PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Our View: Military should revise 'gun-free' policies :: 08/07/2015
The common factor in all these attacks is that they were at “gun-free” sites. Policies that disarm the law-abiding and advertise the fact create easy targets for mass killers, but just an illusion of safety.
Recent high-profile shootings have renewed calls for “common-sense gun control.” Presumably, that means measures based on experience and evidence to prevent attackers from killing the innocent, while not hindering the innocent from defending themselves.
The issue resurfaced in the wake of last month’s killing of five military servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Reports indicated that a surviving Navy officer, Lt. Cmdr. Timothy White, could face punishment because he was armed with a personal handgun in violation of the facilities’ “gun-free” rules, and shot back at the attacker, Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez.
It’s important to note the Navy has now issued a statement saying it isn’t planning to charge White. The early reports appear based on speculation. Military facilities generally do prohibit most personnel except military police and a few officers from being armed, and there is a federal law against unauthorized shooting on federal property. That briefly led to citizens volunteering to defend recruiting offices, including one in Lenawee County.
The fact recruiting offices and bases — not to mention civilian locations such as movie theaters — are clearly advertised as “gun-free” areas connects nearly every U.S. mass shooting. Attackers don’t obey these rules, and victims can’t shoot back in self-defense.
Gun-free areas are much more of a common denominator than other factors in attacks, including types of weapons used. Recent attackers at a Louisiana theater and a South Carolina church used handguns, and last year’s Washington D.C. Navy Yard shooter used a shotgun to murder 12 victims. Gun-free zones also are more of a factor than background checks. Perpetrators of all four of these attacks passed at least one federal background check when buying guns.
Every one of these sites, however, prohibited law-abiding citizens from carrying firearms for self-defense. Reports indicate the movie theaters were even scouted by their attackers.
One successful step taken by states in recent years — during which time shooting attacks are down — has been to allow more citizens to carry a firearm for self defense. Concealed-carry laws deny would-be attackers the confidence that no one obeying the law can shoot back.
Licensed concealed-carry is a genuine “common-sense” step to reducing killers’ easy targets. Those now include two recruiting offices attacked as well as Fort Hood, which has twice been the site of deadly mass shootings.
We think the U.S. military should revise its policy. It could allow personnel with special training the option to carry a personal weapon at recruiting offices and similar locations if otherwise allowed. Or, it could give more personnel an opportunity to have a daily service weapon.
That emphatically does not mean allowing anyone — or requiring everyone — to have a firearm. Only people proficient, willing and having clean records should be permitted. Where adopted, though, such license-holders have safety records that rival law enforcement.
Either way, the military should end the certainty attackers now enjoy by eliminating “gun-free zones.” That includes the kill zone occupied last month by Lt. Cmdr. White, who lived, and five unarmed U.S. service members, who perished.
http://www.lenconnect.com/article/20150806/OPINION/150809542/-1/news/?Start=1
