{"id":6027,"date":"2026-04-03T06:19:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/6027\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T06:19:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:19:17","slug":"pete-hegseth-to-allow-troops-to-carry-personal-weapons-onto-military-bases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/6027\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth to allow troops to carry personal weapons onto military bases"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> said Thursday that he will allow service members to carry\u00a0personal weapons onto military installations, citing the Second Amendment and recent shootings at bases across the country.<\/p>\n

In a video posted to X<\/a>, Hegseth said he is signing a memo that will direct base commanders to allow requests for troops to carry privately owned firearms \u201cwith the presumption that it is necessary for personal protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said any denial of a service member\u2019s request must be explained in detail and in writing.<\/p>\n

\"Defense<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday he\u2019ll allow service members to carry personal weapons during military installations. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cEffectively, our bases across the country were gun-free zones,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless you\u2019re training or unless you are a military policeman, you couldn\u2019t carry, you couldn\u2019t bring your own firearm for your own personal protection onto post.\u201d<\/p>\n

Questions about why service members lacked access to weapons have often emerged following\u00a0shootings on the nation\u2019s military bases.<\/p>\n

Such shootings have ranged from isolated events between service members to mass casualty events, such as the shootings by an Army psychiatrist at Texas\u2019 Ford Hood<\/a> in 2009 that left 13 people dead.<\/p>\n

Hegseth cited some of the events in his video, including a\u00a0shooting that injured five soldiers at Fort Stewart<\/a>\u00a0in Georgia last year.<\/p>\n

\"Hegseth\u2019s<\/p>\n

Hegseth\u2019s reasoning for the new policy was acknowledging Second Amendment rights, along with recent shootings at military bases across the nation. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Officials said the shooter, an Army sergeant who worked at the base, used his personal handgun before he was tackled by fellow soldiers and arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn these instances, minutes are a lifetime,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd our service members have the courage and training to make those precious, short minutes count.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defense Department policy has prohibited military personnel from carrying personal weapons on base without permission from a senior commander, with strict protocol for how the firearms must be stored.<\/p>\n

Typically, military personnel must officially check their guns out of secure storage to go to on-base hunting areas or shooting ranges, then check all firearms back in promptly after their sanctioned use.<\/p>\n

Military police are often the only armed personnel on base, outside of shooting ranges, hunting areas or in training, where soldiers can wield their service weapons without ammunition.<\/p>\n

Tanya Schardt, senior counsel at the Brady gun violence prevention organization, said in a statement that Defense Department leaders and the military\u2019s top brass have opposed relaxing the current policy, which was originally enacted under President George H.W. Bush.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur military installations are among the most guarded, protected properties in the world, and they\u2019ve never been \u2018gun-free zones,\u2019\u201d Schardt said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is a problem with violent crime on these installations, then the Secretary of Defense has an obligation to alert the American people and describe how he\u2019s working to prevent that crime.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that he will allow service members to carry\u00a0personal weapons onto military installations,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[120],"tags":[6258,6252,6253,6254,18,6257,6256,6255],"class_list":["post-6027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pete-hegseth","tag-defense-secretary","tag-military-installations","tag-personal-protection","tag-personal-weapons","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-recent-shootings","tag-service-member","tag-service-members"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116339327778526186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}