Lackland shooting adds fuel to the fire

No matter the military branch or specific base, a deadly shooting such as the one Friday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland reignites an argument that has polarized millions of Americans: guns.

The private possession of firearms is restricted on Lackland and most military facilities, raising questions over whether the policy promotes safety or is even enforceable,

"The same facts will be leveraged by both sides of the gun debate to advance their position," predicted Geoffrey Corn, professor of law at South Texas College and a retired Army lieutenant colonel. "In the end, it may turn out to be a random act of violence that no one and no policy could have stopped."

A Washington-based Air Force spokeswoman, Laura McAndrews, confirmed several hours after the apparent murder-suicide at Lackland's Medina Annex that each base commander now can set policy regarding how guns are handled within the gates. "They can have concealed carry," McAndrews said. "They can have total registration of all guns. They can ban guns entirely. It's up to them."

All of which troubles Jeff Addicott, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who heads St. Mary's University's Center for Terrorism Law.

"It is bizarre that we know militant Islam targets our military bases, yet we do not trust the officers and (noncommissioned officers) who are thoroughly trained in the use of weapons to respond to violence like we saw today," he said. "It is absurd."

Addicott said the prohibition of bringing guns "on post" started during the Clinton administration and was continued for eight years under George W. Bush.

He said guns have been "demonized" by President Barack Obama - though last summer's decision to leave the rules up to base commanders occurred during his administration, replacing a blanket restriction against guns.

"The irony," he said, "is that you are probably less safe on a military base than you are in the outside community because you're not allowed to defend yourself."

Actually, military bases are safer than comparably sized U.S. cities, wrote military journalist Robert Beckhusen after a 2014 shooting incident at Fort Hood in which Army Spc. Ivan Lopez opened fire on his co-workers.

"You wouldn't know this from watching the news lately," wrote Beckhusen in the online journal The Daily Beast. "And mass shootings aren't some unique monstrosity the military has unleashed, they're an American problem."

According to FBI statistics, the homicide rate for resident military personnel is lower than the national average for civilians.

In 2009, 2.3 service members per 100,000 were victims of homicide, compared with five civilians per 100,000 in 2010.

"The military community is fundamentally different," Corn said. "They're self-selected, very disciplined, and they undergo training with firearms. It's not a true cross-section of society."

But those seeming advantages, he cautioned, can also hide the growing awareness that military bases can also contain a greater concentration of people who have post-traumatic stress disorder and have not been properly diagnosed.

Changing a cultural attitude toward mental health services in the military will take time, wrote Mike Stajura, a former Army officer once based at Fort Hood who works at UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health.

"Many soldiers who need mental health care go out of their way to avoid it," Stajura wrote in an online UCLA campus editorial. "The stigma associated with mental health issues is alive and well, despite top-level efforts to address it."

But banning guns on military bases, said Larry Arnold, spokesman for the Texas Concealed Handgun Association, would stop "not just crazy people," but everyone.

"Am I concerned about mentally ill people carrying guns? Yes, I am. But that seems to be a mental health issue and not a gun issue," he said.

Arnold said about 13 million Americans are currently licensed to carry guns, with nearly 1 million in Texas.