Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley says 8 minute response time in mass public shootings is “adequate” and “pretty quick,” opposes letting soldiers carry weapons on military bases
http://crimeresearch.org/2016/04/army-chief-of-staff-general-mark-milley-says-8-minute-response-time-in-mass-public-shootings-is-adequate-and-pretty-quick-opposes-letting-soldiers-carry-weapons-on-military-bases/8 Apr , 2016
Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley says 8 minute response time in mass public shootings is fast enough
Here is a video clip of the Army chief of staff testifying on April 7th that it isn’t necessary to arm soldiers on military bases, such as Fort Hood attack, because:
“We have adequate law enforcement on those bases to respond … You take the Fort Hood incident number two, the one where I was the commander of Third Corps, those police responded within eight minutes and that guy was dead.” (This discussion starts at 1:57 into the video.)
It is true that 8 minutes is a “pretty quick” response time, as the General says, but to say that eight minutes where 3 people were killed and another 14 were injured is “adequate” is pretty amazing. In the first Fort Hood attack, the response time was about 10 minutes and 13 people were killed and 30 wounded.
Either 8 or 10 minute response times are much too slow when you are talking about stopping these mass public shootings. Soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq have been required to carry their military weapons with them at all times on US military bases. General Milley wanted to talk about this in terms of privately owned weapons, but that isn’t the question here.
The entire transcript is here:
“I’ve been involved in this such for quite time … such as recruiting stations, such as Chattanooga, the assessments are done by the local commanders … and make a determination whether it was appropriate or not appropriate to arm them. So he delegated the authority in the assessment to the commanders, which is appropriate. Commanders should make those decisions because one size won’t fit all. But some of the constraints on that: people have to be trained, it must be a government owned weapon, can’t carry privately owned weapons, et cetera … In terms of carrying privately owned weapons on military bases, concealed, privately owned weapons, that is not authorized. That is a DOD policy. I do not recommend that it be changed. We have adequate law enforcement on those bases to respond … You take the Fort Hood incident number two, the one where I was the commander of Third Corps, those police responded within eight minutes and that guy was dead. So, that’s pretty quick and a lot of people died in the process of that, but that was a very fast, evolving event and I am not convinced, from what I know, that carrying privately owned weapons would’ve stopped that individual. I’ve been around guns all my life, I know how to use them, and arming our people on our military bases and allowing them to carry concealed, privately owned weapons, I do not recommend that as a course of action.”
