it was a gun free zone.

Mass shooters who have left notes or been debriefed by law enforcment have stated they chose gun free zones when they had a choice....

And studies show armed citizens at the scene save lives....it takes cops 5-10 minutes to appear...the Sandy Hook shooter killed for 5 minutes and only stopped when he heard the police sirens approaching, he then took his own life. He attended Sandy hook elementary school, the middle school and the high school....and attacked the elementary school because the other two schools had armed police resource officers......

 

[protectionist]

Not true as there is VA police forces..

Try reading the OP. As I said, the VA police are just not around. At least in the hospital I go to (and a few others they tell me) you can walk around the huge hospital for an hour though countless hallways and rooms, and never see a cop. I have been to the James Haley VA hospital in Tampa many times, and the only place I have ever seen a cop is right outside their police office. If terrorists came in shooting, it would up to the citizens to defend themselves.

 

[2aguy]

Obama has made the VA hospitals gun-free zones. With practically zero security in our hospital - James Haley (you never see a cop), the hospital is red meat to terrorists, with no one inside able to defend themselves.

Police chief supports the gun-free zone. Sure, he's working for Obama's appointee. And in general. most cops don't want anybody having guns except them.

Bottom line - gun-free zones need to be abolished. They are open invitations to terrorists, and there's no reason why a law-abiding citizen with a license, should be banned from carrying his gun ANYWHERE. This is especially true in VA hospitals, since terrorists, more than once, have picked military targets to hit. With everyone (veterans, doctors, nurses, etc) unarmed, the stage is set for a major massacre.

Red:

Tell us, please...in what way is a gun helpful in defending oneself or others against an explosive device, particularly ones activated by suicide bombers? Seems to me a physical shield might be more useful than a gun in such circumstances, and particularly to people outside the central impact radius of a bomb. Better still are preemptive informative measures such as screening stations set up in perimeter locations.

Where were the 300+ million gun toting Americans who ostensibly should have been able to protect themselves and/or others at any one of the terrorist or so-called terrorist events over the past decade? Surely one would think that if having a gun were going to be an effective means of self-defense, at least once one person having a gun would have used it to neutralize the terrorists who didn't use bombs to effect injury. Yet, so far, not one such person has, at least not that I've heard of.

More relevant to any discussion on gun control/rights than is the impact of having a citizenry that ubiquitously (or not) "packs heat" is the fact that of all the gun-related, or just violent, crimes (with or without a gun) that occur in the U.S., terrorism doesn't even rate in even the top ten. Moreover, by the time someone having a gun were to use it to stop a terrorist, the terrorist has already accomplished what they aimed to do. Terrorism and its effects are nothing but a red herring to the gun control/rights discussion; the overwhelming majority of gun-related crime has nothing to do with terrorism (or mass shootings, for that matter), that is unless you want to define terrorism as "anything caused by another human and that might be scary to a person when it happens."

Why? Terrorists don't, and don't have to, think as you and I do when trying to accomplish something, and it's naive to think that they do and measure one's success in thwarting them using the same terms we use to gauge success and failure. Unlike many of the remarks I read on this site, it's clear from their actions that terrorists, particularly radical Islamist ones, can see both the forest and the trees. It's clear that when evaluating the success of their terrorist deeds, they see their "glass" as half full, not half empty.

Terrorists have two factors on their side that cannot be ignored and that having a gun as self-defense is unlikely (given the results so far) to stop: (1) the element of surprise, and (2) having either a low enough or no specific measure of harm that must be caused in order for the terrorist to consider him-/herself successful.

For example, do you think Timothy McVeigh was pissed that the whole Murrow building didn't collapse, or do you think he was thrilled that the front of it was destroyed? Consider the fourth 9/11 plane. Do you think that crashing a plane of U.S. passengers was something Al Qaeda's fans and members didn't cheer over, even though flying the thing into the Capitol or Washington Monument or whatever was the intended outcome? They most certainly were not put off; they were thrilled they, in a very dramatic way, killed some 200 more "infidels."


Blue:
It's curious that anyone advocating for gun control would mention anything having to do with military installations. The fact is that military installations are among the most heavily gun controlled places in the U.S. And what does recent history tell us about the prevalence of gun-related illegal shootings on military bases? It tells us that one can almost count all of them from 1994 to 2014 on one's fingers and toes.

