I coulda tolja so .. but you wouldn't listen

Man Dies Attempting Appendix Carry Reholster In Milkwaukee - Bearing Arms - appendix carry, Milwaukee, Negligent Discharge, Timothy Phonisay, Wisconsin:
Posted by Bob Owens on August 23, 2015 at 3:43 pm

A 22-year-old Milwaukee man accidentally shot himself in the femoral artery around 11:00 PM Friday evening while attempting to reholster a pistol. Despite the best efforts of the local hospital trauma units, Timothy Phonisay did not survive his wounds.

Level I; Level II; Level III

Level Dead

The problem with "Appendix Carry" is that the shot heard around your apartment isn't going into your foot; it's going into the parts you love the best.

Like, the blood-spurty parts.

You know what the warnings are, I won't repeat them.

Except:  DO NOT DO THAT SHIT!

Why are you trying the oh-so-chic carry method, anyway?

Is it to keep the bad guys from shooting you?  And what does it gain you, if you shoot yourself?

Geez .. the bad guys might have given you a "Flesh Wound".  But guess what?  These are the worst kind of wounds: the soft tissue, the blood-carrying tissue; the kind that kill you..

We should learn something from this.

But we probably won't.

The Qualities Demanded of an Infantry Officer

The Army Looks to the Future | RealClearDefense:

 Army organizations must be led by the highest caliber of officer. Ideal officers should always take the initiative and be capable of daring feats due to high self-confidence and a creative imagination. Their physical and moral courage must be unquestionable and they need a physical stamina that is equal to their mental flexibility. Leadership is the most important element in the Army and we have been blessed to continue to find excellent combat capable leaders because of our great education system.

I read this article with great interest, because it reflected lessons I had learned during my own limited military experience:

How much does it cost to Buy Oregon?

Bloomberg Spends $764,232.35 Buying Oregon Background Check Bill:

It was the Michael Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund that spent $764,232.35 in the reporting period covered, eclipsing even the Oregon teachers lobbying arm by $484,055.

There are about 800,000 Democrats in Oregon.
And about 110,000 independents.
Also, there are 530,000 "non-affiliated" voters in Oregon.

Versus about 650,000 Republicans.

That's right:  "Independents" and "Non-affiliated" voters total 640,000 votes.

So to beat the Republicans, you have to sway the independents and non-affiliated voters .. and only 10,000 Democrats.

[Demographics Source: Oregon Secretary State Voter Registration by County stats for July, 2015.. just to be fair]


Assuming (and these are gross assumptions) that the Independents and Unaffiliated split on this vote,
and that Dems and Reps split along party lines.. then the price of a Democratic vote is less than One Dollar American.

This is, of course, a bizarre assumption.  The dems are 90% anti-gun (cleave to the party line) but there are some registered Dems who have a slight tinge of blue.  So it may not be too magnanimous to say that you couldn't buy a Democratic vote in Geekistan for LESS THAN $1.00.

I'm just kidding.

The Democratic votes are already 'a sure thing'.  The cost of a Democrat's vote?  FREE!  Just pat them on the head and tell them what good boys and girls they are, and you can spend the rest of your three-quarters of a million dollars trying to persuade the 'Independents",  :Unaffiliated" voters.

Which, combined into a group, come MUCH more dearly than a Democrat.  And these people RULE Oregon!  (See below)

More crimes? Detroit solution: More guns!

Packing heat in Detroit: Motown residents answer police chief's call to arms | Fox News:

With a population of about 680,000, some 83 percent of which is African-American, Detroit's growing embrace of Second Amendment rights has a racial component that is not unique to the city. According to a recent survey from Pew Research Center, 54 percent of African-American residents nationwide now see legal gun ownership as more likely to protect people than to put their safety at risk. That figure was up from 29 percent two years ago.
 “If anyone should have the right or need to carry a gun, it should be the African-American community,” Philip Smith, founder of the National African American Gun Association, told Reuters.

Responding to encouragement by Detroit Police Chief James Craig,  Detroit Denizens are applying for .. and getting ... licenses to carry concealed handguns.

It's almost as if someone is actually listening to the NRA, and discovered that time-worn bromide is exactly the right solution to the awful problem of unbridled violence: a good man (or men, or good women) with a gun.

America has come a long way since the Jim Crow laws, and it hasn't been easy.   The first thing was to understand and accept that the whole race thing was a non starter, and get the most qualified candidates into the right job..


