Arm the duty officer?

Forgive me in advance; this might get a little long. 

First off, I think it’s sad that we’re even having this
discussion, but I blame that on today’s society.  Things are different now; some people have a
very low value of human life, whether it’s someone else’s or their own.

On 2 March 1995 at Ft. Riley we had a Soldier come into the
Barracks with a shot gun and shot and killed two other
soldiers and wounded another before shooting himself.  All of  the soldiers that were able to get out watched
helplessly  from the parking lot as one
of our battle buddies bled out on a ledge and no one could get to him.  It took hours before it was over.  The MP’s never entered the building until
they heard the muffled pop of the shooter taking his own life.

With that being said and knowing what happened when my unit
went through that exact same thing,  I
hate knowing that I have to wait and rely on someone else to show up and handle
the situation if it should come up. 

We are all trained professionals, some better than
others.  While we’re down range we all
carry weapons with a full basic load.  You
don’t see this kind of thing going on down range because it would last all of
10 seconds before someone dropped the shooter. 
I don’t see it any different being at our home stations or
deployed.  It’s still force protection; in
an active shooter situation too much damage can be done by the time that law
enforcement arrives. 

When
off post my wife and I both carry simply because we don’t trust the world we live in
today.   I’m not saying that I’m the most trained to
handle a active shooter, but I’m not going to wait 30 minutes for someone to
show up to help and hope that my Family and I are going to be ok.