I really wouldn't, at least not in every case. Experience is valuable; no one denies that. But the experience of one person is not reliable data upon which to base policy (or even, if the person is honest, opinion). It is, rather, merely a collection of anecdotes.
I can cite several anecdotes where experience with the guys sitting at the other table in the courtroom was a bad thing. For example, I once worked a legal project where all the expertise in the country was centered in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma office assumed they'd take lead. Their input was sought but we cut them out of the process almost completely. Why? Their experience had been entirely with criminals. They knew everything about how to be a criminal in the industry in question. Their experience led them to believe that everybody in the industry was a criminal. That was simply not true but they could not make rational judgements regarding the way the cases should proceed. "Kill 'em all; let God sort 'em out." was their attitude.
It was precisely their experience that made them unqualified to control the process.
Similarly, I spent many years as an Officer with a federal law enforcement agency. Generally speaking, everyone I investigated was lying to me and every witness was unreliable. Besides the opportunities for career advancement that switching job tracks brought me, my main reason for turning in my commission was that my experience had taught me that everyone in the world was lying or unreliable in every way. I even treated family with a sort of "I'll believe it when you prove it" attitude. That was not good for me as a person.
A military person who has BTDT has the wrong experience to judge whether civilians should carry guns in particular locations outside military control. I will go so far as to say that the more they've BT and DT, the less reliable their judgement becomes. It has been poisoned by a lifetime of inapplicable anecdotes that pretty much every person in the world who has lived long enough will mistake, in their own lives, for wisdom.
You say
I would never disrespect a combat verteran's service. I would never marginalize that service. In fact, I'd say that if I wanted to know how to be a better Navy SEAL, there would be no better person to talk to than a Navy SEAL.
But that doesn't mean I need to show the slightest respect to that person with regard (Specifically!) to times when they express opinions about things other than being a Navy SEAL.
Being a military vet doesn't make someone qualified to make decisions about civilians carrying guns. Being a portrait painter doesn't make someone qualified to bid on repainting my garage. Being a Unix sysadmin doesn't make someone qualified to provide deskside support in an all-MS environment. The tools may look the same and the jobs may be tangentially related, but prior experience should never earn anyone an unquestioned pass about anything other than the very specific tasks in which they gained that experience.
Maybe Bill McRaven knows the absolutely best solution to all questions regarding campus carry. I'm open to that possibility. I completely dismiss, however, the notion that his allegedly superior insight can be based solely on his prior military service. It simply can't. Different tasks produce different skillsets and insights that do not survive transplant from one career to another without substantial tweaking, tweaking to the point that they become unrecognizable.
BTW - I think I've figured out that some of your early statements were not satire. Thanks for clearing that up. I appreciate it.
This post has been about general principles and may fairly be looked upon as a waste of space in this thread. However, I look forward to how you respond to some of the more direct and specific questions that have been directed to you. Those responses should be illuminating.
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