Hegseth OK’s On-Base CCW
Pentagon expands firearm access for off-duty military members on base
By Eve Sampson
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday signed a directive allowing service members to request permission to carry privately owned firearms on military installations while off duty, the Pentagon said in a statement.
“The War Department’s uniformed service members are trained at the highest and unwavering standards. These warfighters — entrusted with the safety of our nation — are no less entitled to exercise their God-given right to keep and bear arms than any other American,” Hegseth announced in a video posted to social media.
The memorandum instructed installation commanders to consider requests with a “presumption of approval,” reversing what Hegseth described as a system that made it “virtually impossible for troops to carry or store personal firearms in accordance with state laws, the Pentagon said in a statement on Thursday.
The policy builds on existing authority under the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, the Pentagon said, and the new guidance directs Pentagon officials to update regulations to formalize the process for approvals.
Hegseth framed the move as a constitutional issue and in response to recent active-shooter situations on military installations. He specifically cited a 2019 attack at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, where three people were killed and eight others injured; a 2025 shooting that wounded five soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia; and a 2026 shooting at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico that killed one person and injured another.
Great move and about damn time! Now about retiree’s, Pete…
Hat tip to AW1 Rod for the head’s up.
Category: Big Pentagon, Bravo Zulu, Guest Link
Your right AW1 Rod/AW1Ed, it’s about time
Awesome! Now let’s do retirees.
One would think that someone with 20 or more years of loyal service who likely reached a senior rank, would be better equipped and even more responsible than the 18 year old private out of basic who just bought that 2002 Camaro at 41% interest and is “dating” the heavy stripper over at Sparkys.
Retirees and federal employees.
I’d be for that if they held a clearance with a background investigation. Too many nutters have been hired over the years to forego that. Although background investigations are obviously not foolproof.
https://nypost.com/2022/11/28/non-binary-biden-nuclear-official-charged-with-stealing-womans-luggage-at-airport/
What part of SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED do you not understand?
The part where you are on a military base which is private property, and the owner of private property has rights so far as what they want to allow on said property.
I certainly wouldn’t let people I didn’t know well run around in my backyard with shotguns. They might shoot the neighbor’s cat and I would get blamed for it. Then the neighbor would want to sue me because even though I am pretty sure he hates that cat, as soon as it were dead it would become the most precious thing on Earth to him.
But you do you.
That cat had it coming.
Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.
A dead cat on the lawn wouldn’t look to Purrrrty…..
There’s a distinction…
Individual ownership defines private property, which grants owners the right to use and control it under the law. Military installations are government properties serving exclusively military functions, with national security needs strictly controlling access and use. Several statues (e.g., Title 50 USC Section 797, 10 USC Section 1382, 18 USC Section 795, Title 10, 32 CFR Section 809a.2. etc.,) all provide the legal basis for commanders to control access or prohibit certain activities or behaviors empowers commanders to prohibit or regulate activities (or behavior) to ensure security of installations. Installation commanders and private property owners have authority to control access and behaviors on their respective properties, but their authorities differ fundamentally in its source, purpose, scope, and legal backing.
Yes, Government Property is private property. It is owned by the Municipal, County, State or Federal government.
You can out a fine a point as you like on it.
This is why guns are prohibited in most court houses, jails, prisons, various offices, Capitol Buildings and host of other places.
The reason guns are prohibited in government buildings like courthouses, jails, and federal offices is not that the government is acting like a private property owner. The prohibitions are based on specific federal and state laws enacted to ensure safety and maintain order in sensitive government locations. (18 USC explicitly makes it illegal to knowingly possess a firearm in a federal facility). States have their own corresponding laws that designate “sensitive places” such as schools, polling places, and courthouses where firearms are prohibited. These laws are an exercise of the government’s authority to regulate for public safety in locations essential to the functioning of government. It’s not based on the government asserting private property rights.
Nice try though…
Background investigations only reveal your past. It cannot predict your future acts.
True, but the things that are in people’s past filters them out. Same reason we don’t allow the guy with 22 felonies to join the Army. He isn’t likely to be a model soldier.
I understand, but we’ve all seen the highly cleared individual do some seriously sketchy shit that had probably been going on for years. Far too often.
As the Russkies are finding:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/rapists-murderers-russian-army-rampage-204526834.html
Retirees are included.
Title 20, Chapter III, Part 404, subpart N (404.1330) defines “uniformed members” which includes those if “a retired member of any of the …services” or “Are a member of the Fleet Reserve or Fleet Marine Corps Reserve”, among others.
Meanwhile in other news, Trump is requesting the largest percent year over year increase of DOD (DOW?) budget since WWII.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/04/02/golden-dome-ships-and-missiles-top-trumps-15-trillion-defense-wish-list/
$1,500,000,000,000 isn’t just a big number, it is really, really, really, really big. The biggest, no one has ever seen anything like it. And unlike someone who says that all the time, it is indeed true.
It is so big that if you took the Defense budgets of the entire world, except for China, and added them all together it would still be bigger than that, and by a lot.
If you added #2 China back in than it is only larger than the next 35 countries combined. When you talk about the top 35 defense budgets in the world you are talking about countries that really don’t even have much of a military like Kuwait and Belgium, scraping the bottom of the barrel there.
So? What’s your point?
You are starting to sound like a fucking retard.
