Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday he will allow service members to bring privately owned firearms onto U.S. military installations, directing base commanders to presume that requests for personal weapons are needed for “personal protection.”
In a video posted to X, Hegseth said he is signing a memo instructing commanders to allow troops to carry personal weapons onto post after they submit requests. He said the policy change is grounded in the Second Amendment and is tied to what he described as shootings across the country involving military bases, where he said troops previously faced “gun-free zones.”
Hegseth said that under the approach he announced, any denial of a service member’s request must be justified. He said denials must be explained in detail and in writing.
He also described the earlier policy as restricting access to weapons on base, saying, “Effectively, our bases across the country were gun-free zones,” and adding that “unless you’re training or unless you are a military policeman, you couldn’t carry, you couldn’t bring your own firearm for your own personal protection onto post.”
The Defense Department policy Hegseth cited has long required military personnel to obtain permission from senior commanders before carrying personal weapons on base, with strict protocol for firearm storage. Under that framework, service members generally must check guns out of secure storage to use them in on-base hunting areas or shooting ranges and then check them back in after use. Military police are often the only armed personnel on base outside shooting ranges, hunting areas, or training settings where soldiers can use their service weapons with ammunition.
In explaining the policy shift, Hegseth cited examples of shootings on military property, including an incident at Fort Stewart in Georgia last year in which, according to officials, an Army sergeant used his personal handgun before being tackled by fellow soldiers and arrested; the shooting injured five soldiers. He also referenced past shootings on bases, including 2009 shootings by an Army psychiatrist at Fort Hood in Texas that left 13 people dead.
Hegseth said responding quickly in shootings is critical, saying in the video, “In these instances, minutes are a lifetime,” and that “our service members have the courage and training to make those precious, short minutes count.”
Tanya Schardt, senior counsel at the Brady gun violence prevention organization, criticized the change, saying Defense Department leaders and the military’s top brass have opposed relaxing the existing policy. Schardt argued in a statement that most active duty service members who die by suicide do so with weapons they own personally, and she said there will be “undoubtedly be an increase in gun suicide and other gun violence” if the policy is loosened.
Schardt also questioned Hegseth’s framing of bases and security, saying, “Our military installations are among the most guarded, protected properties in the world, and they’ve never been ‘gun-free zones.’” She said that if there is a violent crime problem on installations, the secretary of defense has an obligation to alert the public and describe how he is working to prevent it.