Active shooter at NAS Pensacola

[Swanee]

Couldn’t agree more.

Family of Josh Watson, Pensacola attack hero, calls for arming service members on military bases

The family of one of the three heroic sailors who lost their lives in last week's Naval Air Station (NAS) shooting in Pensacola, Florida is calling for reform on military bases.

www.foxnews.com

How does the Navy, AF, et all, develop the training plan and equipment for it?

The Marine Corps does it, but the Marine Corps is small, and has an entire training syllabus for weapons qualification for each of it's enlisted members and Officers within their initial training (E's at bootcamp and MCT/SOI and O's at TBS). Each fleet unit maintains an armory full of weapons for each T/O billet.

I understand why, as policy, we don't accept an out in town concealed carry on base. The military doesn't rely on out in town training for... well... pretty much anything...

So if we can fit in shooting and range time at basic training, and we can afford a week or more each year of requalification training I'm all for it.

 

[insanebikerboy]

Probably a wise move to give some time to review things a bit.

Probably helps prevent any hotheadedness by pulling them out of training for a bit. Emotions aren’t exactly calm right now.

 

[Gatordev]

Not surprised at the decision, at least for the time being, but definitely surprised at the number. Larger pipeline of students than I’d imagined Saudi would have, even if that number combined RW/FW and AF/Navy/etc.

The numbers in that article don't tell the whole story. The various cases don't just include pilot training.

Don't forget they spend a year or so at language school prior to API. I'd be willing to bet that number includes those guys.

The article mentions the three bases in FL. The language schools are all over the country, so those numbers are probably just the ones that have started some sort of aviation-related training already.

 

[Ken_gone_flying]

Do it, do it now.

NAS Pensacola shooting leads Navy instructor pilots to tell top brass: 'Arm us'

EXCLUSIVE: A group of U.S. Navy instructor pilots asked top military brass for permission to arm themselves in the wake of the shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., where a Saudi military pilot gunned down three American sailors and wounded eight others.

www.foxnews.com

 

[nittany03]

(I'm sure we can count on NAMI to make the process smooth sailing...?)

If they can get a dude with a missing damned foot back in the cockpit, they'd better bend over backwards for those JOs.

 

[scoolbubba]

How does the Navy, AF, et all, develop the training plan and equipment for it?

The Marine Corps does it, but the Marine Corps is small, and has an entire training syllabus for weapons qualification for each of it's enlisted members and Officers within their initial training (E's at bootcamp and MCT/SOI and O's at TBS). Each fleet unit maintains an armory full of weapons for each T/O billet.

I understand why, as policy, we don't accept an out in town concealed carry on base. The military doesn't rely on out in town training for... well... pretty much anything...

So if we can fit in shooting and range time at basic training, and we can afford a week or more each year of requalification training I'm all for it.

The same way we do anything. Build a cadre of small arms instructors. Give them money and range time to not just qualify everyone, but actually teach them how to use weapons, cover and concealment, and small team leadership. Move that training to basic, OCS, Cortramid and keep track of it like we hound people for dental readiness. Requal bi-annually and do a longer refresher every five years. Small arms use and force protection nis not cosmic...

The attack at Bastion would have been a much worse affair if there’d been a Navy squadron there.

If we can afford to lose everyone who rides a bike for however many days a year to motorcycle safety, we can afford to lose some time doing gundecked readiness reports and bi-monthly don’t rape each other training to instruct servicemembers in how to defend themselves with small arms. Imagine how much more seriously watch might be taken if people were aware that the use of deadly force was one of their responsibilities besides just answering the phone.

 

[nittany03]

The same way we do anything. Build a cadre of small arms instructors. Give them money and range time to not just qualify everyone, but actually teach them how to use weapons, cover and concealment, and small team leadership. Move that training to basic, OCS, Cortramid and keep track of it like we hound people for dental readiness. Requal bi-annually and do a longer refresher every five years. Small arms use and force protection nis not cosmic...

The attack at Bastion would have been a much worse affair if there’d been a Navy squadron there.

If we can afford to lose everyone who rides a bike for however many days a year to motorcycle safety, we can afford to lose some time doing gundecked readiness reports and bi-monthly don’t rape each other training to instruct servicemembers in how to defend themselves with small arms. Imagine how much more seriously watch might be taken if people were aware that the use of deadly force was one of their responsibilities besides just answering the phone.

No one would love to see this successfully executed more than me . . . in theory. I know there are plenty of officers and Sailors out there who could be trusted to have a duty weapon at their hip all day, and we'd be safer for it. If nothing else, it makes all hands more competent armed watchstanders . . . and that's a thing the Navy does as a collateral freaking duty on every quarterdeck in the Fleet.

But the sense I've gotten over my time in is that the military doesn't seem to be any different than the civ population. By which I mean there are those of us who understand what firearms can do, practice with them, and respect both their utility and their dangers. But there are also a lot of folks who seem to go mentally full stupid on the subject, which covers both "Officer Tackleberry" and "eww guns it's an evil black massacre rifle icky icky" types. I mean, we're talking about the service who made me fly combat missions over Afghanistan with two full mags duct taped inside a MAF bag, and instructions that I'd be sent home from deployment if I opened the bag prior to ejection.

