Ok. I can see that. After all, we contract security at nuclear plants as well, there's a lot less to protect at a base, I mean, from drive-up threats. Just people really. As I think about it, I realize that modern domestic bases are probably not much more than college dorms and office parks than I might have thought.

Still, it is just striking, after all, organizing a response to an armed attacker, that is sort of core mission isn't it?

On reflection, the answer is yes: over there. At home, not so much. At home, they are just another school campus. Like the news says: all the guns are checked in and locked up.

Still, more than a score of people hit by a single attacker, on the eve of deployment to war. it is kind of surreal.

even a base 'full of trained combat' troops is vulnerable to this kind of thing. the 'trained combat troops' are walking around unarmed, congregating in lecture halls, classrooms and mess halls, standing in long lines or sneaking a smoke, and they are particularly vulnerable to an officer who by all accounts is accorded a level of courtesy which would preclude tackling him on the suspicion he was about to go crazy. shit, if the appearance of getting ready to go crazy was the threshold, enlisted personnel would be kicking the snot out of half the officers they saw.

that these troops should have been prepared or able to deal with this. On the contrary...it happens so quickly, nobody can be expected to stop it.

Just saying that those who ran their mouths about "cowardly students hiding under desks" in the wake of the VA Tech shootings were clueless and ought to admit so.

Indeed.

Just recently an Afgham police trainee killed five british troops and injured six more. And this was a war zone where everyone is presumably armed or has one handy. He got eleven guys.

The soldier in kuwait in 2003 killed one and injured several, but he used a grenade.

A GI in Iraq killed five others last May. The report was just issued two weeks ago: <link>

And of course there are numerous reports of civilian shooters that are able to kill several people, even to pause to reload.

All of this leading one to hesitate to draw conclusions about what one would or would not do in such a situation.

I think I posted something kind of snarky when some big bad guys started struting around about what they would have done at Virginia Tech. anyway I hope I did.

Not in decades.

Yes, I can see how it is more like a school dorm or office plaza.

One would think his possession of weapons in those areas would be a red flag, but I am in no way second guessing.

It does lead back to my question about protocols. Schools and cops have protocols for shooters and suspicious actors by now. I wonder if the Army does?

Just recently an Afgham police trainee killed five british troops and injured six more. And this was a war zone where everyone is presumably armed or has one handy. He got eleven guys.

It seems that whenever there is one of these shooting incidents the gun nuts come out in droves claiming that if everyone was allowed to carry then these situations could be dealt with. Eleven to one with everybody packing would tend contradict that theory. (element of surprise and all)

I'm not offended as much as irritated. I made the fatal error of saying I did not understand his point and off he went. Premise, question, point...premise, question, point.

Clearly in a time of war certain things change and with the advent of Homeland Security, well, even more so.

I had to leave early and could not finish this discussion but I found this right before I left and thought it pertinent to Sarv's question.

SG