Sorry for the lack of bloggage yesterday, people.  Sunday night Teenie decided she couldn’t sleep, so she proceeded to bang around the house like a horny horde of hippos in search of poontang.  Ergo, I didn’t sleep either.  Ergo, I drove to work and very nearly fell asleep at the wheel.  Ergo, I got a massive migraine on the way back home.

Let me just take the opportunity to say that I hate migraines with a passion.

First I go blind.  Then I see sparkly crap in front of my eyes.  Then I get a blinding headache that makes me want to vom.  All those lovely sensations in the course of an hour, and the Imitrex epi pen I’ve been prescribed by my neurologist simply makes me feel like I have the flu. 

In any case, I chose sleep over blogging and you all, so deal with it.

Now… on to my point, because I do have one, believe it or not:  Gun control on military installations.

David has been covering this one for a few days now.  He had received an email from a nice guy whose battalion commander has decided to take it upon himself to make his Army just a little safer (said with a healthy dose of sarcasm) by forcing his guys to register their weapons – EVEN IF THEY LIVE OFF POST! 

I’m sorry, WHAT???  Here’s an excerpt.


The military, despite being an organization whose bread and butter is firearms, is one of the most namby-pamby outfits when it comes to personally owned firearms. If you reside on post or wish to bring your weapon on post to use the post range, all weapons must be registered by serial number with the Provost Marshall. When you turn this information in, the Provost Marshall will conduct a NICS background check on you to see if you are even eligible to own these weapons, and presumably to see if there are any serial numbers listed as stolen with local law enforcement. These serial numbers are now in a federal data-base that is maintained on the post where you reside and with the unit commander. If a soldier is E-4 and below and lives in the barracks all weapons must be stored in the unit arms room and are accounted for daily through the unit armorer’s inventory inspection. If a soldier is E-4 and below and lives in government housing the commander may authorize the soldier to keep the weapon in his quarters, but often does not. Regardless of the soldier’s rank, if there are allegations of domestic violence, the commander may order all personally owned weapons to be surrendered to the arms room.

Nothing too crazy here, this has all been policy for years. Yesterday, however there was something different that immediately made me take notice. Our squadron is preparing for a regimental command inspection, and as part of that regiment will be looking at the commander’s list of all personally owned weapons. In preparation for this, all soldiers were ordered to make sure that all weapons were registered with the Provost Marshall, whether they lived on post or not. I asked for clarification on this and it seems the squadron commander (O5/LTC) wants all personally owned weapons registered regardless of where they are stored.

Yes, apparently some boneheaded Lt. Colonel has decided to shove his large proboscis up the asses of his Soldiers.  Hard.  It’s for safety.  It’s for the children.  It’s for discipline.  It’s for… WHO CARES!

This is not government housing where Soldiers live free of charge.  These are their own homes – off post – and the Army should have no right to force them to register their weapons with the PMO if they don’t bring these weapons on post.

The writer wanted wondered if this was some weird policy at DA level, so I decided to contact Army spokesman Paul Boyce for an answer.  Paul kindly connected me with the Public Affairs Office of the Army Installation Management Command, where Bill Costlow contacted legal for an official reply.

Just as I thought. 



Hi Nicki,


Just confirmed through our legal folks that there is no Army requirement for Soldiers living off post to register fire arms on post.


V/R


Bill


In other words, this was nothing more than a frothing, overzealous Battalion Commander exercising his “authoritah!”  Those of you who have been reading this site for any length of time know the type of creature to which I refer.  It gets its rank primarily by being a huge pain in the ass to its superiors… so much so, that it gets shuffled to another unit, and if the shuffle involves a promotion, so be it.  At least it’s out of OUR hair!  So the creature moves up in ranks by virtue of its incompetence and sheer stupidity, because no one wants to deal with it or the massive amount of paperwork its stupidity and incompetence generates.

Meanwhile said creature gets cocky and begins to throw its rank around, imposing its will on its Soldiers merely because it can.  Screw the Constitution these Soldiers swore to uphold and defend.  Screw their rights.  Said creature gave an order, dammit!  And since it’s a Lt. Colonel, it can give an order, and it WILL be followed!  Notice it’s also a very effective way for said creature to impose its political views on its troops.

Yes, I’ve lived under said regime for more than a year during last year’s deployment.  I know the type.  Army regs didn’t mean squat until they were thrown in his face, and he was told his order was blatantly illegal by an O-6.  Been there, done that.

So… in that particular unit, the Soldier can choose to fight this through the Inspector General and through the legal system, or he can simply refuse to comply.  After all, you really think a forced inspection of the Soldier’s off-post home without a warrant and based on a mere suspicion that he or his wife may have privately-owned firearms will stand up in court?

Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue. 


It’s pathetic that gun owners have become the new whipping boys for their commanding officers’ political agendas.  It shows a lack of trust and respect on the part of the Battalion Commander for his troops, and it shows a self-aggrandizing superiority complex on the part of the O-5.

David has more.