Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam shooting
Security stands guard outside the main gate at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, in Hawaii, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019. A shooting at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard in Hawaii left three wounded and one dead. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)
Previous Post
Next Post

By Rick Callahan, Associated Press

A U.S. sailor shot and wounded three civilian Department of Defense employees at the Pearl Harbor shipyard Wednesday before taking their own life, the military said.

Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, one of the Navy’s major installations, said the shooting began around 2:30 p.m. at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. The military didn’t release a motive or any identifying information about the sailor who opened fire.

Two hospitals said they were each treating a victim but didn’t have details on their conditions.

The base has reopened following a lockdown.

The shipyard repairs, maintains and modernizes the ships and submarines of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which is headquartered at Pearl Harbor. The base is the home port for 10 destroyers and 15 submarines.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige said the White House has offered assistance from federal agencies and that the state is also ready to help if needed.

“I join in solidarity with the people of Hawaii as we express our heartbreak over this tragedy and concern for those affected by the shooting,” Ige said in a statement.

The shipyard is across the harbor from the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, which on Saturday will mark the 78th anniversary of the Japanese attack that propelled the U.S. into World War II. More than 2,300 Americans died in the attack on Dec. 7, 1941.

Previous Post
Next Post

83 COMMENTS

      • Yes it’s an Active Duty Military Base so its “Gun Free” except for the guy with the gun killing you. Commanders and politicians passing and enforcing these laws should be charged as accomplice to murder. If they disarm you they are responsible for you, bottom line.

        Most National Guard bases “allow” the basic right of bearing arms. Active Duty, none that I know of. It gets real intersting when a Guard base is located on an Active Duty base and the Guard allows carry but Active does not.

        • I would think it defaults to the base commanders discretion, though isn’t CCL federally legal now for active members or did it can canceled?

          MCBH, the Officer Of the Day (OOD) carries a loaded pistol and hes supposed to be patrolling around the unit facilities every hour or so. There is more or less two OODs every day for every unit, not sure if all of them are armed but ours was, but it was an infantry line unit so go figure. Bases are ‘gun free zones’ but also not really gun free zones.

          CCL or not, don’t start shooting around a USMC grunt barracks. After the first shot you will have a pissed off mob of people chasing you down with k-bars, machetes, boot knives, brooms and mops, broken beer bottles, nun-chucks, E-tools, 1,000mw+ lasers that burn stuff, and of course, that one **** bird that has a full auto Tommy gun, likely tweaked to extra high FPS. No really, that thing left dents in a panel cover in my room. Everyone will be screaming **** my ******* life while sadistically eyeing a shooter as their ticket out of the USMC, medical compensation(BEER MONEY!), a Purple Hear, NAM, a pat on the back from the battalion commander, base commander, and maybe even the Commandant of the USMC and best off all, a break from having to do stupid ****.

          Everyone will want a piece of the shooter’s ass and the glory of being the one to roast it.

        • CCL or not, don’t start shooting around a USMC grunt barracks. After the first shot you will have a pissed off mob of people chasing you down with k-bars, machetes, boot knives, brooms and mops, broken beer bottles, nun-chucks, E-tools, 1,000mw+ lasers that burn stuff, and of course, that one **** bird that has a full auto Tommy gun, likely tweaked to extra high FPS. No really, that thing left dents in a panel cover in my room. Everyone will be screaming **** my ******* life while sadistically eyeing a shooter as their ticket out of the USMC, medical compensation(BEER MONEY!), a Purple Hear, NAM, a pat on the back from the battalion commander, base commander, and maybe even the Commandant of the USMC and best off all, a break from having to do stupid ****.
          Everyone will want a piece of the shooter’s ass and the glory of being the one to roast it.

          Is that what happened here> If not why are you talking about it as if it pertains to this situation?

  1. Good grief. “A U.S. sailor shot and wounded three civilian Department of Defense employees at the Pearl Harbor shipyard Wednesday before taking their own life, the military said.”

    It SHOULD READ “his or her own life.” If the gender of the sailor is known, say so. Use “his” or “her” to refer to the sailor. Have IQs dropped that much that an internet publication can’t use the proper grammar??? For God’s sake, people.

    • That was probably intentional because the author isn’t sure of the deceased’s preferred pronouns and wouldn’t want to offend his/her/it/they.

        • Their can be singular if it refers to an indefinite third person singular object.

          However that doesn’t apply here because the article in question is not indefinite but rather is a specific person.

        • They is a common preferred pronoun for individual people that don’t want to be associated with any gender. Imagine the amount of confusion this will cause. But if you think it’s crazy, you’re just non-binary phobic, or something.

        • But even schizos don’t identify as multiple people at the same time. It is incumbent upon the writer to identify what entity the perpetrator identified with at the time of the crime.

          Or we could just all agree

          if (penis)
          then (him);

        • “Their can be singular if it refers to an indefinite third person singular object.”

          Well, I’m playing it safe and refusing to play that pronoun game of theirs. They can get as offended as they like.

          I’ll just look at them down my nose condescendingly and in a voice dripping with sarcasm and contempt, say “OK, whatever, millennial”… 🙂

        • Someone with multiple personality disorder is still a single definite person but with multiple identities. And I would assume that each identity is definite because otherwise it wouldn’t be an identity but rather a lack of identity. So no matter what they’re definite objects and “their” doesn’t apply in classical English.

          Dude brings up a good point though when he says “They is a common preferred pronoun for individual people that don’t want to be associated with any gender”. This is true. The definition he’s laid out has made it into the online edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary (yeah, I went and looked).

          Geoff:

          Definitely. LOL.

        • this is my biggest pet peeve about the pronoun thing. Yes they can be used for a non-specific third party which can be singular, but not for someone you’re specifically referring to. Christ alive

        • “He” is default for an unknown person. At least TMK.

          Tbh, people need to stop being so retentive about perfect grammar, this isn’t a graded college paper, its a damn news article.

    • If you want to be really nitpicky about it the whole sentence is wrong no matter which identifiers/pronouns/etc Mr. Callahan decided to use because the order is improper.

      Under true (but usually disregarded these days) rules for English words like pronouns and identifiers always refer to the last noun in the sentence. In this case that noun is “shipyard” and I think we can safely say that the shipyard didn’t shoot anyone nor does it have a life which can be taken.

      To correct this “A U.S. sailor shot and wounded three civilian Department of Defense employees at the Pearl Harbor shipyard Wednesday before taking their own life” should read something like “A U.S. sailor took (insert whatever identifier you’d like so as to be PC) own life after wounding three…”

      • And excuse me, but I’ve made an error here. The last noun in the sentence is the proper noun “Wednesday”.

        LOL, skipped over that when I read it.

    • I would suggest that the term “their” was used in this story to prevent any identification of the sailor in question at this time pending the notification of family and the investigation.

    • In English, the gender neutral singular possessive pronoun is “his” not “his or her”. Yes, that is also the same pronoun as the masculine singular possessive. Many languages have overlap like that in which pronouns and other types of words are reused for multiple purposes.

    • “Have IQs dropped that much that an internet publication can’t use the proper grammar???”

      Yes, it is dropped so low that some people use “gender” when they mean “sex”. Gender has to do with language and culture. Sex is biology. If you are talking about what someone was born, it is sex.

      • Yes, it is dropped so low that some people use “gender” when they mean “sex”. Gender has to do with language and culture. Sex is biology. If you are talking about what someone was born, it is sex.

        This…so much this!

        I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, sir!

  2. [Too soon, but anyone who gets offended can go cry to their mommy]

    Did the shooter use a…. weapon of war? 🤔😏

  3. Probably a mentally unstable homosexual or transgender leftist allowed into the military under the anti-American Shitbama administration.

    Combined with a Gun Free Zone, of course…

  4. Wasn’t in the Navy that had this problem just a couple of years ago where someone had to run to their car to get a gun because they weren’t allowed to carry it on duty?

      • I’m not sure about the running to the car part, but a few years ago at the Navy yard out east an attacker initially used a shotgun to disarm a guard and then took his weapon. Maybe that’s what he’s talking about?

        • In Nashville or Knoxville maybe, where a spoiled Arab kid shot up a recruiter office then drove over tonand ran through the unmanned gate at a Naval Reserve Station. He was confronted by a couple of sailors that used their (plural) personal weapons to defend themselves. This is the incident that drove the question of why permitted carry individuals are not allowed to carry aboard military installations.
          The Fort Hood massacre happened earlier and asked the question why soldiers were not armed on post, but, not the discussion about concealed carry.

        • In Nashville or Knoxville maybe, Tennessee anyway, where a spoiled Arab kid shot up a recruiter office then drove over to and ran through the unmanned gate at a Naval Reserve Station. He was confronted by a couple of sailors that used their (plural) personal weapons to defend themselves. This is the incident that drove the question of why permitted carry individuals are not allowed to carry aboard military installations.
          The Fort Hood massacre happened earlier and asked the question why soldiers were not armed on post, but, not the discussion about concealed carry.

    • I was thinking of the Chattanooga shootings.

      It was actually the cops who responded and caught the shooter in the motor pool area.

  5. Two of the wounded have died. The sailor was a submariner from the USS Columbia. OF course, he wasn’t supposed to be armed either, as personal firearms are not allowed on base. Motive undetermined.

    • Jealous because you’d never be accepted under any circumstances whatsoever because you couldn’t pass the psych eval, eh? What was it with you? DWI? Drug arrest? DV? Child molestation?

      Don’t be afraid. . . show us on the dolly where the Bad Policeman touched you.

      • Of course I wouldn’t pass the psych eval. I can both read and question legality of statute.

        Proven by your snark that I must have broken a law. Where you at in Alaska John?
        I have a real good feeling you are part of our state troopers that keep getting placed for lack of better candidates.

        Some of the idiot’s that say they don’t enforce federal transportation code….

  6. Could have been a frustrated heshe. Evidently it was slightly agitated about something, or maybe just bored and needed a little excitement in it’s life.

  7. Contemplating Suicide? Seek help, it’s never to late. Contact Possums Suicide Self Help Hotline. Our trained professionals offer many options besides a gunm. It’s free and if you act now you’ll receive Our complimentary “I Did It My Way” meat cleaver. Dial 1-800-Gas Oven

    • Evidently possum, you are one of the few lucky ones who has not suffered a suicide in your immediate family.

      Perhaps when a family member, friend or loved one commits suicide you’ll gain a modicum of humanity, and begin to understand the tragedy that is suicide.

      Until then, continue to find humor and entertainment in other folks‘ tragedy.

      • Is three friends good enough? Is watching your Son stick an AR in his mouth screaming “I wanna die” good enough? Humor hides the tears, I laff at the futility of mankind

        • You may laugh, but this is a perfectly valid question!
          It is well known and statistically proven that, by simply prohibiting something, one absolutely prevents it from happening. Ergo, since it is forbidden by law to bring a gun onto a military base, it simply did not happen in this case. Therefore, we must consider the possibility that either A/someone violated a law, which also simply CANNOT HAPPEN because everyone is deathly afraid of the penalties inherent in such a violation, or that this particular gun manifested itself from the ether within the confines of the base–which the variant of firearms known as ‘Ghost Guns’ are able to do.
          It may have reached the point where we not only have to outlaw bringing guns onto military bases or into other gun-free zones, but that we have to establish a force of Gun Exorcists to stop Ghost Guns from manifesting themselves at will within gun-free zones.

          Oh, the humanity!

  8. As an aside, looking at the top photo, a primer on the proper wear of body armor:

    Reach down your neck and feel the gap where your throat starts and your sternum begins. Not more than an inch below that is where the top of your armor plate should sit. NOT your sternum, that’s too low. Your lungs actually rise above that line on both sides, directly below and behind your collar bones. Wear your plate high in order to protect not just the heart, but the aortic arch which rises above it.
    Or don’t. Less work for the medic that way. After all, once you’re dead, you’re not a medical problem, you’re a supply problem.

    • As an aside, looking at the top photo, a primer on the proper wear of body armor

      Yeah, let’s ignore the elephant in the room. You can’t wear a weapon, even though your job is to wear and carry weapons and kill people. F’ that. Yet people love to do that, like libs salivating at a pulsating penis, I mean, government trough.

      I wear a weapon everywhere. As an engineer if I get caught at work I lose my job (maybe). If I get caught in the military, ??? Profit? I don’t think so.

      I respect people who join. I have a Marine son (Staff Sergeant) and daughter-in-law (Gunnery Sergeant). But frankly, f’ that. It’ll never change, though, because of the benefits and honor. People will willingly give up their 1A and 2A and many other rights. I don’t think that’s what our country was founded on. But what do I know?

      • Not much. I never gave up any of my rights, nor does any service member. Keep up your constant ant-military rants though, at least you’re consistent.

        • I never gave up any of my rights, nor does any service member. Keep up your constant ant-military rants though, at least you’re consistent.

          Okay, you are insane. First of all, my kids did give up their rights, and you know it. Second of all, I have never, ever once posted a pro-military or anti-military post.

          Search my TTAG posts. They are all there for review.

          Holy shit, you are a big fucking liar. I never thought I’d see this here, and I’ve never used the f’ word in print before.

          Congratulations. You brought that out of me.

          Die.

        • As an aside, never mind the hundreds of dollars I spent on DVDs and food I sent over to the sandbox (Iraq).

          Fuck you. And I repeat myself, but…

          Die.