Maybe that's what happened to Detroit.  And Chief James Craig may be part of the answer.

Whatever it takes, Craig has been encouraging the citizens of the near-bankrupt Motor City to assume responsibility for their own safety.   How?  By applying for permits to carry concealed weapons, and seeing to it that they get the needed training to be effective.

The city finds it hard to maintain as many police officers as it needs, so Craig has been working to get his fellow citizens to take some responsibility for their own safety ... Not least because the overburdened department cannot guarantee a rapid response to a call for help.

You won't find Craig on Wikipedia, but you'll find him in Detroit, making the tough decisions.

Smirk!

America's 1st Freedom | Brady's Empty Suits:

“It’s been a bad year,” Sean Connery’s character says in “The Wind and the Lion.” “The next one will probably be worse.” The Brady Campaign’s Legal Action Project might as well say the same, as the group’s attempts to legally destroy legitimate gun manufacturers and dealers have met repeated defeats that were capped, this June, by a blow that threatens to destroy the Project’s very existence.

What's that word ... the word I'm looking for.

Oh, now I remember.

Schadenfreude.
 Go RTWT.

Thank you, NRA

Great White Shark Jumps Out Of Water Chasing Seal Off Cape

Great White Shark Jumps Out Of Water Chasing Seal Off Cape  CBS Boston: \

CHATHAM(CBS) – There have been plenty of shark sightings off the Massachusetts coast this summer, but none quite like this. Dr. Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries was working with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy off Monomoy, Cape Cod Monday when a great white shark jumped out of the water trying to grab a seal. It appears the seal escaped.

Oh, go look at the pictures!

Washington State Can't Stop Gun Violence ... Part II

Last week I posted a commentary on Seattle, Washington mayors proposed gun control measures (both regulation and taxation).

This week, NSSF threatened suit if he signed the proposed laws.

Mayor Murray signed the bill Friday.

Today, he got sued.

Maybe Mayor Murray reads the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch?

PS:  Ordinarily, I would have merely cursed the mayor, as in "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your scrotum".

But being sued by the NSSF?  Oh, MUCH better.

Is there a Full Moon in Ohio today?

The Moonbats are out in full raving lunacy and this article in the Columbus Dspatch provides a forum for their howling.

I'm trying to convince myself that the proposal to "license ammunition" (and tax it, too!) was written tongue in cheek, but I'm afraid that the author was probably quite sincere in his demagoguery.

Just a short list of author Ted Schaefer's proposed measures:

Item:  You can only buy "bullets" for a gun that you can prove you own.  When you sell the gun, you have to return all the bullets.

Item:  A "BULLET BUYBACK" program.  (Like the gun buy-back program which has worked so well.)

Item: Bullet Buyers buy a bullet license, renewable every 5 years AFTER a new photo and Doctor's certification that you haven't turned into a raving lunatic in the interim.

Personally, I think Mr Shaefer should be calling his doctor for an appointment.


(H/T: The Gun Feed)

The French live up to expectations; they run and hide

France train shooting crew left passengers to take terrorist down | Daily Mail Online:

Train staff on board the high speed train which was the scene of a suspected Islamic extremist attack yesterday have been accused of barricading themselves in their staffroom and locking the door, leaving passengers to fend for themselves. The Moroccan terrorist was disarmed and beaten unconscious by US servicemen and a British man after he opened fire on a Paris-bound train with a Kalashnikov.

My comments:

A chicken walks into a bar.  The bartender says: "Hey, why the long beak?"
The chicken replies mournfully:  "Je Suis Francais".

The last French citizen I admired was Brigitte Bardot.

Once again, America and Great Britain have saved the French people.

I'm very proud of the Americans who saw what needed to be done and did it ... Right Damn Now!
Cool thinking and an immediate, overwhelmingly aggressive response were all that was required to eliminate the threat; but nobody expected that on a French Train.

(One of the "Immediate Responders" was from Oregon ... Roseburg is going to give him a great homecoming!  I hope to be there to shake his hand.)

PS:  Dear France, here's the way the "Surrender Position" is suppose to work:



PPS: One more word to the French:

Ptui!

UPDATE:  How America is responding to potential terrorist attacks on Amtrack

Unfortunate Conjugation of News Releases?

Sometimes, the new is not just chock-full-o-nuts.

This is not one of those times.

