Quote of the day—Maj. Gen. Robert Scales

Presidential involvement in small arms has been strategic and game-changing in our history. Obama comes along and tells the Army that, in this administration, money is going into small arms to build — not a deadly weapon, not an effective weapon, not a dominant weapon, not a lifesaving weapon, not a technological cutting-edge weapon — but a weapon that prevents accidental discharge. Give me a break.

Maj. Gen. Robert Scales
Former commandant of the U.S. Army War College
January 31, 2016
Obama’s eye-opening order to Pentagon: Make combat weapons safer, not more lethal
[He is doing just what he said he would do. He is fundamentally transforming our country.—Joe]

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8 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Maj. Gen. Robert Scales

  1. Quite a legacy. In the future, some would-be George S. Patton will declare about the Obama SmartRifle: “The most color coordinated and safest battlefield implement ever devised.”

  2. This is particularly bizarre given that “accidental discharge” is basically nonexistent. Did he mean negligent discharge? That’s supposed to be pretty rare among competently trained people; if the armed forces have issues here the obvious answer is to fix the training.

    From the article, it appears neither is the point. The point is “smart guns” — a fictional device that was invented purely to bring undeserved money to dishonest “government contractors”. Attempts to bring such things into the armed forces will obviously endanger the soldiers, by giving them weapons that are inherently unreliable by design, and are going to be hacked by the enemy.

    • It’s nothing more than political kabuki theater for consumption by Obamessiah’s low information voters. They get to think he’s actually accomplishing something.

      There’s not one soldier I ever knew who wanted anything to do with a weapon system that anyone couldn’t pick up and immediately use.

      Natick Laboratory now gets the OK to spend several megabux, in coordination with some contractor on the project.
      Obamessiah is gone in less than a year and the project will turn out to be a boondoggle that every knows it is from it’s beginning, just like Land/Air Warrior – Future Force Warrior has turned out to be.

    • “… hacked by the enemy.”

      Good point. For an hypothetical example, read the epilogue to Rolf Nelson’s book/screen play “The Stars Came Back” – it might be set in the future, but it could well be a future that Obama helped create.

      • Nobody will bother to hack a nerf gun. The Pentagon will never sign off on a weapon suitable only for eight-year-old special snowflakes to shoot one another in the backyard after golf lessons.

    • When were rfp’s put out for this? For 5 million I want to put together a proof-of-concept prototype after a year. I’m a lawyer with an MBA and believe I am as qualified as anyone the Obama administration has given such money to (e.g. Solyndra et. al.).

  3. The last year of his presidency … Kabuki indeed. Consider DoD procurement cycles. Nothing at all will come of this.

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