Fort Hood Massacre: Taxpayers Pay Again for Government Infringement of Second Amendment
Flashback: In 2009, Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 31 others at Ford Hood. His shooting rampage was assisted by superiors’ ban on personnel bearing arms outside of official training. Hood was a target-rich, gun-free zone, and Americans suffered for it.
Yesterday, it was reported that victims of the massacre are “asking compensation totaling $750 million from the government for failing to stop the attack.”
Let’s examine this concept.
“Suing the government” is a euphemism for extracting money from taxpayers via tort. As Abraham Lincoln said: “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.”
We are the government, like it or not.
Yes, the government “failed to stop the attack,” and those whose decisions led to this horror should answer as accessories to murder. But the government has no duty to protect, and therefore isn’t responsible for failing to stop an attack, even though we still have to pay for all these “services” that aren’t beholden to us. (See Castle Rock v. Gonzalez and Deshaney v. Winnebago for starters.) So while the Supreme Court could throw this out, the taxpayers still foot a legal bill at the very least.
Returning to the main issue: The government–which orders soldiers to use military weaponry to kill enemies identified as such by the government–doesn’t trust these same people to responsibly bear arms on base. In America. All paid for by American taxpayers who live in country with a Bill of Rights specifically acknowledging the God-given right of self-defense via the Second Amendment.
As with all the school shootings in the last two decades, government infringement created a “gun-free zone” which benefited one murderer bent upon maximizing his statement defined as body count.
In any case, the bottom line is that we pay for government’s failed policies in many ways, while those enacting those policies suffer no consequences. The rest of Lincoln’s quote is:
Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
So what’s it going to be? Or will we just put yokes on our own necks?
Put yokes on our own necks. I’d elaborate, but I think those six words say more than enough.
The strength of our country relies on the moral character of its citizens to govern themselves. The lack of it is apparent in the military when we can trust soldiers with multimillion dollar pieces of military equipment but not allow them to carry a $500 pistol. We have freely elected our current government who will spend trillions to stimulate an economy but regulate you to death to even start a business that is supposed to achieve that end. Pure madness.
Amen brother. Yokes are out this year. I want a government that doesn’t see me as a revenue source but instead fears my ability to change their world with a few comments and phone calls. The Fort Hood murders shouldn’t have happened. The best fighting force in the world shouldn’t have been put in the situation like that to be slaughtered by a religious terrorists.
While in the Marine Corps back in the 60s and 70s I spent a short time as an MP at MCRD San Diego. At that time we were unarmed with the exception of when we were on a money run. Meaning escorting bank or credit union employees carrying money back or forth or on paydays where some units were paid in cash. However, firearms were stored at the Provost Marshall’s building and were readily available if needed. I must say I felt a lot better with a .45 on my hip though on the days I got the money run detail.
And how many seconds would it have taken to sign out a firearm and load it, compared, say, to a bullet travelling at about 1,000 feet per second crossing a distance of 15 yards?
This is not just the government being stupid in the abstract. Trust me, Hassan’s commanding officer is going to have this go into his jacket, and it’ll follow him around for the rest of his career. All Generals, Admirals, etc. know this, and so do everything in their power to make sure that their personnel don’t go crazy and shoot lots of people. If someone does go crazy then the General, in this case, can at least say “Hey, I banned all firearms on base. I tried, he just avoided the restrictions.” If he allows troops on the base to carry guns, in his mind the chances of something like this happening increase, even if the number of individuals killed is much less. Worse, since he didn’t *do anything* he’s deemed responsible, and his career is damaged irreperably as a result. The stupidity of the whole process, with the soldiers involved now suing the government, is appalling. What’s next, soldiers suing the government if they’re wounded in combat, or their survivors suing if they’re killed? Give them time, and a clever lawyer will come up with a clever plan. He’ll cross-examine the commanding officer: “Couldn’t you have ordered more artillery support? Didn’t you know that a machinegun in that house could prove dangerous to your troops? Why didn’t you order the drone to make another pass, you might have sighted the ambushing enemy forces?” It could easily turn into a 3-ring circus.
The (part) solution to the fiscal issue here is to take the money out of the pay checks of those who enabled the jihadist. First port of call would be that bloviating idiot general who was in charge of Fort Hood (is he still there??). He and his pension need to be rescinded. Then work up the line through the PC enabler departments of defense.