First:  "DON'T WORRY, THE WORLD IS NOT COMING TO THE END BECAUSE OF A FLYING ORB!"

NASA confirms we won’t all be killed by an asteroid next month: There is no asteroid threatening Earth\ NASA titled its Wednesday announcement, saying that numerous recent blogs and web postings “are erroneously claiming” that an asteroid will hit the planet at some point from September 15th and September 28th near Puerto Rico.

and then:

OH YES IT IS!

PLAYERS URGE ACTION AFTER FAN HIT BY A FOUL BALL

Los Angeles (AFP) - Major League Baseball players are urging action to improve safety after another fan was hurt at a game on Friday night.
Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander took to Twitter to push for changes after a woman was hit by a foul ball in the eighth inning of the Tigers' home game against the Texas rangers.

Obviously, (a) the world may end this week but not because of a foul-asteroid, but (b) Chicken Little thinks that baseballs may be all it takes.

It hurts to feel this vulnerable.

First Match Disqualification

It's not uncommon for people who have taken my "INTRODUCTION TO USPSA" class to break a safety rule in their first Practical Pistol match, but this week was a first; my "student" sent me an email describing the experience:

As you may know I DQ’d on the 5^th stage I competed in just before my last shot on the stage.  It was certainly a just DQ.  I was getting close to the 180 when the RO began informing me of the same.  I turned to look at him and when I did I turned my shoulders and with pistol pointed in the air broke the plane big time.  He apologized all over himself but I told him it was only me that was to blame and I believed that to be the whole truth, as I still do. I also was focusing on my trigger finger position because I was still having problems with that too.

The shooter (let's call him "Bill") did no worse than usual during the four-hour Course of instruction the previous weekend; in fact, he did a lot better than many people who thought they might take the IPSC-mobile out for a spin around the block.

But his experience is one that every person who tries to break into a complex and demanding game shares;  under the pressure of time, the good intentions to "JUST SHOOT SAFELY IN YOUR FIRST MATCH" sometime leaves them sitting at the side of the road wondering what just happened to them.   In Bill's case, too many conditions (especially the Range Officer's verbal warning) distracted him from his primary obligation ... obey the rules of safe shooting.

In other words, he forgot to obey the Cardinal Rule of Shooting Competitively:

THOU SHALT NOT SCARE THE RANGE OFFICER!

Fortunately Bill is a thinking man.  His Significant Other (let's call her "Debbie") took the same course of instruction the previous month, and she sat through the class again this month and also shot the Live Fire Exercise with him.   So Bill not only got his eyes opened, he learned something from it.

New competitors who are experience a Match Disqualification ("DQ") on their first match often never come back to another match.   A few have decided to take the course of instruction again, considering that they would benefit from direct personal training to reinforce good gun handling habits ... and that has always been beneficial.  Which suggests that these people have made a personal commitment to learning a new and complex skill set.

Occasionally, during the hottest or coldest  months of the year (eg: AUGUST IN OREGON with temperatures in the high 90's) people don't choose to spend their Saturday afternoon running arround in a gravel pit waving a gun in the air.  So this class had only the one student (Bill) until Debbie decided to keep him company.  I think it makes for a better class, as the students learn as much from watching their companions shoot as they learn from their own experience.

But when the clock is ticking it's hard to remember EVERYTHING ... as Bill discovered for himself.

Bill will be back.  He's one of those people who don't like to think there's something he can't do.

Besides, Debbie shouldn't have to go to matches alone; it's more fun to play with a partner.

Revolving Door in California

Police chiefs, sheriffs blast ICE over policy they say frees violent illegal immigrants | Fox News:

A California toddler fighting for her life Thursday after a brutal beating at the hands of an illegal immigrant with a long criminal record is the latest case to rile California sheriffs and police against a U.S. immigration policy they say is forcing them to release dangerous criminals out on the street.

Who is responsible for this travesty of justice?

I don't know.  Must be somebody far above my pay grade.

Concealed Carry Saves a Life in Liberal Stronghold

 Concealed Carry Saves a Life in Liberal Stronghold  News -- GOPUSA:
August 3, 2015

Police describe eriberto Haro-Luna, drunk and incensed, confronting his recently estranged wife in a Boulder church parking lot, trapping her by the neck and threatening to slit her throat as she uttered final prayers.

(RTWT:  H/T - "The Hobo Brasser)

Washington State can't stop "Gun Violence", so it's going to tax it!

