Op-Ed: Fort Hood attack: My son, our soldiers, are defenseless, sitting ducks

The Obama administration hasn’t learned anything from the massacres at Fort Hood in 2009 or the Washington Navy Yard last year.

For all my research on how to stop or prevent mass public shootings and all the victims at these attacks that I have talked to over the years, the attack this week at Fort Hood was different.

My son Ryan, who is stationed at Fort Hood and recently back from a tour in Afghanistan, was just two blocks from the attack and could hear the shots.

However, as was true in the 2009 attack at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, soldiers, like my son, are banned from having weapons on base unless they have “a credible and specific threat against [military] personnel [exists] in that region.”

Yes, there are military police and they guard the entrances, but, like police generally, they can’t be everywhere all the time.

Thus during the Navy Yard or Fort Hood shootings, the unarmed JAG officers, marines, and soldiers could do nothing but cower as the shooter fired round after round.

Apparently, it took 15 minutes for the military police to arrive on the scene, and no one blames them. But 15 minutes is simply too long.

Ironically, my son is a concealed handgun permit holder. He can carry a concealed handgun whenever he is off the Fort Hood base so that he can protect himself and others. But on the base he and his fellow soldiers are defenseless.

Good soldiers obey the rules against carrying guns. But instead of making places safer, disarming them leaves them sitting ducks while those who want to do harm seek out venues where they don’t have to worry about victims defending themselves. With just two exceptions, every public mass shooting in the USA since at least 1950 has taken place where citizens are banned from carrying guns.

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Armed soldiers would provide the best last line of defense.

Additionally, the bans on them carrying show that the concerns of gun control advocates have nothing to do with people not being trained. These people are trained, but gun control advocates still want areas to be “gun-free.”

We trust these people in combat situations, but somehow we can’t trust them at other times?

With a son being near this attack, it convinces me more than ever that we need to trust soldiers to carry weapons on bases. That would provide another line of defense against any attacks and not leave our soldiers as sitting ducks.

Click here to read the entire op-ed at FoxNews.com.

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