Fort Stewart military shooting is the latest on-base attack, with many deadly

This latest act of violence on a U.S. military installation — sites that are supposed to be among the most secure in the country — again raised concerns about safety and security within the armed forces' own walls.

The army said it's investigating the mass shooting that took place Wednesday at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia. There were still many unanswered questions, including the scope of injuries and the shooter's motive.

Officials said the shooter was Sgt. Quornelius Radford, 28, who used a personal handgun, not a military firearm, to injure five people. The injured soldiers are stable and expected to recover, said the base's commander, Brig-Gen. John Lubas.

The injured were taken to the hospital and three underwent surgery, officials said. Radford, who enlisted in 2018, was tackled by soldiers. 

"These soldiers, without a doubt, prevented further casualties or wounded," Lubas said.

Located about 65 kilometres southwest of Savannah, Ga., Fort Stewart is the largest army post east of the Mississippi River by land area. It's home to thousands of soldiers assigned to the U.S. army's 3rd Infantry Division and family members.

Just over two years ago, the installation experienced a fatal shooting; Fort Stewart officials said a specialist used a privately owned gun to kill Sgt. Nathan Hillman.

Shay Wilson, the accused, has yet to face trial in that incident and a motive has not been specified. Both soldiers served in the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division.

Restrictions on storing weapons

The two incidents highlight the fact that shootings and insider threats at U.S. military installations around the country can range from isolated events between service members motivated by personal or unknown reasons, to mass-casualty events, some of which have been assigned terroristic motives.

While deadly shootings at U.S. military installations aren't a new phenomenon, they appear to be occurring more frequently. A CNN report in the wake of two deadly incidents days apart in 2019 documented 20 shootings on U.S. military bases since 1993.

U.S. Department of Defence policy prohibits military personnel from carrying personal weapons on base without permission from a senior commander, and there is a strict protocol for how the firearm must be stored.

"You don't forfeit all of your rights when you enter the military," said Eric Carpenter, a former military prosecutor and
defence counsel. "Outside of a military situation, the service member has just as much Second Amendment right as anyone else."

As well, as with society at large, confiscating someone's gun because they've experienced a mental health issue can be legally problematic and complex.

Fort Hood site of 2 deadly mass shootings

Fort Hood, in Texas, has seen two fatal shooting incidents in the past 16 years, including a 2009 attack that's among the deadliest acts of violence on U.S. military bases. Maj. Nidal Hasan — a U.S. army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a shooting that left more than 30 wounded — said at a military trial he acted to protect Islamic insurgents abroad from American aggression.

Hasan, paralyzed from the waist down as a result of return fire in the incident, was sentenced to death. That's rare for a military proceeding, with the last execution of an American soldier occurring in 1961.

In contrast to the clear motives expressed by Hasan, the fatal shooting perpetrated at Fort Hood five years later by Specialist Ivan Lopez was more of a mystery. Lopez turned a privately purchased gun on himself after killing three and injuring over a dozen.

An army report months later found no indication in his personnel or medical records that Lopez was a threat to others. No "single event or stressor, in isolation, was the cause of the shooting," the report stated, though his family members said he suffered from depression and was affected by a head injury suffered while serving in Iraq.

After the Hasan shooting, the next-deadliest incident occurred in 2013, when a defence contract worker and former Navy reservist killed 12 people at Washington Navy Yard in D.C. Aaron Alexis, 34, was then killed in a gun battle with police.

Faults were later found in the background check process, as Alexis received and maintained a security clearance after a 2004 incident when he shot a neighbour's car, and he had two additional arrests and mental health issues that had been reported to the navy.

In the wake of that shooting, then-defence secretary Ashton Carter ordered a review of security at Department of Defence installations. 

Some other recent deadly incidents at U.S. bases include the following:  

• In July 2015, four marines and a sailor were killed by Kuwait-born Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez. The 24-year-old first opened fire at a recruiting centre in Chattanooga, Tenn., before driving several kilometres away to a joint marine-navy reserve centre, where he shot and killed the marines and wounded the sailor, who later died. Abdulazeez, later described by the FBI as having consumed al-Qaeda materials and being radicalized online, was shot to death by police.

• In April 2016, an airman fatally shot his commander before shooting himself at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas. Military investigators said Tech Sgt. Steven Bellino, 41, confronted Lt.-Col. William Schroeder in an office before the two struggled, and Schroeder was shot multiple times. The men, both veterans of the U.S. Special Operations Command, were in the air force's elite Battlefield Airmen program.

• On Dec. 4, 2019, a U.S. sailor used his service rifle to shoot three civilian shipyard workers at the Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii, killing two of them before killing himself with his service pistol. Gabriel Antonio Romero, 22, of San Antonio, Texas, was said to be unhappy with his commanders and was undergoing counselling, although a motive for the shooting was not determined.

• On Dec. 6, 2019, a Saudi air force officer who was training at a navy base in Pensacola, Fla., killed three U.S. sailors and wounded eight other people in a shooting that U.S. officials described as an act of terrorism. The country's top federal law enforcement officials said the gunman, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, had been in touch with al-Qaeda operatives about planning and tactics. Alshamrani was killed by a sheriff's deputy.

• In June 2020, a woman and a man, both airmen first class (A1C), were killed in a shooting at the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. Julian Torres, 20, shot and killed Natasha Aposhian, 21, and then himself. The pair had briefly been in a romantic relationship, according to reports. A woman who purchased the gun for Torres was sentenced to just over three months in prison and given a bad conduct discharge from the air force.