Excellent Example of Political Power!

Seattle's New 'Gun Violence Tax' on Guns & Ammo - AllOutdoor.com
(August 12, 2015)

Seattle, WA – In yet another bonehead move by government officials, the city council of Seattle voted unanimously Monday in favor of a tax on all sales of guns and ammunition within city limits. At the same time, they passed a law making it a crime if you should fail to report a lost or stolen firearm within 24 hours.

 Land of the free, you say? Not so much. Both measures are reportedly supported by Seattle mayor Ed Murray. The gun tax law is modeled after a 2013 gun &ammo tax in Cook County, IL (think Chicago), which has already been the subject of litigation.
 Seattle’s new law is clearly aimed at punishing citizens and retailers for buying and selling firearms and ammunition. City council president Tim Burgess called the recent changes “innovative gun safety measures,” but as all thinking people know, criminals don’t buy their guns in gun shops anyhow.
This new tax will serve only to put gun shops out of business and force law-abiding citizens to travel farther to buy their guns outside of city limits.
 The tax plans to steal $25 per firearm and 2 to 5 cents per cartridge. While city officials predict monetary gains in the $300,000 to $500,000 range, it’s far more likely that most gun shops will simply close their doors, and most gun buyers will go elsewhere. Any “profit” reaped by this tax will very likely be spent trying to defend it in court.

(Emphasis added)

Okay, I'm not convinced that .. " (T)his new tax will serve only to put gun shops out of business and force law-abiding citizens to travel farther to buy their guns outside of city limits" ...  but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't encourage Seattleites (?) to  drive to one of the orbital cities to shop for guns and ammunition.

The whole "Gun Safety Measures"  thingie is pure bullshit.  What it is, is not necessarily an attempt to dissuade private citizens from buying "The Evil Gun" as it is targeting a market for taxation.  Guns have a bad reputation due to constant nationwide political chicanery, so there's no political down-side to taxing them.

And bullets.

On one hand, it's kind of flattering:  Politicians have been taxing gasoline for years, because they know that the hoi polloi are going to buy it whatever the cost.   So .. geez, it's a no-brainer:

TAX THE PEOPLE FOR WHAT THEY WANT, AND MAKE THEM THINK IT'S DEFIANCE TO KEEP BUYING IT!

So, no matter what the media tells you, it's not going to suffer The Little People a lot.  It's just going to add to the tax base of Washington State.

 (Well ... it's Seattle. Like they can't tax coffee, for goodness sake?)

(Okay .. Democrats would object to a tax on Coffee.)

When you look at it from the point of view of the vile politicians, it makes perfect sense.  After all, if the State isn't making a profit, they don't get paid.

And SCREW THE PUBLIC!

That's what they do best: they're politicians, after all!

"Take THAT, Brain-Dead Scholars!"

Democratic Senators at the State level are very good at enacting new laws which limit citizen rights .. but they aren't worth spit when it comes to funding the enforcement of those laws!

No money for gun background check enforcement, Burdick admits | KATU Investigators | KATU.com - Portland, Oregon:
\
August 07, 2015

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A new law requiring background checks for all firearm sales and transfers, including private transactions, goes into effect in Oregon Sunday. But will anyone enforce it? One of the main sponsors of the bill, State Sen. Ginny Burdick (D-Portland), admitted Friday the law doesn't include money for enforcement. Still, Burdick said, “This will make it harder for the criminals and the dangerously mentally ill to get guns.” If you sell a gun privately, in person or online, the law says you have to meet the buyer at a licensed gun shop and have them go through a background check, which Burdick says costs $10.

 Law enforcement authorities in the Portland area and throughout the state say they won't go out and find people who are breaking the law, though they will investigate any reports they get. "It’s just a simple practicality - until we have the resources here to fully fund law enforcement and prosecution, new crimes probably aren’t going to get much attention," Lane County Sheriff Byron Trapp said when asked about the bill in June.

Ha Ha Ha!  Hee Hee Hee!
We always knew this wouldn't fit with the Economy!
(Hat Top to Say Uncle)

The Egretious Ginny Burdick admits that the law which she and other Oregon Democrats (most of the Senate and House are Democrats) worked so hard for is .. unenforceable.

Which we could have told them (and we did!) while the bill was under discussion.

But would they listen?   NOOOooooooo!

So all of we Oregonions who have been saying WILL NOT COMPLY! are reduced to empty-words status.

