Lots of folks remember the big shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. They should. The Army paid for the medical education of Nidal Malik Hasan, a radical Muslim born in this country of Palestinian immigrants. Hasan volunteered, of course. The Army even promoted him to major and gave him the responsibility of caring for his fellow soldiers. Instead he went to work one day and shot more than 40 of them, all unarmed, killing 13.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like nobody knew this guy was trouble. According to The Washington Post, Hasan made a presentation during his final year of residency at Walter Reed Army Hospital called “The Quranic World View as It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military,” which was not well received. He suggested the Department of Defense should allow \u201cMuslims Soldiers\u201d (sic) to muster out as conscientious objectors to \u201cdecrease adverse events,\u201d which he listed to include refusal to deploy, espionage, and killing of fellow soldiers.<\/p>\n
(Who knew?! Who could have guessed?!)<\/p>\n
This guy had traded e-mails with radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. The FBI knew it. Retired Colonel Terry Lee, who had worked with Hasan, told Fox News that Hasan made “outlandish” statements against the American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, that “the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor,” meaning the United States.<\/p>\n
Come on. I\u2019m all for severely reduced foreign deployments, but we went into Afghanistan because they harbored bin Laden, who was rich enough to cause trouble because the British and Americans showed the Arabs how to drill for oil. Other than making them rich, the main sins of the oppressor appear to be introducing bluejeans and Kentucky Fried Chicken and allowing women to drive.<\/p>\n
Hasan claimed people had it in for him because he was Muslim. In fact, today\u2019s Politically Correct Army brass bent over backward to ignore all these warning signs, rather than stand accused of being \u201canti-Muslim\u201d! After all, you wouldn\u2019t have kicked someone out of one of our nuclear facilities, back in the 1950s or \u201860s, just because he had a Russian accent and kept talking about how the Workers of the World should stand up against American imperialism, would you?<\/p>\n
The Army wouldn\u2019t even charge Hasan with \u201cterrorism.\u201d Maybe they think all 40 of those guys were having affairs with the killer\u2019s wife. Oh, wait: no wife!<\/p>\n
At any rate, they finally did manage to get one thing right: Hasan has been convicted of multiple counts of murder. Maybe, just maybe, before he dies of old age, someone will march him outside and shoot him. One suspects Vinegar Joe Stillwell would have dealt with the matter more expeditiously.<\/p>\n
But meantime, the Army continued to ignore the bigger underlying problem. Fort Hood is an Army base, right? So why were all of Hasan\u2019s victims unarmed?<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s happened again. On April 2 of this year, 34-year-old Puerto Rican national Ivan Lopez, an Iraq War veteran with four children, grew upset that he was having trouble getting \u201cfamily leave,\u201d so he drove around the huge Texas base with a .45-caliber pistol, shooting 20 people, killing four, including a couple of sergeants.<\/p>\n
It was later revealed that Specialist Lopez, who was in uniform at the time, wasn\u2019t authorized to carry a concealed firearm.<\/p>\n
Hey! Another \u201cgun ban\u201d gets the job done!<\/p>\n
Finally, someone seems to have gotten the picture. \u201cStockman blames gun control for Fort Hood shooting, renews push to let troops go armed,\u201d read the headline in the Dallas Morning News.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the April 2 shootings, Texas Congressman \u201cSteve Stockman today blamed gun control advocates and renewed a call to end gun bans at military bases. \u2018Only the most out-of-touch radical would try to disarm soldiers,\u2019 said the Clear Lake Republican. \u2018It\u2019s time to repeal this deadly anti-gun law before it creates another mass killing. This is another tragedy created by anti-gun activists.\u2019<\/p>\n
Stockman introduced the Safe Military Bases Act last September, after a mass shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., that left 12 people plus the gunman dead. The bill would strike down laws passed in the 1990s that prohibit most service members from carrying weapons on base.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gee, who was in charge in Washington during the 1990s? I\u2019m trying to remember.<\/p>\n
If active duty members of the armed forces aren\u2019t qualified to carry firearms for their own defense — while ATF SWAT teams and BLM cow-counters and FDA chicken inspectors are — I don\u2019t think we have to ask why our wars keep going so badly. <\/p>\n
Gun control: The gift that keeps on killing.<\/p>\n
\u2018GUNS DO NOT MAKE US SAFER\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Meantime, Lauren Fox of U.S. News & World Report filed a piece July 8 on the growing battle over \u201copen carry\u201d in retail stores.<\/p>\n \u201cLast week, after a month of demonstrations, Target became the latest business to request shoppers leave their guns at home in an effort to maintain a \u2018family-friendly shopping and work experience.\u2019\u201d The retail giant joined such firms as Starbucks, Chipotle, Wendy\u2019s and Jack in the Box that have \u201ctaken a stand against \u2018open carry\u2019 gun advocates who want to underscore their right to bear arms by carrying guns in stores and other public places.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet \u201cTarget’s position on firearms in their stores is merely a suggestion, not a policy they plan to enforce,\u201d Ms. Fox adds. \u201cCustomers who enter the store with guns will not be asked to leave if they are following local laws.