Rumor Control

Rumor Control

If you are like me, you have probably received an email that starts out:

Military Personnel required to list off post arms

Gentlemen,

I am an 11B currently assigned at Fort Campbell . I live off post, with my firearms (which I don’t bring on post for any reason). A very frightening thing happened at work yesterday. I was ordered to fill out a list containing my firearm information. This included make, model, caliber, and serial number of all firearms I currently posses. In addition, I was also required to list registration information, location of all weapons individually, and information regarding any CCW permits I posses.

Random emails without some verifiable source I tend to ignore.

There are all sorts of outlandish claims that get circulated by email, and when you have been paying attention as long as I have, you see the same silly claims mutating over time. The two million bed concentration camp outside of Fairbanks that the Obama Administration is building to lock up Christians (Republicans, conservatives, pick one)? The first time I saw that, the Bush Administration was building it to lock up liberal political activists.

If you spend even a couple of minutes thinking about this two million bed concentration camp in Alaska, you start to see serious problems.

1. You couldn't hide something that large from satellite imaging.

2. Why would you build a concentration camp larger than the whole population of Alaska so far from the population that you are going to lock up? The costs of flying two million prisoners to Alaska is insane, and transport by rail through Canada presents a host of problems. Our government is inefficient, and sometimes evil, but they aren't that stupid. If there was such an absurdly large concentration camp being built, it would be in Nevada, or Utah--maybe the Dakotas. Not Alaska.

I was told recently that the federal government is building a big concentration camp in East Boise. My response was, "Show me some pictures of it." East Boise isn't that far away. Drive over there, take some pictures, and we'll find out what it is. That's the last I heard of this claim.

Let me emphasize: this isn't a right/left thing. It's a gullible vs. skeptical thing. The left was awash in all sorts of absurd rumors: Jews didn't go to work at the Twin Towers on 9/11 because the Mossad had warned them (as the Poet Laureate of New Jersey claimed); the buildings were imploded by elaborate sets of charges installed in the buildings the week before; the planes were remotely piloted; the Pentagon was hit by a missile, not an airliner; it was an inside job; Bush was going to call off the 2008 elections so that he could become dictator.

The more astonishing or disturbing the claim--and especially if it is a claim that fits into what you already believe--the more you should demand serious evidence before you believe it. An email from an anonymous person isn't evidence; a website set up to promote a particular point of view isn't evidence unless it can point you to a trustworthy site that isn't promoting that point of view.

Anyway, back to Fort Campbell gun control. It appears that the email has a nugget of truth buried deep within it. This article over at the Military Officers Association blog shows how it got started:

Origins

The email itself is brand new but is burning up the anti-gun control sites. When MOAA received the email, we went to the Army’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs for comment. At first we received a message that they had not heard about the issue, but after contacting Ft. Campbell it was revealed that this message was ’stopped for the better part of the month’. The official release from Fort Campbell is below.

Official Response from Ft. Campbell

The following was relayed to MOAA via LTC Chris Garver, USA (OCPA)

Fort Campbell requires anyone bringing a privately owned weapon onto the installation to properly register it with the Provost Marshall Office and physical security.

As a response to a number of negligent discharges of privately owned weapons, the command decided to explore how to implement a training program for Soldiers with privately owned weapons. Their goal is to identify Soldiers with firearms and provide additional safety training to them, much like our motorcycle and driver safety classes.

Our Soldiers train and operate in combat with M-4 carbines and various other military weapons, but not all who purchase their own weapons are properly trained to handle them. Determining which Soldiers possess weapons will allow the command to identify the Soldiers who may require additional training on them. Unit level efforts to identify these Soldiers have been suspended pending a full review of the proposed training program.

The command is constantly working to ensure the safety of our Soldiers.
This is not an effort to infringe on Soldiers’ rights to own firearms.

The memo was from a subordinate unit commander who, at the time, believed he was acting within his authority; when discovered he was not, requiring the information was stopped.

This makes perfect sense. Until someone can provide clear evidence otherwise, you should regard that email as miscommunication.