FORT HOOD SHOOTING

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UPDATE 10:10 p.m. ET: Some four hours since gunfire erupted at Fort Hood, Texas, we now have confirmed details about the atrocity:

Four people including a gunman are dead and 14 others are injured after a shooting late Wednesday afternoon at Fort Hood, according to several sources including U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, chairman the House Homeland Security Committee.
The shooting led to a lockdown on post that was lifted just before 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Traffic was heavy Wednesday night as personnel streamed off post.
CBS News identified the shooter as Ivan Lopez, 34.
Lopez, an Army truck driver, was reportedly in uniform at the time of the shooting.

We don’t much about motives, but the shooter is dead, the crisis is over, and now the survivors grieve.

* * * PREVIOUSLY * * *

Details are sketchy at this point, and I don’t want to encourage speculation. TV and online reports indicate that there is an “active shooter” situation at Fort Hood, Texas, and that there are at least two people wounded so far.

UPDATE: Fox News has just reported that, according to a law enforcement source, the shooter has been “neutralized.” Some online reports suggest that this may be a domestic dispute, possibly a murder-suicide. However, I hasten to add that early reports in situations like this are often unreliable. Be patient, and wait for confirmation.

UPDATE II: KWTX-TV reports:

At least one person is dead after a shooting late Wednesday afternoon on Fort Hood, a post spokesman confirmed. Others were injured in the shooting, but the spokesman didn’t say how many.

Again, remember: Early reports are often unreliable.

UPDATE III:

UPDATE IV: Fox News now reports that the gunman is dead, perhaps of a self-inflicted gunshot, and there are three dead and at least 10 wounded. But I emphasize, again, that early reports of an incident like this are often unreliable, and very few facts so far are publicly and officially confirmed.

UPDATE V: Details are now firming up:

 

58 comments

  3. Don’t even get me started on the idiocy inherent in having people whose job is literally “the profession of arms” not be allowed to carry arms.

  4. Jeezus! Gotta be that damned Human Resources manager again. After Nidal Hissan’s “workplace violence” episode, no steps were taken, nothing was learned, no safeguards implemented and apparently our soldiers are condemned to remain moving targets at that facility. While somewhere there is great rejoicing, laughter and praising of Allah and more terrorist criminals being released to go back to the service of jihad.

  6. I wonder how many more “incidents” like this before they start allowing military to carry on base again? I never understood it for the Navy. These guys are entrusted with nukes that can take out cities, but we can’t trust them with a sidearm?

    On a personal note, at least I didn’t find out about this Fort Hood shooting by getting an IM from a family member to me to tell her uncle (my husband) that she was all right.

  10. Me neither.

    I lied

    Gotta love the free fire zones created when you get “gun free zones”.

  11. I’m sure CNN will be able to put together all the facts by the morning commute. Then the truth will come out on Fox later. The only question is how the Dems will exploit this event for their electoral benefit? Gay soldier shoots bullies? Transgender soldiers attacked by white soldier? Soldier upset at not being able to get free health insurance because Texas doesn’t have an Obamacare Exchange?

  15. Particularly when the “gun free zone” is a military base chock full of people who have seen combat and could have put that miserable piece of shit down without much in the way of an afterthought. If Ft. Hood wasn’t a “gun free zone” Nidal Hassan would be under a piss stained patch of earth and I’m willing to bet several more decent people would be alive. And this latest shooting probably wouldn’t have happened. But by God, guns kill people, so we’ll pass a law only law abiding, decent citizens will follow (imagine that!) and lament the deaths of a bunch of innocent people because those gun nuts wouldn’t let us take away their guns.

    Argh!

  16. […] Fort Hood, again, eh? I wonder when the military will have had enough and decide that, oh, hey, we’re not gonna let the civilians disarm us on our own military bases so we stop being sitting ducks? Makes me glad that I never qualified for contracting in ROTC, and ashamed of our country, that a President who very assiduously did everything he could to avoid the chance that he might be drafted (and has his own armed security detail!) made rules about gun-free zones on military bases that have led to the deaths of our own troops. In a place that should have been safe. It’s sickening. […]

  17. What baffles me is that, despite the previous terrorist attack, er, workplace violence, attacks at other posts, a credible threat to attack a military post, and, sheesh, this is the US Army, no one seemed to be armed and they had to call civilian law enforcement while they told Army personnel to hide in terror. Are there no armed MPs on base? Do they no longer keep weapons on base?

