Thirteen killed at Navy Shipyard by a crazy person (and William Jefferson Clinton)

Blog: Thirteen killed at Navy Shipyard by a crazy person (and William Jefferson Clinton):

President Clinton?

In 1993, Clinton issued an order banning guns from US military bases.

Excepting military police and troops shooting under supervision at practice ranges, no person (regardless of rank) is today allowed to carry any weapon (including standard service pistols) onto any US military base or to keep any weapon, even stored securely, in his office or personal quarters.

Prior to that order, officers of certain ranks were required to wear side arms.

Anyone who watched more than a few minutes of the extensive television coverage of yesterday's attack at the Navy Shipyard saw multiple accounts by senior Navy officers who described running for their lives after others nearby them fell or hiding under their desks, desperately texting colleagues seeking and offering reassurance that they had escaped the shooter thus far.

Think about that. 

Career commissioned officers of the United States Navy--the Navy of "I have not yet begun to fight!" and "Don't give up the ship!"--the Navy of "We have met the enemy and they are ours!" and "Damn the torpedoes!  Full speed ahead!"--the Navy of which George Washington said "[W]ithout a decisive Naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious!"--had no choice but to "shelter in place," cowering despite their proven personal courage and the best training in human history, while a lone gunman without benefit of body armor calmly executed 12 of their colleagues and wounded as many others.

NAVSEA has been described as the beating heart of the US Navy.  (It might be better to say that it is the Navy's brain.)  Our response to this attack should not be to lament (as one hospital spokeswoman, Dr. Janice Orlowski, said) that "there is something evil  at the heart of American society that we as Americans have to work to try to eradicate." We should re-arm the officers commissioned to defend America so that they can in turn defend themselves.

It happened once because we were foolish. Twice because we were too politically correct to learn from the Fort Hood attack.

What will it make of us if we allow this to happen again?