Why Pentagon is cool to Cruz bid to let troops carry personal firearms on base

Sen. Ted Cruz  and others argue that personal firearms on base could help counter mass shootings on US military bases. But senior military leaders are wary of the link between personal guns and suicide.

|
Mark Humphrey/AP/File
Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas speaks at the National Rifle Association convention on April 10, 2015, in Nashville, Tenn.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas believes that troops should be able to carry their personal firearms with them on base – a point of view that puts him at odds with a number of top US military officials, including former commanders in America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This doesn’t bother him, he says. “The military brass opposes this,” he told Fox News Tuesday. “But I’m a big believer in defending the Second Amendment rights of everyone, including our soldiers.”

Likewise, military brass has at times spoken out against the National Rifle Association, for example, when the organization launched a bid to keep commanders from talking to soldiers about the safety of keeping personal firearms in their homes.

Following Senator Cruz’s remarks, the Army on Tuesday pointed to remarks that Gen. Raymond Odierno, Army chief of staff, made during a Senate hearing last April, as a fair reflection of their current views on that matter.

Asked about whether there is a need to change policy established by the George W. Bush administration in 1992, which prevents most troops from bringing personal firearms on base, General Odierno, who previously served as commander of US forces in Iraq, argued that military bases already provide considerable security for their soldiers.

“I believe that we have our military police and others that are armed, and I believe that’s appropriate,” he told Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “That allows us the level of protection necessary.”

Cruz and others argue that allowing troops to carry their personal firearms on base could prevent – or at least cut short – the sorts of mass shootings that occurred at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 and 2014 and at the US Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., in 2013. 

Military commanders have other concerns about troops and their personal firearms, however. 

Back in 2011, the National Rifle Association took issue with base commanders in Fort Riley, Kan., who had invited soldiers living off-post to consider locking their personal firearms on base.

The NRA promptly backed a law, introduced by Sen. James Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma, to prohibit commanders from asking those particular soldiers whether they owned a personal firearm.

Congress ultimately dropped the legislation, which had been attached as a rider to a defense bill, under pressure from senior military leaders, who pointed out that half of all troops who commit suicide use a firearm.

The Second Amendment debate surfaced again this week when Cruz told a New Hampshire audience Sunday that he was pressing Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain (R) of Arizona to hold a hearing to change the law to allow troops to carry personal weapons on base.

This, in turn, prompted a rebuke from Senator McCain, who said it was the first he had heard of the matter. 

“I was fascinated,” he said. “I haven’t heard a thing about it from him. Nor has my staff heard from his staff. Where did that come from?”

Cruz backed off his assertion Tuesday, saying that he had “misspoken,” though he added that he would still like to have a hearing. 

That said, he added that the committee would also be amenable to “listen[ing] to the military’s arguments.” 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why Pentagon is cool to Cruz bid to let troops carry personal firearms on base
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2015/0421/Why-Pentagon-is-cool-to-Cruz-bid-to-let-troops-carry-personal-firearms-on-base
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe