Firstly, this is talking about Personally Owned Weapons.  Not Prisoners of War.  Also, this thread is not to discuss current policies, but the logic.  Thanks, me.hug.gif

Ok.  

For those of you who have served in the military, you might be familiar with the condition of issue weapons.  They are converted M16A1's, with the occasional M16A2.  They are rusty, worn and broken, at least, they are in our arm's room.  

Now, I'm not here to bash the armourer.  I probably should, but I won't.  Those of you who know me know I have my very own Ar15 I converted for tactical use in combat operations overseas.  It's new, clean, and functional.

So my question is this.

If it is the same caliber, the same style, and the same magazine well, why is it not authorized to travel overseas?  

I honestly can't think of any logical reason.  It's easy enough to add to the arms records, and it's certainly more lethal than what they are issuing.  I'm sure a bunch of people are reading this wanting to pounce on me, but I'd really like to know.  Now, I can understand not permitting sidearms.   But why on earth would you NOT allow something that increases my ability to defend myself, especially if it's interchangable with the current issue?

I hope there's a retired officer in here who can answer this, because our BC certainly can't.  It was included in the packing list restrictions as well.  No POW's.

Anyway.  Technically, Eotech's arn't weapons.  Neither is my Tactical Rail or Sling.  And what about my Bushnell Mil Dot Scope?  That's not a weapon.  Guess what's going in my personal box!  ALL OF IT!

Seriously though.  I know the army sometimes (99%) of the time lacks common sense, but I'd really like to hear someones reasoning behind this.

Anyone?

I don't know what branch you are in, but I have never seen an M-16A1 in an armory, and I have been in more than a couple.

The answer to your question is simple. Your service issues you a weapon. If it is unservicable, your unit commander needs to get off his lazy ass and get servicable ones. The Army, and even the Marine Corps, has thousands of spare rifles. If your S-4 can't get ones that function, you need to get in front of a CG ASAP.

Additionally, it is a simple fact that if they allowed personal weapons, every dickhead that could would show up with an array of weapons that he wanted to take. Some would be good, and most would be useless. You could attempt to specify M-16/AR-15 only, but everyone here knows that there is a huge range of quality in the AR-15 industry, from very good to very poor. Nearly all look okay, and noone will ever admit that he has a junk rifle.

Simply put, the Army issues rifles for a reason. They don't, nor should they, worry about how much cooler your rifle at home is, or how much better you think it works.