The Question in Need of Asking

I need to be blunt.

What the hell is wrong with us?

Did we learn nothing from Fort Hood? (Apparently at CNN they did not.)

We send our men and women overseas armed to the teeth with miniature drones and smart rifles and stealth fighters and guided-missile destroyers and armored fighting vehicles.

And then we bring them home and we force them to disarm.

We learned on that September morning 12 years ago that the front line in this war isn’t over there, it’s over here.

Yet we insist — insist — on making our fighting men and women sitting ducks here at home. We ask them to defend us, but refuse to allow them to defend themselves. We treat them like criminals, or even worse, like residents of Chicago.

Twelve are dead today who shouldn’t be. And they must be the last who die this way, warriors unarmed.