Really? "Are shootings...common....not really?"

Maybe I'm not giving you guys enough time to formulate an appropriate, sensitive response. It's been almost 24 hours. This response seems to give the tone (whether intended or not): "Hmm. This was bad, but stuff like this isn't very common, so don't go getting in a snit". No comment about Barak's response last night (espec. the inappropriate tone of his introductory remarks at the speech), the islamic profession of the shooter..... again, maybe I'm not giving you guys enough time. But so far I'm disappointed. As this is Slate magazine, however, I probably shoudln't be.

Meh, I think it WOULD have been reasonable to write an article like this:

"Are shootings on military bases common?
...or was what happened at Fort Hood unusual?"

That's a neutrally-worded question that DOES seem appropriate in this context, and could have been answered in an objective, explainer-type way. Problem was, the ACTUAL article was (and, infuriatingly, still is) headlined:

"Are shootings on military bases common?
...not as common as you'd think."

This IS offensive. I don't think that shootings would be or are common, because I know that the personnel on military bases are among the best and most honorable people in our country. I'd fully EXPECT that violent crime there would be much less common than elsewhere. And maybe it's infantile thinking like this that prevents our servicemen and women from carrying their service weapons on base, and made it possible for this lunatic to shoot 13 of our Soldiers rather than, say, 1 or 0 as he might have managed if everyone were armed.

It never occurs to you that military personal are denied daily weapon carry rights BECAUSE of numerous past incidents? Or do you think the rule came from a buncha peacenik, pinko commie generals in the Pentagon?

Enumerate the incidents, please. And yes, this sounds like a rule that cames from Pentagon leadership (civilian, military, up at those levels it's not terribly relevant) interested in social engineering with the Army.

Purely a guess on my part. Seems to me that allowing soldiers to carry guns around would be the norm throughout history and only after problems would that freedom be abridged.

But if you think US military leaders are all a bunch of NRA hating, gun banning liberals, hey..its a theory.

Did I say ANYTHING like that? I said that the order may have very well been civilian, and that if not it would only be the very very top brass - quite different from "all US military leaders", isn't it?

Besides, you know what they say in the military (well, I guess *you* don't) - when you assume........

From what I read, there were several hundred personnel in the location of the shooting.

Suppose half of them had been armed. The bad guy comes in, mingles, then pulls his gun(s) and starts shooting. A substantial portion of the armed bystanders start to shoot back. Now we have a few dozen people with guns in hands, and most don't know who the bad guy is.

Put another way: good guy takes out bad guy. Soldier in the back sees the good guy shoot, thinks he is the bad guy, shoots, etc. etc.

??????

Long live the Empire!

bigmac:

Really? "Are shootings...common....not really?"

Maybe I'm not giving you guys enough time to formulate an appropriate, sensitive response. It's been almost 24 hours. This response seems to give the tone (whether intended or not): "Hmm. This was bad, but stuff like this isn't very common, so don't go getting in a snit". No comment about Barak's response last night (espec. the inappropriate tone of his introductory remarks at the speech), the islamic profession of the shooter..... again, maybe I'm not giving you guys enough time. But so far I'm disappointed. As this is Slate magazine, however, I probably shoudln't be.

They arbitrarily chose the topic with the transparent goal of diverting people from pondering the obviously more important ( but taboo to the PC crowd) topic of what the hell this country is going to do about the ever-increasing number of jihadists causing trouble in the USA.

Here's a clue- we need to halt, yesterday, immigration from Middle Eastern countries.

MisterPerson:

Here's a clue- we need to halt, yesterday, immigration from Middle Eastern countries.

Naturally that includes a complete ban on all Israelis.

Damn jewish spies. And we know Mossad did 9/11 ;- )