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“I have no doubt that if Marty was armed he would be alive”

“I have no doubt that if Marty was armed he would be alive”

A friend and LI reader, who has to remain anonymous because of his job, sent me an email last night about Marty Bodrog, who was killed in the Navy Yard shooting:

My USNA ’81 classmate Marty Bodrog was killed yesterday by the douchebag at the Navy Yard.

Here’s the thing. The very first week of training at the Naval Academy in July 1977 during “plebe summer” we woke up at about 0600 and the second thing we did (after PT) was to go across the Severn River on boats to the Annapolis Naval Station to the shooting range, where we were all (1000 or so of us) trained by enlisted (many Vietnam veteran) Marines in how to shoot a Navy 45 caliber pistol.

By the end of the week I shot expert and was awarded the Navy Expert Pistol Medal. Not everyone did that, but we were all exceptionally well trained.

I have no doubt that if Marty was armed he would be alive and that douchebag would be dead. It is such a tragedy.

Just thought I’d share, since no one will ever bring up anything like this.

Video report on Marty Bodrog:

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Comments

The night of the shooting, I uttered to the wife: “Nobody is armed on military bases anymore. I wonder then the hell that started!”

Yesterday, question having been answered, I mumbled: “figures.”

    DriveBy in reply to Browndog. | September 18, 2013 at 10:56 am

    If you want to “blame” a president from either side, it would technically be George H. W., not Slick Willie:

    “Steven Bucci, a military expert for The Heritage Foundation who served 28 years in the Army and retired in 2005 with the rank of colonel, also told TheBlaze Tuesday afternoon that Clinton is not to blame.

    “I think you are barking up the wrong tree if you are looking to put blame on someone for disarming the military,” said Bucci, when asked if Clinton was responsible. “I think that’s kind of a bogus story.”

    And as the report explains:

    “We have never had our soldiers walking around with weapons all the time, other than in combat zones,” he added, noting only Military Police have had that authority.

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/17/this-is-why-most-military-personnel-are-disarmed-on-military-bases-and-its-not-clintons-fault/

      assemblerhead in reply to DriveBy. | September 18, 2013 at 11:34 am

      The “unarmed on base” policy was put in place during the Vietnam era or earlier.

      So neither Bush or Clinton enacted it.

      Was it LBJ or Nixon? Or was it done even earlier?

      ( Love to find out when it was exactly done. )

        I have heard stories from veterans of their bases in Vietnam being attacked and nobody being able to do much but hide as the Americans were all unarmed. It struck me as both ineffective and disgraceful. Now of course “ineffective” and “disgraceful” in one sentence makes one think of Clinton, but obviously this was before his era.

      Archer in reply to DriveBy. | September 18, 2013 at 1:15 pm

      IIRC, the policy of being disarmed on-base was a general guideline for all US bases, but the base commander had the authority to order an exception for his/her base.

      That was until an executive order by Clinton which removed all exceptions.

      I may be mistaken (if so please correct me), but that’s what I’ve been told by others who would/should know and whose credentials I trust.

    Browndog in reply to Browndog. | September 18, 2013 at 1:09 pm

    Interesting-

    It was all over the conservative blogs yesterday, and I distinctly remember that it was a Clinton XO signed in February, 1993.

    I checked the archives, and no such XO exists.

    What the hell is going on out there?!

      assemblerhead in reply to Browndog. | September 20, 2013 at 11:15 am

      @Archer
      @Browndog

      Thanks for that info.

      “It was all over the conservative blogs yesterday, and I distinctly remember that it was a Clinton XO signed in February, 1993.”

      The disappearance of the XO from archives surprises you?
      With everyone asking why nobody was able to shoot back?

      There is a good reason these nuts do NOT do this at a Police Station or at an NRA Convention. Too many people armed people at those places.

    For what it’s worth, my father told me that when his British Army unit was redeployed from Basra to Cairo they kept their rifles but their standard ammunition issue was confiscated. They were nearly cornered by a crowd of hostile Egyptians and if it had not been for a jeep-ful of Green Howards turning up there is no telling what might have happened. Trouble is, this was 1944 – yep, right in the middle of World War II.

Rest in peace Marty Bodrog, and thank you for your service. May your family and friends find solace in precious memories.

This is so tragic, so senseless, and so very wrong.

Did you folks miss this part: “The suspected gunman appeared to have seized firearms from two of his victims as he moved through the building…”? At this point, it looks like armed victims were unable to stop the crazy guy.

    Midwest Rhino in reply to gxm17. | September 18, 2013 at 11:06 am

    imo, a crazed gunmen can shoot one or two, but if there are concealed carriers, they could soon stop him. In this case those with weapons were easily identified as the guards.

    But beyond the ability to stop a gunmen AFTER he starts shooting, there is the fear factor that might make a gunmen afraid to start shooting in the first place. He can plan to take out one guard (at a time), but if he knows it is likely there are five other random people with a weapon, the fear might change his mind.

      I’ve seen that posited, too. Having designated armed guards at a generally disarmed facility just puts a big bulls-eye on the guards’ backs. The mass shooter knows EXACTLY who to shoot first.