It's hard to get crime statistics for military installations, but some were apparently released for Camp Pendleton. They had one murder and one successful suicide. (The info at the link doesn't say whether a gun was involved in either incident.) Given the base's population of ~5K people -- mostly people in the age range (20-45) that commits among the greatest quantities of crime than do the remaining cohorts of the population -- regardless of whether guns were involved or not, that translates to a far lower violent death rate than is found in any number of other places in the country. (As an interesting exercise, check out how that compares with your own town's or section of town's murder/suicide rates.)

I realize I haven't any info that will allow me to determine whether those rates are consistent across all military bases. The referenced article states, "The overall rate for all the services was two reports of sexual assault per 1,000 service members. The Army's rate was 2.6 per 1,000; Navy, 1.6 per 1,000; Air Force, 1.4 per 1,000; Marine Corps, 1.3 per 1,000." That statement's placement in the article makes it unclear, however, whether that is with regard to sexual assaults, crime overall, or some other crime metric. (I suspect it pertains to sexual assaults, but it's hard to know since in typical "newsy" fashion, the writer has made nearly every damn sentence its own paragraph rather than putting related stuff in one paragraph.)

Where were the 300+ million gun toting Americans who ostensibly should have been able to protect themselves and/or others at any one of the terrorist or so-called terrorist events over the past decade?

Because people like you have made almost every public space a gun free zone....so all those law abiding gun owners had to leave their guns at home or in their cars...so they didn't have them when the mass shooters came in...

And where mass shooters were stupid, and picked non gun free zones where there were actual Armed, law abiding citizens....they were stopped....

 

[protectionist]

Britain is giving guns to more police units........are they afraid?

Yes they are, AS THEY SHOULD BE. To not be afraid, is nuts.

 

[2aguy]

Obama has made the VA hospitals gun-free zones. With practically zero security in our hospital - James Haley (you never see a cop), the hospital is red meat to terrorists, with no one inside able to defend themselves.

Police chief supports the gun-free zone. Sure, he's working for Obama's appointee. And in general. most cops don't want anybody having guns except them.

Bottom line - gun-free zones need to be abolished. They are open invitations to terrorists, and there's no reason why a law-abiding citizen with a license, should be banned from carrying his gun ANYWHERE. This is especially true in VA hospitals, since terrorists, more than once, have picked military targets to hit. With everyone (veterans, doctors, nurses, etc) unarmed, the stage is set for a major massacre.

Red:

Tell us, please...in what way is a gun helpful in defending oneself or others against an explosive device, particularly ones activated by suicide bombers? Seems to me a physical shield might be more useful than a gun in such circumstances, and particularly to people outside the central impact radius of a bomb. Better still are preemptive informative measures such as screening stations set up in perimeter locations.

Where were the 300+ million gun toting Americans who ostensibly should have been able to protect themselves and/or others at any one of the terrorist or so-called terrorist events over the past decade? Surely one would think that if having a gun were going to be an effective means of self-defense, at least once one person having a gun would have used it to neutralize the terrorists who didn't use bombs to effect injury. Yet, so far, not one such person has, at least not that I've heard of.

More relevant to any discussion on gun control/rights than is the impact of having a citizenry that ubiquitously (or not) "packs heat" is the fact that of all the gun-related, or just violent, crimes (with or without a gun) that occur in the U.S., terrorism doesn't even rate in even the top ten. Moreover, by the time someone having a gun were to use it to stop a terrorist, the terrorist has already accomplished what they aimed to do. Terrorism and its effects are nothing but a red herring to the gun control/rights discussion; the overwhelming majority of gun-related crime has nothing to do with terrorism (or mass shootings, for that matter), that is unless you want to define terrorism as "anything caused by another human and that might be scary to a person when it happens."

Why? Terrorists don't, and don't have to, think as you and I do when trying to accomplish something, and it's naive to think that they do and measure one's success in thwarting them using the same terms we use to gauge success and failure. Unlike many of the remarks I read on this site, it's clear from their actions that terrorists, particularly radical Islamist ones, can see both the forest and the trees. It's clear that when evaluating the success of their terrorist deeds, they see their "glass" as half full, not half empty.

Terrorists have two factors on their side that cannot be ignored and that having a gun as self-defense is unlikely (given the results so far) to stop: (1) the element of surprise, and (2) having either a low enough or no specific measure of harm that must be caused in order for the terrorist to consider him-/herself successful.