Which, of course, comes as no surprise to those of us with living brain cells.  (NOTE: DOES NOT INCLUDE ELECTED POLITICIAN!)

How Aggressive, Incompetent Legislators Can Make Felons out of Free Men

Oregon Ex Post Facto Gun Registration Law (ex SB941)
(Which law makes it a felony to transfer a firearm between individuals without involving a third party and registering your gun.)

I'm not sure exactly when Oregon's "Register Your Gun To Transfer Your Gun" law is scheduled to actually become law, but I suspect that I've already violated the terms of that unconstitutional act.

I mentioned the other day last month that I had broken my gun.  (Well, the trigger.)  A friend offered to fix it for me, knowing full well that I and mechanical things don't get along.

Anyway, I gave it to a friend who is more mechanically inclined than I am to fix it.  I ordered the needful parts and had them sent directly to his home.  Then at the next match we were able to meet, he gave my now-fixed gun back to me.

Pretty simple, huh?

But I think .. depending on the day of the week when either transfer took place ... one or both of us may now be felons.

Here's a suggested scenario, which may or may not be true.

I broke my gun on Monday, and gave it to my friend to fix on Tuesday.  Wednesday the law came into effect.  On Thursday my friend returned my repaired gun to me.  On Friday my friend and I were arrested because we didn't go through a third party (someone with a Dealer's license) to register the transfer.

My friend is not a dealer, nor a 'registered' armorer .. which means nothing in this state but surely it's the next step in refining the terms of the bad bill which has been passed but possibly not yet enacted.

 (I don't know if this law applies to us this week.)

So .. when I transferred my gun to my friend to repair, I didn't process the 'transaction' through the (as yet non-existent?) legal process.

But when he gave it back to me, we still didn't ask The State for permission to perform this entirely innocent act ...

So are we both felons now?  Or if not, is ONE of us a felon and the other innocent ... for performing essentially the same act of transferring a firearm between us??

We may both, or one of us, have run afoul of the law.  Which of us should be sent to jail, and is the other innocent merely because of fortuitous timing?

Dangerous Dan: The Man Who Would Not Quit

Everybody liked Dan.

But things happened to him.

I met Dan during my first year of shooting IPSC matches ... back when they had only three Divisions; Stock, Open, and Revolver.   And nobody was really sure what constituted an "OPEN" gun, because we rarely saw any that year.


Dan was an 'older' gentleman (probably 55 or so .. which age range I would now consider 'not older'), and he was an experienced competitor.  And he knew more about the rules of competition than I did.

Not that he had ever been trained as a Range Officer, but he had been around long enough to call me on it when I put "NEW SHOOTER" on my scorecards on my third match.  I admire a man who was willing to call me on my bullshit, although I was disappointed that I could no longer count on forgiveness from the range officer.

So I always tried to squad with Dan, because I knew that I could learn things from him.

REVOLVERS:
The first thing I learned from Dan was that Revolvers were not (in and of themselves) the perfectly functional piece of machinery which we had been trained to believe them to be.

Ever see what happens when you load a revolver with a round that has a high primer?

I remember with a certain amount of schadenfreude watching Dan trying to recover from a revolver which cylinder would not revolve because he had a high primer.  It was a simple stage of about a dozen rounds, but it required a reload.  Dan had not carefully inspected his ammunition (he loaded his own, obviously) before the match, so when the cylinder locked up after he reloaded the gun during the stage, ... well, did you ever see the Television advertisement for Samsonite luggage?  The one where the gorilla bounced all over the cage trying to open the suitcase?

That's what Dan looked like.

He couldn't unload the revolver .. it was in the middle of the cycle, so even though it was a double-action revolver .. he couldn't get the cylinder to swing out.  He couldn't advance the cylinder to the next register position, and he couldn't fire the revolver.

He ended up pounding the gun against some kind of standing prop (I think it was a vision barrier mounted on vertical two-by-fours), and then beating it with a rock which he picked up from the ground, and finally dragging out his pocket knife to use as a tool.

I think it took him about five minutes to resolve the problem.

And then, instead of taking a zero on the stage, Dan had the nerve to reload with more ammunition from the same batch and finish the stage.  I think his points score was in the low forties, and his time in the high 300's (seconds) in a 60 point stage.

Although I didn't understand the reason for his perseverance at the time, I now think it was that Dan would NOT be beaten.  He might not win .. but he would not LOSE!