          And did I send over pork in defiance of military orders? Yes, because fuck Muslims. We’re not feeding it to them.

          Oh, and in case you were uncertain, fuck you for lying about me publicly.

        • Mr. Taylor – I respectfully disagree. When I was in the Corps (21 years), Marines certainly did give up some of their freedoms and rights. Unlike civilians, service members couldn’t (and still can’t) say certain defamatory things about elected officials that a civilian (under 1A) would think nothing of. Pvt Joe S. Ragman couldn’t come and go as he pleased without authorization without incurring the wrath of his superiors and maybe an Article 86 NJP (fines/brig time). He couldn’t dress the way he might have liked, even on liberty (in my day, if the duty NCO didn’t like the way a troop looked, no liberty card for him). A troop (or a civilian) on base certainly lost (and still loses) their 2A rights – except for authorized security forces or troops on training exercises, people weren’t allowed to be armed (except during hunting season, under the supervision of the base game warden), to carry concealed, and they had to register and lock up personally-owned firearms. Having to snap to attention when an officer enters the room or salute – where do you see that in the civilian world? Troops and their lockers could be inspected at any time (4A) and if any contraband was found, shame on the troop in whose locker it was found. I could go on, but it’s clear that service members do sacrifice some of their rights and liberties in order to have the honor to serve (and maybe die for) their country. This may diminish the more senior one becomes, but for the average troops in the barracks, it is true.

        • Ogre, no sir, you didn’t give up your rights. Your rights are yours, endowed by your creator. They cannot be taken away, you cannot give them away.
          In your case, and mine, we voluntarily agreed to curtail the free exercise up some of those rights, in certain circumstances. In fact, every American does this every day to some extent.

        • Danny, let me be super clear. In post, after post, after post, you have nothing good to say about the military and continually defame and to deride them. I already knew you had kids in the military, because you always preface that before your anti military rant.
          I don’t care what your kids did, you didn’t do shit. And it shows.

        • Danny, let me be super clear. In post, after post, after post, you have nothing good to say about the military and continually defame and to deride them.

          Prove it. I say you are lying. Hell, maybe I’ve been having BBQs in my back yard for the military and secretly shitposting about them behind their backs. And apparently my own.

        • As long as I’m here, I’ll go a little further. My draft lottery number for the Viet Nam war was 305. What was yours? No one forgets their draft lottery number. It’s like where were you on 9/11 or JFK’s assassination or whatever.

          I registered but didn’t volunteer. I kinda liked sleeping in my own bed with my girlfriend rather than a Quonset hut with a bunch of guys and a DI yelling at me. Is that even a choice? I was an engineering student at Purdue and I didn’t even get a student deferment because I wasn’t that savvy, although with a draft number of 305 I didn’t need one.

        • Danny, I’m not going through every one of your posts. You aren’t worth the time. But reread, as a minor example, this from your post above, in reference to the military:
          “People will willingly give up their 1A and 2A and many other rights. I don’t think that’s what our country was founded on.” Everytime the military is brought up you have something bad to say about them. Bad mission, anti liberty, anti 2A, etc… So yeah, maybe you don’t recognize your constant shitposting. Maybe you should think about why that is.
          No, I don’t remember my draft number. I volunteered. But the fact that you didn’t serve and could have may be the reason for your obvious issues.

  9. “Hawaii Gov. David Ige said the White House has offered assistance from federal agencies and that the state is also ready to help if needed.”

    If that sailor hit three people with his truck and then drove it into a tree, this would be a short notice in local news.
    But this is somehow national news and even the WH offers help, because guns. Yet another piece in the great mosaic of anti gun propaganda. They will convince the general population that we have a “gun violence crisis” on our hands, even if they had to go and shoot some people themself.

  10. The shooter may have been part of the armed security force, which is why he had a firearm and possessed ammunition. Outside of authorized cops and sentries, federal military bases are very strict about excluding the possession of firearms by anybody else, such as base residents who must register their personal firearms with the base cops. And in Hawaii, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, I don’t see anybody else having guns there. Federal bases absolutely don’t honor any state’s carry permits (Hawaii doesn’t have any), and if you’re caught with an unregistered gun on a federal military base in spite of all those rules and regulations, shame on you. Of course, the only crime is getting caught (see Fort Hood), so that doesn’t mean much to a determined bad guy.

  11. Leave it up to the AF to get their security detail (in the picture) a vest with AR mags and only have a pistol on your leg.

    • Oh so you can clearly tell that this member has AR mags in his pouches? And a security detail? Wtf is a security detail within the Air Force. Nah, you have no idea wtf you’re talking about.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here