For example, do you think Timothy McVeigh was pissed that the whole Murrow building didn't collapse, or do you think he was thrilled that the front of it was destroyed? Consider the fourth 9/11 plane. Do you think that crashing a plane of U.S. passengers was something Al Qaeda's fans and members didn't cheer over, even though flying the thing into the Capitol or Washington Monument or whatever was the intended outcome? They most certainly were not put off; they were thrilled they, in a very dramatic way, killed some 200 more "infidels."


Blue:
It's curious that anyone advocating for gun control would mention anything having to do with military installations. The fact is that military installations are among the most heavily gun controlled places in the U.S. And what does recent history tell us about the prevalence of gun-related illegal shootings on military bases? It tells us that one can almost count all of them from 1994 to 2014 on one's fingers and toes.

It's hard to get crime statistics for military installations, but some were apparently released for Camp Pendleton. They had one murder and one successful suicide. (The info at the link doesn't say whether a gun was involved in either incident.) Given the base's population of ~5K people -- mostly people in the age range (20-45) that commits among the greatest quantities of crime than do the remaining cohorts of the population -- regardless of whether guns were involved or not, that translates to a far lower violent death rate than is found in any number of other places in the country. (As an interesting exercise, check out how that compares with your own town's or section of town's murder/suicide rates.)

I realize I haven't any info that will allow me to determine whether those rates are consistent across all military bases. The referenced article states, "The overall rate for all the services was two reports of sexual assault per 1,000 service members. The Army's rate was 2.6 per 1,000; Navy, 1.6 per 1,000; Air Force, 1.4 per 1,000; Marine Corps, 1.3 per 1,000." That statement's placement in the article makes it unclear, however, whether that is with regard to sexual assaults, crime overall, or some other crime metric. (I suspect it pertains to sexual assaults, but it's hard to know since in typical "newsy" fashion, the writer has made nearly every damn sentence its own paragraph rather than putting related stuff in one paragraph.)

Blue:
It's curious that anyone advocating for gun control would mention anything having to do with military installations. The fact is that military installations are among the most heavily gun controlled places in the U.S. And what does recent history tell us about the prevalence of gun-related illegal shootings on military bases? It tells us that one can almost count all of them from 1994 to 2014 on one's fingers and toes.

You do realize that military installations are gun free zones...right? That outside of firing ranges and the Military Police posts, no guns are allowed to the soldiers and civilians..right? That all firearms are locked up in armories...right?

Do you guys actually do research before you post?

 

[protectionist]

Because people like you have made almost every public space a gun free zone....so all those law abiding gun owners had to leave their guns at home or in their cars...so they didn't have them when the mass shooters came in...

And where mass shooters were stupid, and picked non gun free zones where there were actual Armed, law abiding citizens....they were stopped....

Correct. As in Garland, TX, and the 2002 LAX shooter attack (Ahmed Mohammed Hadayet), as I mentioned.

 

[Vandalshandle]

Let's see. Today is jan. 9, 2016. What does the Republican fear mongering calendar say is the thing to preach fear about today. I thought it was Syrian refugees raping children in our churches.

No, Protect is correct. That is next Saturday. Today it is terrorists attacking gun free VA hospitals!

Lots of jihadists showing up mouthing off the jihadist talking points ("fear-mongering') Do they really think they are going to somehow shame somebody into lowering their guard ?

Hey Vandalshandle! You wanna tell us we're fearful because we have a police force ? Or maybe we shouldn't have one so we could appear to be brave, you think ? Or maybe we should disarm our cops and have them walk around without a gun, like the ones in England, huh ? Maybe you think we're fearmongering by having a US military, or state National Guards too. Maybe there should be no guns at all, anywhere in America, and just let ISIS walk in and kill us all. What do you think of that idea, Mohammed ?

Funny you should mention it, Pro. The fact is that I serve on the Sheriff Auxiliary Volunteers. I DO patrol in uniform, with a badge, a radio, and no gun. But you are getting off base. The Republican fear mongering calendar says that Jan. 23rd is the day to preach about that.

 

[Moonglow]

Not true as there is VA police forces..

Try reading the OP. As I said, the VA police are just not around. At least in the hospital I go to (and a few others they tell me) you can walk around the huge hospital for an hour though countless hallways and rooms, and never see a cop. I have been to the James Haley VA hospital in Tampa many times, and the only place I have ever seen a cop is right outside their police office. If terrorists came in shooting, it would up to the citizens to defend themselves.

They are always around when I go to the VA..