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhile this is not a ban on legally possessed firearms in its stores, we will continue to honor our months-long policy of not taking long arms into Target stores or any other business,\u201d a spokesman for Open Carry Texas wrote on that group\u2019s web site. \u201cEngaging in the businesses of interfering with or making a scene at private corporations is something to which Open Carry Texas has never lowered itself, a practice we will maintain.\u201d The group’s statement did not mention handguns, which under Texas law must be concealed in public. <\/p>\n \u201cI am not really sure what they are trying to do,\u201d comments Allison Anderman, a staff attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a group that pushes to enable future genocides by demanding even more gun bans. \u201cPeople are forgetting that the rest of the country does not want to live in a society where we walk around with guns. Most of society recognizes the truth that guns do not make us safer.”<\/p>\n Actually, Allison, guns DO make us safer. If you don\u2019t believe it, go convince the police they\u2019ll be safer once they give up their guns, and let us know how you do.<\/p>\n What\u2019s that? \u201cPolice have to go out on the streets where there are violent criminals every day\u201d? Yes they do. Just like the rest of us. In fact, given that the average purse-snatcher is more likely to try and knock down an elderly lady than a uniformed cop, which has the GREATER need for a self-defense handgun?<\/p>\n Go read about \u201cBitches with Guns\u201d at www.aware.org\/resources\/women-guns-articles\/12-lyn-bates\/107-bitches-with-guns, Allison. Explain to me how Maryann Watkins would have been \u201csafer\u201d without a gun.<\/p>\n Also, please ask the Jews and Romani (Gypsies) of central Europe whether they found they ended up \u201csafer\u201d by giving up their guns as required by local \u201cgun control\u201d laws is the 1920s and \u201830s. Oh, wait. They\u2019re pretty much all dead, aren\u2019t they? Dead, but much \u201csafer,\u201d darn it!<\/p>\n BUT SOME CIVILIANS ARE MORE EQUAL Many retailers have banned firearms — supposedly — for years. \u201cAt Buffalo Wild Wings, Whole Foods . . . and Costco Wholesale, to name a few, it is not merely a request; it is the rule,\u201d U.S. News reports. \u201cOn its website, the membership-only club Costco states that it \u2018does not believe that it is necessary for firearms to be brought into its warehouse stores.\u2019”<\/p>\n The pro-gun website Second Amendment Check has a 40-business long boycott list where they urge their members not to shop. That list includes Costco, Whole Foods, IKEA, Cinemark, AMC Theatres, Hooters, Toys R Us, The New York Times Company and others.<\/p>\n Good idea.<\/p>\n U.S. Bankcorp, the parent company for U.S. Bank, sent a letter to a customer in 2013 alerting him that guns were not allowed on the property. \u201cPlease refrain from bringing any weapon onto U.S. Bank premises in the future,” stated the letter, which got posted online. \u201cFurther action will be taken if a U.S. Bank employee observes or learns that you or any other customer is in possession of a weapon on U.S. Bank premises.”<\/p>\n Notice anything consistent about these statements from outfits like Costco and U.S. Bank?<\/p>\n They\u2019re lies. These firms have not banned firearms from their premises. The next time you see police entering one of these firms to investigate a holdup or other crime, watch to see if those officers carefully leave their duty weapons in their cars. Of course they won\u2019t, nor will they be asked to. What the CEOs of these firms mean is that they welcome all the firepower any agent of the government wishes to haul inside; it\u2019s only us shuffling, drooling peasants who are barred from self-defense.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll even tell you when this will end.<\/p>\n First, since stores are private property, I believe owners have a right to set any restrictions they want on who can enter. Shirts, shoes, guns, they get to decide. The main opposition to this common-sense notion, of course, is the federal government itself. It\u2019s the federal courts that stripped business owners of this property right, in their well-intentioned search for a way to ban discrimination based on race, by saying owners have no such right if they\u2019re operating a \u201cpublic accommodation,\u201d which magically covers just about everything. So let me see, would it be \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d if they tried to strip non-police civilians of a constitutional right they happily allow police civilians to exercise? . . . Oh, never mind.<\/p>\n To end this plethora of \u201cno guns for you peasants\u201d signs, all anyone who has a relative injured or killed by bad guys inside such a store has to do is find a good gun-rights attorney, and sue on the grounds the WILLFUL placement of such a sign prevented law-abiding gun owners from carrying their weapons into that establishment, where they could have been used to protect the innocent. Remember, the deaths or injuries were thus caused by the store owners, WILLFULLY.<\/p>\n When depriving us of our God-given and constitutional right to self-defense starts to cost these guys big money, they\u2019ll see the light.<\/p>\n On the bright aside, U.S. news notes Wal-Mart \u201callows\u201d customers to carry handguns in accordance with local laws. And in Rifle, Colorado, at a little burger joint called Shooters Grill, your waitress may be packing heat when you order your \u201cLocked and Loaded Nachos.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cIt is kind of a way of life here,\u201d restaurant owner Lauren Boebert told CNN.<\/p>\n Vin Suprynowicz is the author of \u201cSend in the Waco Killers,\u201d \u201cThe Ballad of Carl Drega,\u201d and \u201cThe Black Arrow.\u201d His next novel, \u201cThe Testament of James,\u201d is due in the fall. A version of this column appears in the current issue of “Shotgun News.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lots of folks remember the big shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. They should. The Army paid for the medical education of Nidal Malik Hasan, a radical Muslim born in this country of Palestinian immigrants. Hasan volunteered, of course. 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