The brilliant Mr Steyn offers his observations on yesterday's Ft Hood shootings.

I have written for years about America's absurd paramilitarized bureaucracy: the federal Secretary of Education who employs not a single teacher but is the only education minister in the western world with his own SWAT team; Virginia's beverage regulators with their crack sparkling waterboarding team; USDA's Bunny Team Six; Wisconsin's Deer Team Six; the IRS agents ready to take out your W2 with an AR-15...

Apparently the only government department without a military force at its disposal is the military. So when a lone shooter opens up at an army base, Fort Shock'n'Awe has to call 911 and "shelter in place" until the county sheriff arrives. For your psycho gunman, a military base is basically a grade-school in uniform.

This seems, to put it politely, perverse - even for bases that don't sprawl over 340 square miles and have a population of 56,000. Years ago, American comics used to mock the unarmed British constabulary. Was it Robin Williams who did that routine about the copper in pursuit of a ne'er-do-well? "Stop! Or I'll shout 'Stop!' again..." The United States Government has taken it to the next level: everyone's armed except the army.

More: http://www.steynonline.com/6233/johnny-g...r-gun-free-zone