Glock KaBOOM!

The second time I saw Dan really get into trouble was later that same year.   He wasn't shooting Revolver any more, but he had borrowed a Glock in .40 S&W from another shooter and using borrowed (from the pistol owner) ammunition.

You have probably already guessed where I'm going here.

Here's proof that the government DOES want to take away your guns.

Idaho residents line up outside veteran's house, protest fears of possible gun confiscation | Fox News: BOISE, Idaho –  (August 06, 2015)

A group of residents in northern Idaho lined up outside a U.S. Navy veteran's house on Thursday to protest claims that federal officials are planning on confiscating the man's weapons. Idaho Republican state Rep. Heather Scott of Blanchard said the Veteran Affairs office has sent a letter to John Arnold of Priest River warning him that he cannot possess or purchase firearms.

This is one of those situations where a veteran has been declared "incompetent".   This is a word which has several possible interpretations, which range from "he needs a lawyer to help him understand the legal complications which may influence his fiscal decisions" to "he can't remember to put his pants on before he leaves his house to pick up the morning paper on his front yard".

Currently, the incompetency declaration doesn't have a single guaranteed avenue of appeal.  Which is to say, there are a lot of guvmint wonks who can make the declaration, and it's unclear what the appeal process would be like ... or even if there is an established process where a veteran can appeal this declaration.

Which is a really shitty way for the guvmint to treat our vets ... especially in that it underlines the confidence that veterans can got to Veteran Affairs to help them when they are overwhelmed by either medical or financial issues.

Japan marks 70th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing | Fox News

Japan marks 70th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing | Fox News: HIROSHIMA, Japan – �
August 06, 2015

Japan marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Thursday, with Mayor Kazumi Matsui renewing calls for U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders to step up efforts toward making a nuclear weapons free world. Tens of thousands of attendants stood for a minute of silence at 8:30 a.m. at the ceremony in Hiroshima's peace park near the epicenter of the 1945 attack, marking the moment of the atomic blast. Then dozens of doves were released as a symbol of peace.

In other news, Americans who still remember the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 .... wonder whether America has grown too soft to defend itself against foreign aggression.

Especially considering that the Secretary of State has signed a sweetheart nuclear deal with Iran:

Outraged families of American victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism moved Wednesday to block the deal to lift economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for nuclear inspections, filing a federal lawsuit to stop frozen assets to which they stake a claim from being released to the Islamic Republic.

I'm sure that President Barack "Has No Green Card" Obama and Secretary of State John "Unsafe At Any Speed" Kerry have the best interests of their country at heart.

Navy: May be okay for Military Servicemen to defend themselves

Navy unlikely to charge officer who fired at gunman:
(August 05, 2015)

 Lt. Cmdr. Tim White, the CO of Navy Operational Support Center Chattanooga, has not been charged with "illegally discharging a firearm on federal property," said Cmdr. William Marks, despite the claim of a conservative commentator. "Stories of Navy personnel being charged with an offense are not true," Marks said in a statement. "There is still a long way to go in reviewing the facts of this tragic incident, but at this time we can confirm no service member has been charged with an offense."

This statement by a U.S. Navy spokesman may be a result of pressure from the public at large, or it may be that the military is beginning to wake up to the FACT that Negligent Discharges by armed servicemen is a lesser consequence than having unarmed members assassinated because they are unable to defend themselves.

I chatted with my son "The Squid Kid" about this last week.  He is a Navy Master at Arms Petty officer, and one of his duties is to provide arms training to other Navy personnel.

He was quite vocal about the low quality of the people who he had to train, in terms of their initial training.  Essentially, they had NO familiarity with firearms, and often seemed to be afraid of holding a gun.  As a consequence, they were a danger to themselves and to others.

The Navy and the Air Force are basically formed in support of "Weapons Platforms": Ships and Airplanes.

The Marines and the Army are the services who leave to the concept that "Every Soldier/Marine is a Rifleman".  The other services ... not so much.  So when a Naval officer accepts the duty of defending his fellows by force of personal arms, that is (in the caustic terms of the despicable Joe Biden) ".. A Big F*CKING Deal!"

It think that if one American is injured or killed accidentally by another American who is trying to provide armed support, then that's a tragedy.

If one American is killed or injured deliberately by a Terrorist who is not opposed by force of arms because of a chicken-sh*t high-level policy, then that's an outrage.