Rep. Scott Perry: Arm all military personnel at military bases

Posted 2015-08-12 13:13 by Grunt Report

All trained military personnel at military bases will be able to carry a firearm if U.S. Rep. Scott Perry has his way.

The Carroll Township Republican introduced a bill recently that would largely negate a 1992 Department of the Army directive — among other bans — to restrict firearm allowances only to personnel “engaged in law enforcement or security duties, protecting personnel, vital Government assets, or guarding prisoners.” The bill would expand firearm usage to all trained, military personnel.

“Unfortunately, we now live in a world where the troops who volunteered to protect our fellow citizens in dangerous places abroad are at increasing risk from violent extremism when they return home”, Perry said in a prepared statement. “Our military installations are repeatedly targeted and current Department of Defense policy leaves these tireless servants unable to protect themselves. That must change.”

Perry himself was unavailable for an interview Monday because he was active in his duties as a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania National Guard, said spokesman Ryan Nawrocki.

Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for the U.S. Army, said the Army and all other service branches are in the process of “reviewing all force protection policies around military installations and stand-alone sites and will report findings to the Secretary of Defense by Aug. 21.”

Buccino added that current Army policy allows commanders “sufficient authority to increase security measures and arm their Soldiers on military installations based on threat.”

Nawrocki said the expansion of firearm allowance, which in the bill is defined narrowly as meaning “handgun,” could have saved lives in the November 2009 and April 2014 shootings at Fort Hood in Texas or those at several other installations.

The bill does not include allowing firearms at military recruiting stations, he said, nor would it give permissions to civilian personnel to carry firearms at base. A July 16 shooting at a recruitment center in Chattanooga, Tenn., sparked outrage and public calls to arm recruiters, including from a local, civilian group who armed themselves and guarded a Manchester Township center.

Shira Goodman, the executive director of CeaseFire PA, a gun control advocacy group, called the bill reactionary to the recent shootings rather than a well thought out policy change.

There were “people in the Chattanooga shootings who were armed, possibly against regulations, but were unable to stop the shootings,” she said.

Perry’s bill also forbids the Secretary of the Department of Defense and the secretaries of any military department from reinstating firearms bans repealed in the act and from creating similar restrictions.

Goodman said the creation and repeal of such bans should be at the discretion of the Department of Defense and of the military branches themselves since they are closest to the issue.

Such requirements were also found in a 2013 bill by Rep. Steve Stockman, a Texas Republican, which never went further than its introduction, according to Congress.gov.

Congress.gov lists no cosponsers for the bill. It awaits consideration by the House Judiciary and Armed Services Committees.