I'd love to live in a service that issued a duty weapon to vetted personnel, regularly qualified all hands on personal firearms, and trusted their aircrew to make a Condition III weapon ready, carry it in country, and clear and safe it afterwards. That's totally doable, and not rocket science. In theory. But I would also rue being the staffer briefing that ORM slide to senior leadership. And where do we get funding for the ammo allowance?

 

[scoolbubba]

And that’s the problem. We refuse to hold people accountable when they can’t do the simple things necessary to serve in the military. We give promotions to whoever can make the best quad slide and run the best family readiness group as a collateral, but when it comes to training members of the armed forces in the handling of arms, the same leadership that starts every motarded speech with ‘mornin warfighters!’ throws their hands up and says ‘it’s too hard and our sailors are too stupid.’

We have NJP for a reason. Dereliction of duty is still punishable. For some reason, the Marines make it work, even with the mouthbreathers who scored the bare minimums on the asvab.

If you get past the part of firing every skipper who has an ND in their command and actually letting them do investigations, carry out best practices, and mete out punishment, you might actually end up with a competent force capable of doing more than dying on the phone while they wait for 911 to transfer them to the base PD.

 

[Jim123]

Right after the Chattanooga attack in 2015, the Marines who were at off-installation reserve centers (that is, not onboard a Marine Corps Station or at an other-service base or a Guard base) were ordered by their chain of command to arm up- as in have a rotation of a handful of their people carrying issued weapons and ammo. Until then, the only person carrying would have been the armorer whenever they needed to open the armory (i.e. draw weapons for field exercises or for funeral duty, etc.). And up until then nobody was regularly standing armed watch. The antiterrorism plan was basically a few flimsy gates/fences and to call 911. Oh, and get your run/hide/fight GMT logged in FLTMPS. Those stand alone reserve centers were basically as vulnerable to an active shooter as any school; probably moreso in reality because the local police usually assumed that we, the military, could competently defend ourselves (as opposed to any school or the average workplace).

There were and still are a lot of off-installation reserve centers that were both Navy and Marine on the same property. The Navy leadership freaked out and told us (each NOSC) to not allow the Marines to carry their guns around like that and that the Navy was the lead agency on these combined reserve centers. Lots of policy reasons from the Navy why it was a bad thing for those Marines to have guns but zero advice or guidance about what to actually do if there was a copycat attack.

Think about that for a few moments.

All the browbeating and heartfelt public statements notwithstanding, I doubt our senior uniformed Navy leadership has much changed their mindset about self defense since then.

Good luck to all of you guys who have to be on base.

 

[AllYourBass]

Given the fact most shootings ends up in a conversation about mental health, I wouldn't be surprised if Navy leadership is far too aware of its seemingly unmanageable depression and suicide rates to feel comfortable sprinkling guns into the mix, regardless of any mitigation or reasoning laid at the table.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Given the fact most shootings ends up in a conversation about mental health, I wouldn't be surprised if Navy leadership is far too aware of its seemingly unmanageable depression and suicide rates to feel comfortable sprinkling guns into the mix, regardless of any mitigation or reasoning laid at the table.

Thats why you hear about so many watch standers in the Marines going on shooting sprees. I had a pistol on my hip every time I stood SDO in a Marine squadron. I had a pistol on my hip every time I was ODO (along with a SNCO with a pistol on his hip) in a Marine battalion. Oh, and I shouldn’t have to say this but the pistol was always condition one.

Carrying a gun and knowing how to use it is part of being in the military. Or at least it should be.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

It is part of the US aviation culture. And maybe some others. Not all.

This fuckin' Arab could understand the plain English probably but surely he understood this phrase from his - not yours - cultural paradigm. There is no TV/net porn in Muslim culture, they don't need a case of stimulating desire by watching something that one cannot touch immediately. Partly that's why the Soviet edu/train programs for foreign students have postulated the need to have an instructors from the same culture with the same native language who were in charge of the student corps.

Carrying a gun and knowing how to use it is part of being in the military. Or at least it should be.

Indeed. +1

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Given the fact most shootings ends up in a conversation about mental health, I wouldn't be surprised if Navy leadership is far too aware of its seemingly unmanageable depression and suicide rates to feel comfortable sprinkling guns into the mix, regardless of any mitigation or reasoning laid at the table.

Shocking that Brett “liked” this. The future of Navy “leadership”

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Anyway, please don't allow the foreign students with totally different cultural background to buy the small arms, period. Let them practice the fistfight and punish them afterwards, if the conflict arose. Look, "keeping in mind the cultural difference" may or may not be the obligatory demand, but you won't be sure that every and each allien (culturally) will behave along these lines. In this case "the human rights" are not equal to "citizen rights"

 

[Buffmeyer]

All the browbeating and heartfelt public statements notwithstanding, I doubt our senior uniformed Navy leadership has much changed their mindset about self defense since then.

Good luck to all of you guys who have to be on base.

Re: Chattanooga, 2015 -
The CO, LCDR Tim White, was about to be royally reamed by the Navy for shooting at the thug (who killed four) with his personal firearm. That dude is a hero to the USNR. The DoD establishment was no doubt salivating buckets considering its options to annihilate him. Public opinion pre-empted the lawfare showdown.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your...marine-fought-to-take-out-chattanooga-gunman/

Of course, Politifact says that the claim of White facing charges was "false", but we all know fact-checking is usually fetid b.s. Just wonder who had to make the call to drop the charges.