Let me man-explain it to you:
We build, plan, and train for future adversaries with future technologies, not for the current challenges.
That takes shit tons of money to ensure we overmatch any future adversaries.
No money is better spent than in our military.
Without that, communism and islam would dominate the future of our planet.
So, eat a bag fucking dicks!
So your argument is that we are planning on fighting the entire fucking planet? Checks out given the current state of things.
But I’m not in favor of that.
Going to go ahead and disagree there too Slow Joe.
After having been in the military for 24 years, worked for the military for a few, being married to defense contractor, and having several others in the family (essentially my entire family either works in the defense industry or is actively serving in the military right now) I can tell you beyond any contestation that a metric shit ton of money gets wasted and ends up very poorly spent.
In the words of an area commander from long ago, “It is better to be feared than loved”
There is nothing more expensive than a second rate military.
For those opposing guns on post, I find it interesting how we are expected to give up our rights because of what someone else might do.
That is always the argument. That and; “It’s for the children”.
When in doubt, punish the ones who didn’t do it.
A treasured military leadership technique, the All Hands Ass Chewing.
Something like this:
The funny thing (to me) is how the atmosphere surrounding firearms vary from AFB to AFB. At one base to which I was assigned, those of us in the “dorms” had to keep our weapons in the base armory; I imagine it’s that way at all of them. There were probably more firearms in the privately own weapons section of the armory than there were in the government owned section. At that base we could even use the base range when the USAF wasn’t using it; of course, we had to clean up after ourselves. At a OCNUS base hardly anyone had a privately owned firearm since the local government’s rules on firearms were stringent and enforced. At another base I caused the Karen Sergeants to clutch their pearls and catch the vapors when I was seen wearing a weapon while in uniform. Hey, I said to the KSgt’s, the rules require I be armed while on this detail, I didn’t asked to be assigned to this detail, and mind your own business anyway.
Good luck, I say, in making one rule stick.
I never understood why a married PFC in government housing could keep their weapons at home, while a single SGT in the barracks had to store theirs in the arms room. Or elsewhere.
Amen! Ft. Stewart, circa 1992: I lived in the barracks, but kept mine in a small storage unit off post. Our arms room guy was caught red handed taking a POW out to shoot one weekend, owned by a guy in the barracks who was “following the rules,” but the CO refused to do anything about it.
My Ithaca 12-gauge was virgin-piss clean when I turned it in at the armory; a few days later when I signed it out it was dirty and damaged. The guy at the armory asked, “Did I do that?” If he had asked, and if he cleaned it, I would have let him borrow it.
We had a TSgt living in the “dorm” who thought the rules about keeping firearms in one’s room didn’t apply to him. The guy who stole his rifles felt the same way.
All anecdotal I know; but more rules than I can count are based on “what if”.
A lot of us barracks denizens rented storage lockers at a local gun shop. Our CO got wind and tried to force us to store them in the arms room. We talked to the provost Marshall, who told our CO he couldn’t force us to comply. As long as those weapons weren’t on post, the Army had no jurisdiction.
As an E5 living in the barracks in 1993 My gun storage locker was the ceiling tile closest to my bunk. My room mate’s storage area was the one closest to his bunk. We were not at all alone in this situation. I guess I would have gotten UCMJ if we had gotten caught but that didn’t happen. Nobody trusted the armorer since three privately owned weapons and 2 sets of NODS went missing. The armorer eventually got busted for the missing NODS and went to Leavenworth, he had sold them a few states over, but the guy who had his weapons stolen was SOL and they were never seen again.
Back then most posts were open to the public and anyone could just drive into the barracks area. They would often burglarize cars in the barracks parking area.
The bottom of the wall lockers unscrewed in Yuma in 1987. There was a nice little space where Mr Dirty Harry was stashed.
All legal mumbo jumbo aside, there is NO reason to ban service members from being armed, on or off duty. The bad guys are going to get a gun inside a restricted area regardless of rules, safety measures, security, etc.
The good guys should be able to protect themselves and others!
I think we can all agree on that.
Given the the state of the world for the past couple decades, this is long overdue. I always wondered, when I was still in, what the heck I was supposed to do in the event of active shooter base attack besides shelter in place. Kinda felt that on post had a lot in common with public school’s gun free zones.
On board the LPH 3, the only thing us snipes carried were a clotgh wipe rag in the back dungaree trouser pocket, an empty coffee cup hanging from the dungaree belt loop hook and a short timers chain when you had 6 months to go…Being our diesel engine repair shop was in air-dale country in the forward hanger bay, we never needed a fresh air chit in case wer were stopped for being above the 2 holes..
I wonder how many of our nautically challenged friends here understood any of that, Jeff.
*grin*
There was one time I could have used a fresh air chit. I had to take a detail of guests from our correctional custody facility to a building that was smack on the flight line. While the guests performed their tasks a C-141B was undergoing some hot engine tests right outside of the building. As the jet fumes filled the building the guests were unfazed, they usually worked around the stuff. I, on the other hand, was getting swimmy headed. As we marched back to the facility at the end of the day, the guests treated me to some well deserved good time teasing. I suppose if Uncle Sammy didn’t give me a fresh air chit; I wasn’t going to give him military bearing.
The policy certainly isn’t to be extended to forein exchange uniformed members in the U.S.
Hadjis might think its a pass to get all jihadi.