{"id":6072,"date":"2019-12-11T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=6072"},"modified":"2019-12-08T18:27:14","modified_gmt":"2019-12-08T23:27:14","slug":"why-our-armed-services-need-to-be-armed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/why-our-armed-services-need-to-be-armed\/","title":{"rendered":"WHY OUR ARMED SERVICES NEED TO BE ARMED"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\noccasional serviceman goes nuts and murders his own. The occasional jihadi <\/em>(often from an allied nation)\ngets into the inner circles close enough to mass murder American military\npersonnel on base. In at least one case the terrorist did so at a recruitment\noffice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s nothing\nnew. In the 1990s, I was invited to speak at a JSSAP (Joint Services Small Arms\nProject) meeting in Oak Ridge, TN, on small arms for US military personnel in\nthe 21st<\/sup> Century. I pointed out that this sort of thing was already\nhappening and was going to increase, and suggested the concept of issuing a\nsubcompact 9mm pistol (I demonstrated with a pocket-size Kel-Tec P11 9mm) to\nevery qualified serviceman or woman. A tertiary weapon (the issue 9mm service\npistol being a secondary weapon) such as this could be carried discreetly when\noff duty in hostile places, or even during domestic administrative duties by\nevery member of the service trained and qualified with it. Some in the audience\nwere horrified at the thought, and perhaps not surprisingly, I was never\ninvited back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npredictable happened. And will happen again.\n\nDan Gifford, one of the rare conservative\ncommentators to survive in Hollywood, recently shared this heartfelt sentiment\nfrom a friend of his in the wake of the atrocity in Pensacola:\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to vent…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like\nmy own son, Josh Watson was a graduate of the US Naval Academy. He<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

was\na former captain of the US Navy Rifle Team. He was 23 years old \u2026 Josh Watson \u2026\nwas<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

one\nof the unarmed victims of Friday’s mass murder Naval Air Station Pensacola.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three\npeople dead. Eight others wounded. It is inconceivable to me that<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

the\nwarriors of our military are forced to be soft targets of<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

terrorists,\ninsane or unhinged and deranged individuals.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\na Facebook post, Watson’s brother Adam wrote: “Joshua Kaleb Watson<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

saved\ncountless lives today with his own. After being shot multiple<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

times\nhe made it outside and told the first response team where the<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

shooter\nwas and those details were invaluable. He died a hero and we are<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

beyond\nproud but there is a hole in our hearts that can never be filled.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nhe had been allowed to be armed, Josh Watson had the skill to stop<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

the\nSaudi killer. Instead, he was just another helpless victim.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr.\nMark Bronstein sent this to me with this excellent comment:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\ncan thank President George H.W. Bush for formalizing this rule. None<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

of\nthe subsequent Presidents have reversed this decision even after the<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

previous\ndeadly shootings that have taken place on our domestic bases.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen, brother.\u00a0 Amen\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The occasional serviceman goes nuts and murders his own. The occasional jihadi (often from an allied nation) gets into the inner circles close enough to mass murder American military personnel on base. In at least one case the terrorist did so at a recruitment office. It\u2019s nothing new. In the 1990s, I was invited to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6073,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072\/revisions\/6073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}