Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that service members will be allowed to carry their personal firearms on military installations on Thursday, a major change to regulations.
Mr. Hegseth said that service members will be able to request permission to carry their guns onto installations, possibly allowing troops to concealed carry at work.
The commanders in charge of each government facility will be responsible for fielding those requests.
“Effectively our bases across the country were gun-free zones” Mr. Hegseth said, pointing out that troops were only allowed to carry firearms while actively training or assigned as military police.
The memo is called “Non-Official Personal Protection Arming on Department of War Property,” according to a release on the department’s website. The memo itself has not been made public Thursday evening.
The new rule will make “the presumption” that carrying a firearm is necessary for personal protection, Mr. Hegseth said.
Commanders will have to put any denial of requests in writing and outline their reasons for stopping military members who ask to carry their firearms on their government facility.
Mr. Hegseth said that service members “are trained at the highest and unwavering standards” and will have “the courage and training” to use their guns in possible active shooter scenarios that have played out at bases around the country.
The vast majority of the military is trained to use a rifle though, not a pistol, as the department’s main service weapon.
“Recent events like what happened at Fort Stewart, Holloman Air Force Base, or Pensacola Naval Air Station have made clear that some threats are closer to home than we’d like,” Mr. Hegseth said.
An active-duty airman was injured in the shooting on Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico in mid-March.
The shooting prompted a base lockdown until base security were able to confirm the situation was safe. The shooter, a military veteran herself, committed suicide at the scene, according to a press release issued by the 49th Wing Public Affairs office.
In August of last year, five active-duty soldiers were wounded on Fort Stewart, Georgia, when another active-duty soldier opened fire on his co-workers. The shooter testified in court that his ultimate goal was to attract military police and die in a shootout.
A Saudi Air Force officer, motivated by Islamist jihad ideology, killed three sailors and injured eight others in 2019 at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. The incident was labeled an act of terrorism by the FBI.
Maj. Nidal Hassan was labeled an “insider threat” by the military and a “lone wolf” terrorist after walking into a deployment center at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 and firing 200 rounds, killing 13 department employees.
He was convicted at a court-martial and sentenced to death, though he is still awaiting execution.
“Not all enemies are foreign,” Mr. Hegseth said.
The memorandum won’t apply as strictly to the Pentagon, however.
It says that Pentagon personnel will be up for consideration to “store a privately owned firearm in a vehicle on the Pentagon Reservation,” according to the department’s release.
