The problem with storing personal weapons in the arms room was, maybe still is, that the armorer pogues would play with them when they were bored.
Do they point out that the reason Clinton is not responsible is that GHW Bush was President in 1992?
Depends on what their agenda is. The law was signed in 1992 and implemented in 1993. People conveniently leave out the key facts according to what kind of message they are trying to deliver. It’s ridiculous.
At this point, it seems to me that there was no change at all to the policies concerning personally owned weapons or concealed carry. Those rules do not seem to have changed at all, and were not even the target of the directive. As far as I can tell, what actually did change was arming specific personnel during certain duty shifts. So in the past, it may have been the policy at some bases for someone pulling a 24 hour Staff Duty or Charge of Quarters shift to actually be armed during that duty period. The 1992 Directive changed the policy to state that only military police would be armed unless there was a specific reason to arm other personnel tasked with guarding sensitive equipment or explosives.
Somehow people have twisted this into a Gun Free Zone / No CCW on post thing, even though that isn’t something that was actually changed in 1992. Rules on that sort of thing were just as restrictive before 1992 as they are now. Reporters who blame this on the 92 Directive are just regurgitating what they heard from “experts” or read in another news article.
This was largely my experience as well (Army, '86-'92).
Any personally owned weapon brought on-post/kept on-post had to be registered with the Provost Marshal.
If you were single/living in barracks, your firearm(s) had to be stored in the unit arms room, and you had to check them out through the unit Armorer, and turn them back in as well at the conclusion of your shooting activity (hunting, target practice).
If you lived in housing, you were allowed to keep your personal firearms in your gov’t-issued home
If you lived off-post, the Army generally didn’t care what you had/how or where you kept it, as long as it was off-post.
The Army only issued weapons as needed: guard duty, field training exercises, ceremonial duties, range/personal weapons qualifications, the occasional war.
Even then, ammunition was only issued as needed; I spent plenty of time on various guard duties, and on field training exercises, with empty mags. I know plenty of people who went through Desert Shield/Storm with empty mags.
For the very few times that guard duty required ammunition, even when ammunition was issued the magazines were so thoroughly and heavily taped that a British Army Regular circa 1780 could’ve shot me three or four times with a Brown Bess before I could get a magazine cleared and ready for loading into my personal weapon.
That did ring some bells. The Squadron Commander for my Basic Course liked to add non-TRADOC required ODPs. In one he mentioned that in the post Vietnam days when he started they issued the SDO a pistol and ammo for his shift.
Something like that would have been affected by the change.
Most states have always exempted peace officers from CCW laws within the state they work. I got on the job in '82 and it was that way, was that way a century before that.
The law that allows it nation wide is going on 12 years old now. But if you’re old as I am I can see how “recent” is a subjective term. 
Huh. When I stood topside watch or pier sentry in the '80s and '90s I always had ammo. I just wasn’t allowed to load the weapon. Pistol magazines were carried in ammo pouches like this one, and shotgun shells were carried loose in what was basically a small cloth bag.
Here in PA most of the various agencies just never seemed to really care about LE from other jurisdictions carrying. Philly always had to be different. They periodically try to pretend that carry permits from other counties aren’t valid there. I can remember several times, most recently a sheriff’s convention in the early 2000’s, when they tried to float the idea that only On Duty LE who were in Philly on police business could carry firearms.
12 years is not a lot of time. 2003 seems very recent to me.
I’m sorry, but that all seems so bizarre to me.
It was that way when I was in the army, too. We were not actively at war with anyone in the early 1980’s. Terrorism against the US wasn’t yet a thing. The possibility of death/injury due to negligent discharges vastly outweighed any possibilty that a couple enlisted men on guard duty in Missouri were going to be in a firefight with hostiles.
I understand - there are perfectly logical reasons why you guys weren’t armed. It’s just that it seems kind of disrespectful, you know? Like the brass doesn’t trust their own troops, and by extension, that they don’t trust the training they provided them. If soldiers are acting irresponsibly with weapons, then train them to act responsibly; don’t disarm them. It’s a hardware solution to a software problem, and a problem that probably doesn’t even exist in the first place.
Besides, you’re soldiers - warriors, men at arms. The defining characteristic of a soldier, throughout history, is that he carries a weapon.
I disagree. Mindset makes a warrior, not possession of a loaded weapon.
USAF '81-'85 … can’t remember what my sarge did with his shotguns … but we’d check out the issued .38’s and fire off a few boxes of ammo every few months. I worked in the communications vault at Command Headquarters, I guess they thought I needed to be familiar with the .38.
I agree, and it’s one of the reasons I left the Army; I got tired of being treated like some kind of second-class scum, not trusted to tie his own bootlaces without supervision, when it was plainly evident that quite a few of the “upper-class” officers weren’t much better than asshole frat boys.
We were issued the same ammo pouches, as well as these for the M-16, when issued.
Being tankers, our personal weapons were M1911A1, with a single M-16 issued per tank/crew.
There was a reason why when I was in Iraq the clearing barrel to troop ratio was approaching 1:1. Although I’m not sure if the DoD has released official information one source I saw had the number of deaths in Iraq due to negligent discharge at around 100.
Back in the old days when we had muzzle loading M16s and tri-corner BDU hats a fellow private in my unit in Germany decided to pop off a round into the air when he was bored. After that our rounds were locked up in the guard shack when we had duty.
More importantly despite what some are shrilly screaming, we are not at war on our own soil. There is no need to arm our troops 24/7.
IMHO, it would have made more sense to leave the rounds and lock up the private. The response to poor discipline is not to prevent opportunities for further poor discipline, it’s to improve discipline. By example, if necessary.
I, too, am surprised that a soldier on guard duty would not be armed with a loaded weapon and capable of firing on a moment’s notice. Train them well, discipline those who handle their weapons stoopidly, but don’t disarm them. Yeesh.
You have obviously not met Joe. It’s a pipe dream to think that more training and discipline with eliminate the problems.
I have been on many guard details. The level of being armed or disarmed varied greatly. Sometimes we have been armed, most of the time we have not.
There was plenty of training and discipline before and during deployments to Iraq. Negligently firing into a clearing barrel could end your career. It’s not like there were no consequences to mishandling your weapon. And yet it happens and people die.
It’s a risk you have to take when in a combat zone. It’s not necessarily a risk you want to take while guarding a motor pool in Kansas with no reports of credible threats.
Then why have guards at all? Are we worried about a bunch of Yossarians stealing cars/Hummvees/whatever from the motor pool?
This. I mean, if you don’t trust them to handle weapons and ammo appropriately while on post in peacetime in a sparsely populated area of Flyover Country, what the fuck are you expecting them to do in a high-stress combat situation?
Joe?