Bill Clinton gave America a lot of things: an affair with a young intern, an “assault weapons” ban that had a negligible impact on crime, and gun-free military bases that force troops to run for their lives when a bad guy pulls a gun.
On September 17, 2013, Breitbart News pointed out that “gun-free zones” on military bases were enacted under Clinton.
According to a Washington Times editorial, written days after a Nov. 5, 2009 attack on soldiers at Fort Hood, one of Clinton’s “first acts upon taking office… was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases.”
Clinton’s actions birthed Army regulations “forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection.”
As the Times editorial board put it, “Because of Mr. Clinton, terrorists would face more return fire if they attacked a Texas Wal-Mart than the gunman faced at Fort Hood.”
Crime Prevention Research Center president John Lott Jr. addressed this on X following Wednesday’s Fort Stewart attack:
I find it appalling that men and women trained in the use of firearms that far exceed the firepower capabilities of civilian guns are prohibited from carrying a 9mm pistol on their hip for personal protection while on duty at a stateside base. As I wrote following the December 6, 2019, attack on Naval Air Station Pensacola, “gun-free policies on military installations make U.S. troops sitting ducks.”
President Trump was focused on ending the gun-free zones on military bases as he headed into his first term, but the goals he had for his first term were largely curtailed by the fake Russian collusion scenario created by the left and relentlessly reported by the establishment media.
In 2015, Trump told Ammoland: “President Clinton never should have passed a ban on soldiers being able to protect themselves on bases. America’s Armed Forces will be armed.”
Perhaps the good that will come out of this week’s Fort Stewart attack is a renewed focus on making sure our military personnel can be armed on stateside bases for self-defense. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time until someone else figures out how to get a gun onto a gun-free military base for the purposes of shooting at people who cannot shoot back.
Our troops deserve better; they deserve the ability to defend their lives from hostiles, whether those hostiles are wearing the uniform of friend or foe.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at [email protected].
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