Sixguns,
You could not be more wrong & if that's all you got out of what I said you obviously have no clue who or what I am.
There are a large number of practical details involved in handing everybody a government-owned weapon.
I have carried an M-16 daily.
It gets in the way.
It cannot be treated casually.
You can't just lay it down anywhere.
You can't wear it on-body all day.
If you're an office worker, where do you put it when you're sitting at your desk?
You can't just leave it laying in a corner.
If you move around the base during the day, how do you carry it in your vehicle?
Tossed in the back seat?
Locked in the trunk?
If you ride with others, where are the long guns?
If you hit a restroom, do you leave your rifle behind at your work station?
Where?
How?
Who's responsible for watching it while you're gone?
Do you have to take it with you?
Sling it while you're doing your business?
Hang it on the hook inside a stall door?
Chow hall?
Where's your rifle while you're eating?
Slung?
Propped against your table?
Locked in your trunk outside in the parking lot?
Restaurant?
Same deal.
On-site medical facilities. Doctor's office. Medical appointment.
Haul your rifle along through a routine visit?
Sling it the whole time you're there?
Leave it in the car?
Along with every single other place you go on base during your work day.
The rifle has to be secure from theft, unwanted tampering, accidentally being knocked over, or played with.
There are civilians all over most bases.
Outside contractors.
Civilian employees.
Service members families (including kids).
Not all have a thoroughly vetted background check.
Not all are 100% guaranteed mentally stable.
Not all are adults.
If you've got 5,000 people at a given base (small estimate) each toting an M-16 around all day, vulnerability to theft, damage, or an AD increase exponentially.
You HAVE to provide regulations about carry, condition of readiness (loaded or empty chamber), secure storage & secure stowage, and you have to establish designated places in buildings where those rifles can be securely set aside while their carriers are not practically able to physically possess them while carrying out their duties.
That can run from rifle racks through gun lockers to some sort of quick-access vault.
All will cost a bunch of money to install at installations around the world.
Vehicles?
Back-seat carry won't cut it.
Locked rifle racks, like LE uses, or possibly trunk carry.
Limited room inside a vehicle for more than one or two rifle racks, so max number of people/rifles allowed per vehicle?
Barracks?
Given the nature of what goes on in barracks & dorms, with no prohibitions on alcohol, that's an accident that would only bide its time. It would not be if, it'd be when, should rifles be allowed to be kept in them routinely.
Who gets one issued?
Enlisted? Non-com. Officers?
Minimum of two years of time in service?
Satisfactory duty performance evaluation?
Pass a psych eval? (NOT as silly for an active service member as you might think, in terms of turning people loose with essentially unsupervised weapons. We see enough cases of service members turning on their own for this to be a valid concern.)
Off base?
A multitude of liabilities there.
Personal vehicles required to have a locking rifle rack?
Home quarters required to have an approved locking gun vault?
Sling your rifle over your shoulder everytime you get out at a 7-11 to or from work?
Lock it in a rack, lock the doors everytime you leave the vehicle unattended?
Regulations regarding where, when, and how the rifle could & could not be left behind in a vehicle.
Carry a rifle with you at off-base restaurants, theaters, WalMarts, barber shops, dentists?
Where do you put it while you're in the barber chair? The dentist's chair?
Off-base businesses are not going to spend the money to provide secure facilities to hold your M-16 when it's inconvenient to have it in your hands or over your shoulder.
Take it on vacation?
Should you only carry a visible M-16 in uniform?
If you carry one in civvies, are you prepared for LE response to a 911 Man With Gun call?
MANY LE responses?
Should you be allowed to take government hardware off base at all?
To & from work only?
Anywhere you want?
Should you only be allowed to check out a weapon on base, start of shift, and turn it back in at the end of shift?
How much expansion of armories, in terms of space and personnel, would be required to do that, assuming three shifts per day, with everybody (or even most) doing that?
Training?
Once a year, after Basic? Every other year? Extent? Minimum qualification standards?
How much would such a program, system-wide, cost in terms of increased ammunition use?
What personnel allocation would be required to keep up with that training in terms of range instructors?
If your installation doesn't have a firing range, can you "borrow" one for use at that level? How close? What would the logistics be in getting everybody there?
If your installation does have a firing range, is it large enough to run that many people through such a program?
Legal vulnerabilities?
Somebody leaves an M-16 lying around someplace on base "only for a minute!", and an unauthorized civilian or child has an AD with it.
Somebody leaves an M-16 in a car overnight off-base, the car gets broken into or stolen, and the rifle is subsequently used in a homicide.
All sorts of details, large & small, to be considered & dealt with.
Any impropriety by a service member off base with a government gun on their own time would leave that service branch vulnerable to a lawsuit and a smearing in the press.
You think it impossible that a 19-year-old E1 somewhere might give in to the urge to take an M-16 out in the boonies someplace & have some fun with a couple buddies, military or civilian?
I could see it happening in my day, and the current generation of GI (of whichever branch) can't have changed that much.
When I hauled an M-16 around all day long at work it involved mostly to & from and inside specific posts. Even there, it got old.
It's a constant baby that has to be tended.
Toting one through an office job day, moving around a base from building to building, transporting to & from home & base, or transporting around town off base, would get tiresome very soon.
If you've never done it, you wouldn't understand.
At all levels, from the individual grunt-level carrier to the command staff involved in considering, devising policy, and implementing the logistics, it is an involved issue.
Far from a simple "Just give 'em all a rifle!"
This just addresses that issue.
Handguns, personal concealed carry, and so on are other subjects.
Denis
