By John Farnam
Ft Collins, CO –-(Ammoland.com)- The Air Force, at least, has finally seen the light!
USAF Base Commanders have been authorized to implement the carrying of guns (presumptively openly or concealed) by “selected” personnel, on and off-duty. Smart airmen, naturally, already have state-issued CCW permits, when and where possible.
However, government property has always been a fanatical “gun-free zone” (for everyone but terrorists), until now!
Nothing, it seems, is so hard to see as the obvious! Terrorists can be effectively dealt with in no other way, and, of course, everyone has known this full well for years, but the arrogant PC crowd, even within the military, has forbidden the subject from being discussed openly.
Someone up the USAF food-chain has finally cracked this ice, at great personal risk. When there is a spate of NDs, you know he (whomever he is), and his career, are toast!
We must now brace ourselves for an army of gun-hating liberal alarmists to demean the very idea and demand the policy be reversed, and the liberal media will be only too happy to endlessly shove microphones into their blistering faces. For them, dead innocent (and unarmed) victims are okay, but dead terrorists are unthinkable!
The other unspoken issue is that commanders painfully know and understand that current institutionalized pistol “training” is a joke! Even MPs carry unloaded pistols. No one trusts them with real guns. “Cold” ranges are the ossified “standard” throughout the US military, and dynamic movement, speed-reloads, and instant stoppage-reduction are unheard-of. “Training” is inspired mostly by quaint, collegial, and utterly irrelevant competitions, among people who don’t even carry guns.
After the 9/11 attacks, uniformed military personnel were deployed in domestic airports, openly carrying rifles and pistols. They tried desperately to keep it a secret, but it soon became generally known that all magazines, so prominently displayed, were empty. There was not a single, live round, anywhere in the entire airport. It was all just an empty show. “Warriors” unprepared to do battle.
What a revolting contradiction of terms! Those troopers were little more than sacrificial lambs, and this was under a Republican president!
When it has been my honor to train active-duty personnel, we, of course, run all ranges “hot,” and I can’t count the times troopers, enlisted and officers, have come up to me and said, “This is the first time in my entire military career that I’ve ever been treated like an adult on a firing range!”
In fact, we’ve had to run some of our military programs at private ranges, off-base. The entrenched “Training Prevention Department” (otherwise known as “Range Control”) went unbalanced, more than once, when they learned my students were actually running around with loaded rifles and pistols!
In any event, some unnamed hero up the USAF food-chain deserves much credit, and recognition (which he’ll never get!).
Now, how about the USMC, US Army, Navy, and Coast Guard? Are they just chopped liver?
“Like all weak men, he laid exaggerated stress on never changing one’s mind.” ~ William Somerset Maugham
/John
About John Farnam & Defense Training International, Inc
As a defensive weapons and tactics instructor John Farnam will urge you, based on your own beliefs, to make up your mind in advance as to what you would do when faced with an imminent and unlawful lethal threat. You should, of course, also decide what preparations you should make in advance, if any. Defense Training International wants to make sure that their students fully understand the physical, legal, psychological, and societal consequences of their actions or inactions.
It is our duty to make you aware of certain unpleasant physical realities intrinsic to the Planet Earth. Mr Farnam is happy to be your counselor and advisor. Visit: www.defense-training.com
Oldshooter:
And this is really dangerous. Because if you get used to thinking a weapon that looks real, is really just a prop that’s unloaded…then you will be used to thinking that a LOADED weapon is unloaded and treat it casually. Lead the way to a negligent discharge.
I agree 100% with Master Sergeant M.A. Hall’s comments. I served as a U.S.A.F. security policeman in the early 80’s. We always carried a full compliment of ammunition for our weapons. We carried the M-16, M-203 grenade launcher and M-60 machine gun and carried plenty of ammunition for each weapon. I did hear reports of the Army M.P.s and Marine M.P.’s on nearby bases carrying weapons with no ammunition. The U.S.A.F. has always trusted its security personnel to carry ammunition with their weapons. Hopefully we will see them allow all base personnel the right to defend themselves on military installations.
I used to bring my personal pistols on a reserve base all the time..We competed in a pistol league on a regular basis..Never a problem with anything..Once CLINTON became our commander and chief all personal weapons were banned from the entire base..They were never allowed back on base..Not even secured in the Main Gate SP guard shack..I have been retired since 2004 and have never returned to my base because of this policy..Not even to go to the base exchange or the commissary, as allowed per my benefits..I earned this benefit, but can’t justify traveling unarmed for over an hour… Read more »
This is a result of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, and somehow escaped the veto hammer. The law required SECDEF to establish a procedure to allow commanders to authorize the carrying of weapons for protection. The Air Force is simply first out of the blocks. That being said, the wording is troubling. A commander could technically be in compliance with regulation by issuing a single page memorandum “selecting” the base security force as being authorized to be openly (no CCW) armed, while in uniform (essentially restricting it to those personnel on duty), with government issued weapons.
Germany in the late 50’s, at our airbase, whenever there was whenever an alert was sounded. Those of us in the maintenance squadron would line up at the armory and draw an M1 Carbine. Then we would load into trucks which would drop us off at intervals along the base perimeter fence where we would spend the next 4 – 6 hours walking back and forth in the cold with our empty M1 slung over our shoulders. They didn’t even bother to issue us “empty” magazines. We did have a bayonet though, in case the attack was real.
Good Job John, you certainly stirred up a Lot of comments. It’s a topic Long overlooked or ignored and Finally coming to the surface. In my 4 years active duty as a Marine in the early 60’s, the only time I Ever saw a loaded weapon away from the Range was when our Security Guard Detachment carried 1911’s with a magazine loaded with 5 rounds and an empty chamber, and one post carried an M1 Garand with a round chambered and safety engaged. I was also aware that the prisoner “Chasers” at Pearl carried loaded shotguns. At one point I… Read more »