New reforms target US military's missing weapons problem

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by wgabrie, Dec 21, 2021.

  1. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    New reforms target US military's missing weapons problem (msn.com)
    I didn't know that military-grade weapons were being taken out of storage and put onto American streets. It really shows that gun-control efforts are futile when criminals(?) have the guns given to them by the lackadaisical security of our armed forces.

    I don't know why, but lately all these recent defense bills are making sensible demands of our military. This time asking them to account for the missing weapons and explosives.

    What do you think?
     
  2. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    "Military Grade". You know, civilians and advertising seem to love that phrase, but most of us in the military just laugh at it. It literally means absolutely nothing.

    But here, let's look at the very first claim in this article.

    Now yes, things including weapons can be stolen from the military, just as they can from a home, a store, or anywhere else. But let's ask, what happened to James Morales?

    https://www.masslive.com/news/worcester/2018/11/james_morales_man_accused_of_s.html

    So in the very first case, it shows that your claim was wrong. They were not "taken out of storage", somebody broke in and stole them.

    Missing weapons are a huge deal in the military, just ask anybody that went on lockdown because one came up missing. I have literally spent two days locked down and unable to go home after one incident. Sleeping on the floor in the TV lounge, as every square inch of the entire unit was torn apart, and all vehicles searched in detail.

    Then there is this part:

    Now how the military is responsible for this, I have no idea. That is like Hertz screaming at Ford if a car is stolen because they made it. This is an issue with the agencies that got the weapons, not the military at all. And just because a weapon is "lost or missing" does not even mean it was stolen at all, or in the hands of anybody.

    Funny, but I read through this entire thing and mostly laugh. Especially as the claims of the numbers lost are wildly inconsistent. Ranging from "at least 2,000" to "approximately 1,540". Where as an actual hard hand count from the Army reduces that to 469.
     
  3. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nothing in the world is 100% secure. We could task our entire military and all of its resources to just guarding arms and some will still go missing. Where theres a will, theres a way. And sometimes its just simple human error. No system is completely idiot proof.

    The bottom line is **** happens and it always will.

    1500 weapons going missing over 10 years from an institution that has millions of people and 10s of millions of weapons scattered all over the globe? I would've expected it to be a lot higher.

    That is a very good point about gun control tho. Even if we somehow got it to where only militaries had guns, it wouldnt stay that way for long.
     
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  4. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    I think its a big deal about nothing. From what I've read most of the "missing weapons" are more like bookkeeping errors rather than being actually "missing".
     
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  5. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Or stolen in various forms. Many actually from other agencies that they were loaned out to.

    Like the claim that many were taken from police departments. That would be like if a company rented cars from Avis, and their employee is using it when it gets stolen. Then somebody screaming at Avis because they do not know where their car is. Then the other big case I brought up where it was actually a burglary and they did not just go "missing".
     

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