  19. Hey, if they let soldiers be armed, someone might get hurt! It’s not like they’re trained to handle firearms or anything!

  20. It’s easy to say the solution is to let soldiers carry weapons on a base on US soil, but how exactly would that work? Are we talking about government issued weapons or personally owned? Should a soldier not eligible for a government issued sidearm be allowed to carry a personal one while in uniform? If so, open or concealed? Should there be a minimum rank to be eligible to carry?

    How many fights among enlisted, I was one back in the day and saw more than a few rough ones, would escalate to gunfire with easy access to weapons? Is the trade off really worth it?

    I don’t know the answers to those questions, but it’s worth pausing to ask them. I’m especially interested in answers from active duty personnel who would be the ones who actually have to live in and work in a loosened carry environment.

  21. I’ve long been of the opinion that if you are in the military, you know what you joined: a profession of arms. And if you don’t like or know how to handle guns safely, you are in the wrong profession. As a military person, I have to deal with a lot of stupid bureaucratic decisions. The fact that as military personnel we have so many restrictions when it comes to firearms is the worst of those.

    People who cannot be trusted around firearms should not be in a position to be around them as part of their job. And people who are literally in a profession of arms should be expected to be responsible enough to carry arms. I’m willing to bet there would be far fewer hotheads in the military and better discipline if we were expected to carry at all times. I have an idea how that would work with a mix of personal firearms and issued firearms. But I think we do our military personnel a huge disservice by treating them like children instead of like grown adults who are expected to know how to safely and responsibly operate the tools of their trade.

    It drives me nuts that in almost 15 years of service I have touched a military weapon to fire it four times. Maybe. That is not for lack of trying to get range time.

  22. Well, they can’t attack guns in a gun free zone so they’ll use this this attack to justify not allowing permits to be issued for or confiscating weapons from our returning veterans.

  25. If you look at one of the major urban papers, they’re focused on the veteran and PTSD angle.

    Seems like that might be the primary attack vector that the hominids in the media will use to continue their all out psychological war against the 2nd Amendment and the people of these states.

    Ref:
    http://www.latimes.com/

  26. Do police officers need to remove their guns when they go into the station? Why not? There might be an accident or something! Having unarmed military personnel is just as stupid. They are supposedly the best trained people, and if they’re not, they should be. Step up their small arms training and let them protect us and themselves.

  27. Thank god, the shooter wasn’t muslim or black. The collective ragegasm in the right wing blogosphere would have been hard to witness.

  28. Blacks are off limits to the lapdog media because they don’t want to be perceived as the racists they truly are. The muslims are pretty much off limits too so they came up with a catchy name for them: the freedom fighters. Actually, the Tea partiers are the real terrorists, as anyone who watches the left wing media knows. Yes, the “collective insanity” on the left side of the aisle is mind blowing.

  31. Why not NCOs? Say E-5 and above go armed. I have no idea if that would have solved the problem in this incident or not, but I see no reason why such a policy should not be implemented.

  35. I made the comment with 25/30 year old knowledge. So you are most probably right. I withdraw my comment.

  38. Wasn’t shooter Lopez identified as a white man origianlly? Is this another example of the White Hispanic reign of terror in America?

  39. What is the logic behind not at least having one secured locker with a couple of firearms in each group’s office, if only under the direct control of the senior NCO or officer?

    That way any door one of these lunatics barges through becomes a potential ambush rather than a shooting gallery.

    Even the REMFiest of REMFs are trained to handle firearms.

  40. MP’s like everything else useful in the military, have been reduced considerably and most are on deployment. Private contractor security is the norm for most stateside bases now.

    Having managed private contractor security, this does not reassure me.

  43. On the other hand, ragegasms in the leftosphere are what we call “days with a Y in them.”

  44. Not unless they’re in a combat zone or on a firing range for qualification.

    Otherwise. Weapons. Are. Locked. Up.

    Thank you, Bubba.

  47. I’m the same way, but I don’t remember seeing them packing in Germany. In a combat zone I would expect it to be different since they are responsible for Guard Mount and such.

  48. I’m sure the statute of limitations has expired by now, so can confide in us.

    It’ll just be us and the wayback machine.

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