Shooting at (Gun-Free) Washington Naval Base

[Virendra S Rathore]

Inching to the ridiculous. US Military bases aka Gun-free zones suffer the consequences.

At least 13 killed in Washington naval base shooting
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wor ... e14333621/

A heavily armed gunman opened fire inside a U.S. navy base in downtown Washington on Monday, killing at least 12 people and wounding several others before he also was killed, police said.
The latest mass shooting left the capital in chaos with large areas locked-down as thousands of police and military personnel were on alert for the possibility of multiple gunmen.

Federal law enforcement officials identified the shooter as Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old Texas man believed to have a criminal record there, and said he may have gotten into the Washington Navy Yard by using someone else’s identification card. The two officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Earlier in the day, authorities had been looking for two other people who may have been involved in the shooting. One of those people has been identified and ruled out as a suspect.
However, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray says investigators are still searching for a third individual wearing an olive-green, military-style uniform to determine if he was involved.

By mid-afternoon, the city was returning to normal although D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier urged people living close to the riverside navy yard – a headquarters for much of the U.S. navy where thousands of civilians and military work daily – to stay indoors until police could complete a sweep of the area.
No shots have been heard since morning when gunfire erupted at about 8:20 a.m. The shooter opened fire from an upper floor as workers gathered in a cafeteria in an atrium.

Ms. Lanier said there was no known motive but initial fears that the attack might be a terrorist strike were fading.
She said one person with a hand gun and another with a long gun had been seen around the time of the shooting. However, with hundreds of police and military personnel on the scene, it wasn’t clear if the reports were referring to those responding to the initial reports of gunfire.
“We have no information to believe that those individuals are members of the military but they were wearing military-style uniforms,” Ms. Lanier said.

Schools were locked down, National Airport was closed, dozens of helicopters hovered overhead as the injured were airlifted from the roof. Other choppers with heavy machine guns pointing out open doors circled slowly over the navy’s oldest shore base amid conflicting reports that there were multiple gunmen still on the loose.
“A shooter entered the building,” said Mr. Gray. “As far as we know this is an isolated incident” and “no other installations are involved.”

A U.S. Parks Police helicopter winched one wounded person from the roof of one of the buildings in the Navy Yard, a collection of buildings that form the administrative headquarters of the U.S. navy. Military personnel, along with hundreds of police from local and federal agencies and SWAT teams converged on the scene.

Multiple helicopter medevac flights flew from the roof of one of the buildings shortly after 10 a.m., suggesting that active gunfire stage of the incident was over.
Ed Buclatin, a spokesman for the Navy Installations Command tweeted “four killed and eight injured” at the Navy Yard. The Navy says about 3,000 people work in the building.

About 11:30 a.m., police sources told several local Washington media organizations that one shooter had been found dead inside a Navy Yard building. It was unclear whether the shooter had been killed by police or killed himself.

Witnesses described a gunman opening fire from the fourth floor, aiming down on people in the first-floor cafeteria. Others said a gunman fired at them in a hallway.
There was no indication as to whether the shooter was military or civilian. It is hard for anyone without a navy base pass to enter the buildings on the Navy Yard.

President Barack Obama was briefed on the ongoing situation and security was tightened around the White House and other government facilities.
Shortly after noon Mr. Obama paid tribute to those killed and injured in “the tragedy that’s unfolding not far from here.”
“We still don’t know all the facts,” he said, adding: “We do know that several have been shot and some have been killed.”

The President called it a mass shooting but gave no indication that his repeated briefings throughout the morning has suggested it was a terrorist attack.
As the casualty count remained unclear, the President said those military personnel working at the Navy Yard “know the dangers of serving abroad but today they faced unimaginable violence” at home.
Mr. Obama vowed: “whoever carried out this cowardly act will be held responsible.”

Bridges across the river were closed and heavily armed police converged on the area. Several nearby schools were also locked down. There is also a museum on the waterfront site not far from the new Nationals ballpark.

Naval Sea Systems Command is the largest of the Navy’s five system commands and accounts for a quarter of the Navy’s entire budget.
It builds, buys and maintains the Navy’s ships and submarines and their combat systems.

Armoured personnel carriers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation converged on the area.
Several dozen blocks were cordoned off in the area along the Anacostia waterfront, which has undergone a revitalization in recent years.
Flights in and out of Washington’s National Airport resumed at about 10:30 a.m. after being halted for more than an hour to allow for multiple flights by police and medical evacuation helicopters.

[Virendra S Rathore]

Flashback: US Military Bases are ‘Gun Free Zones’ Because Democrats Decreed Them To Be
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/09/16/fl ... hem-to-be/

After Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded more than 30 in November 2009, John R. Lott wrote about one of the craziest policies to come out of the Clinton era: making military bases “gun free zones.”

Yes, that’s correct. In 1993, President Bill Clinton decreed that US military personnel were to surrender the Second Amendment rights that they swear an oath to support and defend. Lott, writing in 2009, called for that policy to be ended.

Shouldn’t an army base be the last place where a terrorist should be able to shoot at people uninterrupted for 10 minutes? After all, an army base is filled with soldiers who carry guns, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Beginning in March 1993, under the Clinton administration, the army forbids military personnel from carrying their own personal firearms and mandates that “a credible and specific threat against [Department of the Army] personnel [exist] in that region” before military personnel “may be authorized to carry firearms for personal protection.” Indeed, most military bases have relatively few military police as they are in heavy demand to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unarmed soldiers could do little more than cower as Major Nidal Malik Hasan stood on a desk and shot down into the cubicles in which his victims were trapped. Some behaved heroically, such as private first class Marquest Smith who repeatedly risked his life removing five soldiers and a civilian from the carnage. But, being unarmed, these soldiers were unable to stop Hasan’s attack.

The wife of one of the soldiers shot at Ft. Hood understood this all too well. Mandy Foster’s husband had been shot but was fortunate enough not to be seriously injured. In an interview on CNN on Monday night, Mrs. Foster was asked by anchor John Roberts how she felt about her husband “still scheduled for deployment in January” to Afghanistan. Ms. Foster responded: “At least he’s safe there and he can fire back, right?” — It is hard to believe that we don’t trust soldiers with guns on an army base when we trust these very same men in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, most of CNN’s listeners probably didn’t understand the rules that Ms. Foster was referring to.

We still do not know the motive behind today’s killings. That hasn’t stopped the likes of Andrew Kaczinsky at BuzzFeed from attacking the National Rifle Association, which has no known connection to the Navy Yard shootings at all. Gun free zones do have a tangible connection to these mass shootings. Killers are surely aware that once they transport a firearm onto a stateside US military base, they’re facing unarmed patriots who have been deprived of the means to defend themselves.

Author - Bryan Preston (Mil Vet)

Regards,
Virendra