      On the other hand, having random concealed carriers means the mass shooter DOESN’T know exactly who to shoot first, and must either be extra cautious, extra crazy, or call off his attack.

      As a thought exercise*, imagine three bowls of M&Ms (or Skittles, if you prefer). The first one has a sign that all of them are safe. The second one has a sign that the red ones are laced with a deadly poison, but the rest are safe. The third has a sign that a random 5% are poisoned. Assuming all the signs are true and accurate, what do you suppose happens?

      * – I didn’t come up with this thought exercise, but I did modify it. I’ll be darned if I can find the original source, though.

    Jeremy in reply to gxm17. | September 18, 2013 at 11:31 am

    Did any of those victims get shots off? We don’t know.

    Were those victims who were disarmed carrying their weapons concealed? If they were open carry, that might explain why they were targeted to begin with, not to mention disarmed later.

    How early in his shooting rampage were those victims? If they were the first two people shot, the story hardly qualifies as a statement against civilian gun ownership as a means of stopping crime. Even the most active 2nd amendment supporters don’t walk around each day expecting to be shot.

    the first victim was at the front where people check in. All weapons are normally contained in a cabinet in that same area.

    The first weapon taken was that of the first victim killed with the shotgun.

The fact that the person who sent this e-mail feels the need to remain anonymous in order to protect his job is frightening.

Are we now at a point when (I assume) as an Annapolis graduate and current or former naval officer he no longer has either his first or second amendment rights, yet dedicated a part of his life to defending those very rights?

How long did it take for you to discover the killer was black? It was late in the day when I saw Drudge’s post.

And, then it came out that this psychotic guy had obtained “Secret” clearance years ago. Which is why he was hired by Hewlett Packard. “Secret” clearance is nearly impossible to obtain. But once you have it, no one bothers to take it away.

Poor psychotic dude, hearing voices, got “Secret” clearance, but absolutely no medications. Was in our Navy. Which leads me to suspect our Navy doesn’t have any psychiatrists. Since the only injuries they deal with is due to seak sickness. And, you don’t need a psychiatrist to give you pills to abate the vomiting.

As to the Navy Yard, what was forbidden was bullets! Believe it or not, some of our lawmakers wrote the laws that said the gun chambers stay empty.

Of course, the psychotic guy could’a been Obama’s brother. I got that.

You know, the Navy had no qualms about this psychotic guy gaining “Secret” clearance. Is it possible (“like the man in Havana”) he was really a hired killer … who could go to Africa, or Indonesia, and not set off alarm bells. “Do The Kill” … and come home without leaving a fingerprint or a footprint?

Over time the psychosis got worse. “Hearing voices” is a pretty good indicator, even if you’re not a psychiatrist, to know that medical intervention is essential.

Now, even if he was given medication, the likelihood that he took it is very low. To none. Psychotics HATE taking the drugs! Losing the voices in their heads, it seems, is like a near death experience.

You need to put psychotic patients into long term mental health facilities. These were closed down in the early 1980’s.

If the killer had not been killed, but merely arrested, he’d spend the rest of his life behind bars in a psychiatric prison unit. The idea being they’re never let loose to be among the general population.

There is a further complication to these stories. The guns and the ammo are separate things. I know of a murder on an Army base in which a sergeant was shot with an M-16, but the shooter had to bring in ammunition which he had obtained off-base. (Civilian .223 Remington vs. 5.56mm NATO.) So, be aware that having a gun and being armed with anything more than a paperweight are not the same, no matter what the dumb ol’ press may say.

    rantbot in reply to rantbot. | September 18, 2013 at 4:46 pm

    The need for an Edit function here remains urgent.

    To clarify, even if the guns are available on-base, the ammunition may (and usually is) locked up and inaccessible.

    JohnC in reply to rantbot. | September 18, 2013 at 7:14 pm

    Right.

    Most everyone who was carrying a firearm was NOT ISSUED AMMUNITION and their firearms were useless.

    Most of the firearms carried on US bases are little more than decoration in actual practice.

    For the most part only MPs or personnel at a range are issued live rounds.

Since this type of crazed shooters have repeatedly demonstrated they affinity for ‘gun free zones’, perhaps military personnel should be allowed access to their weapons. Would be a good test, to determine if the crazies will avoid attacking in an armed space or at least the body count could be reduced, if they did attack. Seems like a foolish policy.

It is highly unlikely that this administration will change the policy and allow American military to be armed.

Remember, this administration considers ALL military personnel as potential terrorists. See the Homeland Security warnings about domestic terrorists.

Only actual foreign terrorists get armed–like in Syria.

Clinton’s executive order in 1993 re no guns on military bases is 20 years old. There have been major societal, political, and global changes since then. The law needs to be made current. It seems evident no one’s protecting those who protect our country – Fort Hood, Navy Yard, Bengazi.
Unfortunately the man at the top right now never wore a uniform in service to the USA. He has no badge of courage. His only real fear is a sandtrap.

We need to disarm the military on military bases because only the military and police should have guns… or something.
Darn it, I was never good at libtard logic.