At many bases, people are driving onto base and parking there. At that point, it's virtually impossible to ensure people are entering the base without firearms or other weapons, so long as firearms are common in the local area, I.e. all of the United States.
The only thing 'preventing' someone from bringing guns on base is a rule telling them as much. Which obviously almost everyone abides by, except the crazies. I'm not a wholesale gun nut, but there's a simple equation in effect here:
firearm availability + low security = vulnerability.
Neither of those factors are going to disappear. Guns are with us, and it would be too costly and difficult to cavity search every person who comes on base day in, day out. It would be too logistically difficult to make a base as secure as an airplane. The best you can hope for is that if a shooter comes on base, he is dispatched as quickly as possible.
A program whereby military officers and enlisted can take extra training and then carry a firearm on base is eminently sensible. I've had arguments with people over this, and I've yet to encounter a good opposing argument. The people arguing against it are just irrationally afraid of guns, or mindlessly submissive to whatever their betters tell them.
If a man can be trusted to carry a rifle into the thick of battle, you should trust him to carry on a base, given the proper training.
The only scenario in which I can imagine this policy coming to catastrophe is if someone got into a fight on base and then whipped out a gun, but this seems like a very low probability event compared to a crazed shooter.
The only thing 'preventing' someone from bringing guns on base is a rule telling them as much. Which obviously almost everyone abides by, except the crazies. I'm not a wholesale gun nut, but there's a simple equation in effect here:
firearm availability + low security = vulnerability.
Neither of those factors are going to disappear. Guns are with us, and it would be too costly and difficult to cavity search every person who comes on base day in, day out. It would be too logistically difficult to make a base as secure as an airplane. The best you can hope for is that if a shooter comes on base, he is dispatched as quickly as possible.
A program whereby military officers and enlisted can take extra training and then carry a firearm on base is eminently sensible. I've had arguments with people over this, and I've yet to encounter a good opposing argument. The people arguing against it are just irrationally afraid of guns, or mindlessly submissive to whatever their betters tell them.
If a man can be trusted to carry a rifle into the thick of battle, you should trust him to carry on a base, given the proper training.
The only scenario in which I can imagine this policy coming to catastrophe is if someone got into a fight on base and then whipped out a gun, but this seems like a very low probability event compared to a crazed shooter.