Just as we were finalizing another article this week on pro-gun initiatives by the Trump Administration, yet another example was announced. On April 2, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum directing military installation commanders to allow uniformed service members to apply to carry privately owned firearms for personal protection while in their nonofficial duty capacities on Department of War (DOW) property within the United States. In an X post containing a videotaped announcement of the new policy, Hegseth wrote: “Our military installations have been turned into gun-fee zones – leaving our service members vulnerable and exposed. That ends today.”
While it may seem counterintuitive, members of America’s armed forces have long been heavily restricted in their ability to carry firearms for self-defense while serving in uniform. These limitations have often had the same tragic effect as other ill-considered “gun-free” zones, emboldening attackers whose desire to harm innocent victims make these areas an especially attractive hunting ground.
The danger to service members in particular was made all too clear on Nov. 5, 2009, when then Army Major Nidal Hassan fatally shot 13 people and wounded 32 others at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Foot Hood, Texas. At least three unarmed victims tried to fight back, including by charging Hasan with a chair and throwing a folding table at him. All three were shot, two of them fatally. The rampage was finally stopped by a civilian police sergeant who shot and wounded Hasan.
The Fort Hood massacre, perpetrated by a self-described “Solider of Allah” whose descent into fanaticism would later be revealed as an ongoing concern at the time of his crimes, sparked intense debate about the protection of soldiers on military bases. Nevertheless, the Obama-Biden Administration refused even to acknowledge the incident as a terrorist attack, instead describing it as act of “workplace violence.” Obama, and later Joe Biden, resisted calls to allow uniformed soldiers to carry on base for defensive purposes.
Nevertheless, an NRA-supported provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, signed into law on Nov. 25, 2015, stated:
Not later than December 31, 2015, the Secretary of Defense, taking into consideration the views of senior leadership of military installations in the United States, shall establish and implement a process by which the commanders of military installations in the United States, or other military commanders designated by the Secretary of Defense for military reserve centers, Armed Services recruiting centers, and such other defense facilities as the Secretary may prescribe, may authorize a member of the Armed Forces who is assigned to duty at the installation, center or facility to carry an appropriate firearm on the installation, center, or facility if the commander determines that carrying such a firearm is necessary as a personal- or force-protection measure.
That authority, however, appears to have been seldom exercised, even as attacks against unarmed personnel on U.S. military bases continued. As Hegseth said in his April 2 announcement, “Before today, it was virtually impossible – most people probably don’t know this, it was virtually impossible – for most War Department personnel to get permission to carry and store their own personal weapons aligned with the state laws where we operate our installations.” Indeed, as ILA reported at the time, the Department of Defense (DOD) under the Biden-Harris Administration even funded a report that recommended further clamping down on the Second Amendment rights of not just service members, but of their family members and of anyone else who acquired a firearm at a DOD Post Exchange.
Fortunately, the Trump Administration has chartered a different course. Under the policy announced by Hegseth, permitting officials within the DOW will be authorized to review service member requests to carry personally owned firearms. Such officials, moreover, must apply a “presumption of approval” when reviewing these applications. Any denials would have to be in writing and explain in detail the “objective, clearly describable, and individualized” basis for that decision after a “dispassionate and commonsense application of applicable law and standards.” Somewhat different regulations would apply to the Pentagon itself, focusing on the storage of privately owned firearms in vehicles parked on the Pentagon Reservation.
"Confirming your God-given right to self-protection is what I am signing into action today,” Secretary Hegseth said in his video, “and I'm proud to do so.”
NRA-ILA will be closely following implementation of this order and will report on further developments as they become available. As in the example of the Department of Veterans Affairs changing the illegal policy of reporting certain beneficiaries to NICS (which we also report on this week), the contrast between President Trump and his recent Democrat predecessors on Second Amendment issues could hardly be more pronounced.
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