EDIT: An appology was made in their newsletter:
http://coares.org/bulletin/COARES_Bulletin_March_2015.pdf
In Central Ohio ARES/RACES things are getting fired up including suggestions in a ARES newsletter that if your volunteers want to leave to shoot them in their leg.
Here is a quote from their newsletter located here on page 5
DO NOT LET YOUR STAFF JUST UP AND LEAVE! (shooting them in the leg can be very helpful here….) The team members (especially the new folks) may feel like wandering away (even offering you their cell numbers) but this is en-tirely inappropriate. We do not want team members moving away from their established stations without being relieved of duty via net control and having a replacement on site before they depart. The exception is in the emergent medical care of someone. If you end up very distant from your event medical table (up in the stands caring for someone with a seizure), advise NC that you are off station. We will consider sending a second team in there temporarily until your team is back online.
One has to wonder why ARES / RACES members should ever need to be armed? In the event of a “real emergency” they just become citizen aid and are *NEVER* given any sort of police powers let alone why would they need a gun to do their volunteer work?
When approached about the matter the Medical Director of the Arnold Expo responded
with this gem:
As the Executive Medical Director of the world’s largest multisport athletic event, and as a commissioned deputy sheriff, let me say that I support ARRL’s stance on weapons and I personally support such responsible people carrying weapons at my events. However, there are other legal restrictions that are event and site specific that may preclude any single individual’s rights in that regard. I would be delighted to have my amateur radio operators armed if that was their individual preference.
This is just asking for trouble and is another example of why RACES/ARES folks never
become involved in real emergencies.
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I am a retired cop and know the value of being armed anywhere, especially in an area hit by disaster. When I was active duty, I could legally carry just about anywhere in SC when off-duty. Now, in retirement, I suffer many of the same idiotic restrictions regarding carry that the average citizen is burdened with. It now bothers me a bit more than it did, that many emergency shelters, meetings, EOC’s, etc, are in Gun-Free-Zones such as schools, government buildings, and the like. For this reason, my desire to participate in emergency drills and like activities has plummeted to somewhere around zero.
The potential for attack by lawless individuals goes up when police and like services are unable to communicate, use normally passable roads, or are busy trying to take care of their own hearth, homes, or butts. Volunteers in disaster areas who have CWP’s or other legal means of carry should not be forced to disarm when providing services at these venues. One agency I worked for sent officers and civilian volunteers to help out in FL, in the aftermath of hurricane Andrew, years ago. Stories of gangs of feral men, endangering unarmed civilian volunteers in and around the compound were common.
There is no reason that responsible, legally armed, volunteers should be disarmed. If such persons were to be acting itresponsibly, then they can be advised their services are no longer needed and sent home. One fact, proven time and time again for decades now, is that Gun Free Zones are the preferred targets of active shooters and like would-be mass murderers.