Shooter kills 3 at Ford Hood, where no one is allowed to carry guns

It doesn't sound like terrorism this time, although you can't really put much stock in the predictable initial pronouncement that "authorities are downplaying terrorism," since they've done that many times when it did indeed turn out to be terrorism. It's just that as far as we know Ivan Lopez has no connection to any terrorist group nor any Muslim background.

As far as we know. Stories like this tend to unfold over time. But it sure does sound like a case where the shooting might have been prevented if someone on the base had been packing, which is not allowed at Ford Hood and other military bases. The latest from CNN:

Specialist Ivan Lopez went from one building at the sprawling Texas military base to a second, firing a .45 caliber handgun -- killing three people and wounding 16 more. Then the 34-year-old Iraq vet put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, ending his life and taking with him the reasons for his action. Authorities are downplaying terrorism -- although they haven't ruled it out until the investigation is complete. "There are initial reports there may have been an argument in one of the unit areas," Lt. Gen Mark Milley, the post's commanding general, told reporters late Wednesday.

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The initial picture of Lopez is, unsurprisingly, that he was a pretty troubled individual - although it's less than clear how connected his problems might be to his combat experience:

But behind Lopez' smile lay intense emotional torment -- of depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. He was receiving treatment and medication, Milley said. He served for four months in Iraq in 2011. And while army records don't show him as having been wounded there, Lopez himself reported that he had suffered a traumatic brain injury, Milley said. He was undergoing diagnosis procedures for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). "He was not diagnosed, as of today, with PTSD," Milley said. Arriving at the diagnosis of the mental ailment that plagues so many war veterans takes time.

Here's the kicker, though, and this will surely become the subject of much discussion in the days ahead: Gun control is the rule at Fort Hood. You can't bring a gun onto the base without registering it, and Lopez had not registered his .45-caliber Smith and Wesson semiautomatic pistol. And if you do register it, you can't carry it around on the base. You have to store it. You know what that means. It means that because of the rules, which Lopez surely would have been familiar with, there was no one in a position to take him down before he killed three and wounded 16. It's pretty much you're classic case of an anti-gun regulation working perfectly to the advantage of a deranged killer, because he doesn't care about the rules and that puts him in a position to operate without any threat from those who do follow the rules. I have never been in the military and I don't know the particulars of life on a base. I'm assuming there is some reason other than hatred of guns inspired by some left-winger exercising control over the military. Those of you who know this world, by all means, fill me in. But how can you deny that in this case the anti-gun restrictions enabled the shooter? If people on the base had been allowed to carry guns, you have to think that at the very least he never would have been able to from the first building to the second, right? What am I missing?