Two Heritage Foundation analysts have issued a treatise declaring that the Air Force is wasting hard-fought dollars to buy a new .45 caliber handgun when its current crop of 9mm Berettas should suffice. It’s true the service does want a new handgun for its rising cadre of battlefield airmen and convoy operators. Mackenzie Eaglen and Oliver Horn decry the Air Force effort, writing that the “Army and Marine Corps—the services most likely to use the weapon in combat—have shown no desire to switch back to a .45.” They go on to say that Army and US Special Operations Command reviews over the last few years have favored the 9 mm. That must come as news to House Appropriations defense panel Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.), who earlier this year in quizzing Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley about the handgun’s inclusion in the 2007 supplemental request, commented that he had heard from all the services that “a Beretta’s inadequate.” He went on: “I hear you’ve got to put two or three shots in a person before you’re able to stop them.”
Members of the House Armed Services Committee say the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile program has been set back three months due to the ongoing government shutdown. The comment is noteworthy because the JATM's status has been kept tightly under wraps.
