COLUMBUS – Private citizens are arming themselves and showing up at military recruiting centers in central Ohio and around the country, saying they plan to protect recruiters following last week’s killing of four Marines and a sailor in Chattanooga, Tenn (above).
Wearing a Taurus 9mm handgun outside a Columbus recruiting center, Clint Janney said Tuesday he’s doing what the government won’t.
The citizens, some of them private militia members, say they’re supporting the recruiters who by military directive are not armed.
Similar posts have been set up outside recruitment centers in Madison, Wisconsin; Hiram, Georgia; and several sites in Tennessee.
Brian Lepley, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, says the office doesn’t have a position on the actions as long as people aren’t disrupting the recruiting centers.
One of the Marines and the sailor killed in Chattanooga, and the gunman, had ties to the Buckeye State.