Thursday, July 16, 2015

Authorize Military Personnel To Defend Themselves

Petition up at whitehouse.org:

Re-instate the Right to Bear Arms to All Military Personnel By Allowing Concealed Carry of Firearms While On Duty. | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government

we petition the obama administration to:

Re-instate the Right to Bear Arms to All Military Personnel By Allowing Concealed Carry of Firearms While On Duty.

We petition an immediate and full revocation of Department of Defense Directive 5210.66 and all pursuant military service regulations restricting the rights of DoD / Military personnel in regards to firearms.
DoD Directive 5210.66 restricts all DoD personnel from exercising the right to bear arms while on a DoD installation unless it is expressly written into their job duties. This Directive (and pursuant service regulations) effectively prohibit service members from carrying a concealed firearm for self defense.
DoD Directive 5210.66 restricts our highly trained service members from access to their firearms when it is most needed. In its place a new directive should be authored allowing a "Shall Issue" concealed carry weapon permit system to be established for all DoD personnel.

h/t OldNFO

4 comments:

Sailorcurt said...

Why concealed? Why not a sidearm in a holster?

Drang said...

Gotta preserve the poor staff pukes' feelings...

When I was a 1SG at Ft Lewis in '97 or so a lot of Senior NCOs were carrying anyway, and made no bones about it.

At the time Lewis was doing tattoo inspections of incoming personnel, and anyway with what were considered "extremist organization associated" tats were getting counseled, in writing, about who they liked to hang out with off duty.

Drang said...

Actually, for the same reasons that we allow citizens to carry concealed. Some won't want to. And strapping on their issue sidearm will involve many extra trips to the arms room. Most aren't issues or qualified on the M9, let alone the M11, and their duties aren't necessarily compatible with a pistol belt with an M9 in a UM84 holster.
Let the ones who desire to, purchase their own pistol and the means to maintain and carry it concealed. Make them go through the process to get a permit, since every state in the union at least technically issues carry permits now. (May have to lean on a few to lighten up the rules for military personnel...)
Installation commanders will probably want to track who's carrying, and make them qualify with their selected sidearms.

Sailorcurt said...

I just don't see concealed handguns fitting into the uniform requirements for many uniforms. Working uniforms (cammies) maybe, but anything other than that with the requirement for tucked in shirts and the fact that baggy clothes look sloppy and unmilitary, I see it as a problem.

Not to mention that commanding officers of most of the commands I ever served at would absolutely revolt over the potential of having armed personnel in their command without knowing they were armed. Bad enough knowing who is armed and who isn't, but not even knowing??? Not a chance they'd buy into that.

It just seems more "military" to me to allow open carry provided the carrier conformed to uniform standards by employing a prescribed military style belt and holster and a full sized sidearm that will fit in it securely.

Of course this is all nothing more than an intellectual exercise anyway as it's a moot point. I don't care how many people sign the petition, the brass would never approve such a thing. They flat out don't trust the lower ranks and would never approve either open or concealed carry except when expressly required in the performance of duties.