The city of Virginia Beach has sustained a military attack. It isn’t some foreign government or terrorist who launched the attack, though. It was the U.S. military.

In a certain sense, the attack was unintentional. The U.S. Navy certainly did not mean to send an F/A-18 fighter jet aircraft slamming into an apartment building in Virginia Beach today. However, it was completely predictable that such an accident would take place. It’s not the first time that a U.S. military aircraft has careened quickly out of the sky, falling on American civilians. It happens quite often, actually. Not too long ago, I wrote about the crash of an F/A-18 Hornet in a residential neighborhood in San Diego.

Property is destroyed. People are injured and killed. It’s all avoidable.

As long as we have dangerous military airplanes flying at high speed over American communities, people are going to die. Destruction is going to take place.

The F/A-18 Hornet that was destroyed today costs tens of millions of dollars. That’s a waste we can’t afford, but it is insignificant in comparison to the wreckage, injury and, possibly, loss of life that took place today.

We simply don’t need to have these military jets flying over our heads. No F/A-18 Hornet has ever been used to defend the soil of the United States of America from foreign military or terrorist attack. These dangerous machines are tools of unnecessary overseas adventurism. They should be grounded – permanently.