Quote of the Day
SAF fully supports Secretary Hegseth’s decision to enable our service members to be able to carry personal firearms on military bases, with any denials requiring a written explanation. SAF believes any “gun-free zones” are constitutionally questionable, and also create soft targets that are enticing to criminals and others bent on violence.
The fact that military bases, of all places, have been under such restrictions has long been perplexing to us. Serving your country should not require the wholesale abandonment of the Second Amendment right of armed self-defense. It’s excellent to hear that this dangerous policy is finally changing.
SAF @2AFDN
Posted on X, April 2, 2026
Listen to it straight from the “horse’s mouth”:
My inclination is that service members should not have to ask permission to bring personal firearms on base and carry when off duty, but I would be willing to listen to an argument in opposition to that assertion. Perhaps some military bases have reasonable justifications for such a policy.
Perhaps, this will induce the military to pay more attention to small arms training. Ideally all military personal should always be armed. Remember the terrorist targeting of recruiters a few years ago. I would add certain military contractors like drone pilots. Imagine the carnage if terrorists got inside one of the console farms. Both Ukraine and Russia have fielded multi-projectile rifle ammo for drone defense. This will work on small drones like quadracopters repurposed from hobby drones. Not the entire threat but part of it. This is for 5.45×39 but is should be doable for 5.56. Better solution than a designated skeet shooter.
“Perhaps, this will induce the military to pay more attention to small arms training.”
Especially in the Navy and Air Force (probably Space Force too). Unless you’re a SEAL or small boat crew, combat in the Navy doesn’t involve shooting rifles and pistols. Well…Naval Guns do have rifled barrels, so technically…but you know what I mean.
Small arms training for Sailors and Airmen that aren’t in Military Police or individual combat roles was atrocious when I was in 20 to 40 years ago…my understanding now is that it’s pretty much nonexistent.
The Marines have a policy that “every Marine is a rifleman” even if they’re cooks or admin types. That should be policy throughout the military. In an emergency, every member of the military should have enough basic combat arms training to pick up a gun, organize a squad and engage the enemy effectively.
That is not currently the case.
In the 1942 fight between the Hiei and USS Laffey, the range closed to 20 feet. The Laffey hosed the Hiei bridge with every weapon they had including officers’ sidearms. This disrupted the command and control of the battleship. What seems to be left of the Iranian navy is a bunch of small patrol boats, perhaps kamikazes. Small arms could help here too.
“My inclination is that service members should not have to ask permission to bring person firearms on base and carry when off duty”
As a 21 year veteran of the Navy and one who served a short (year) stint as a Naval Policeman, I think I can answer that…even though I don’t actually agree with the policy.
The military likes to, when possible, handle disciplinary actions in house. In spite of the standards and screening required to become a military member, we still get our fair (although smaller than the general population) share of shitbags and criminals.
I think the idea is that the CO of the base will be privy to a person’s military disciplinary record, not just the kind of things reported to NICS, and can take that into account when making a decision.
Personally I believe if a military member’s crimes are equivalent to those that would put him on the “denied” list in NICS, it should be reported to NICS (and, if the circumstances warrant, they should be unceremoniously booted out of the military) and therefore further restrictions are not required. But that’s currently not the case. As far as I know, the only things that are even required to be reported to NICS are court martial convictions and I think even that is hit or miss.
It may also be Hegseth’s providing a sop to the base COs who would adamantly oppose allowing their underlings to carry on base, to defuse some of the most strenuous opposition. Those COs will likely put in place some stringent standards and hoops that people will have to jump through to get permission. They’ll make it as difficult as possible to discourage people from even trying, a la New York or California.
But I consider this a first step. After a bit of time, when no major incidents have occurred on bases that are more open to the policy, the success of the policy can be cited to mandate restrictions and red tape be removed from the bases that resist. The ultimate goal should be “constitutional carry” on base: if you can legally own the gun, you can legally carry it on base.
From my personal perspective, it does nothing for me. There’s nothing in the provision for retirees which means if I need to go to the base for any reason on a particular day, I’m disarmed. That needs to be rectified as well. It’s not that I have to go to the base often…I don’t…but on the rare occasion I do, I shouldn’t have to check my constitutional rights at the gate.
” if a military member’s crimes . . would put him on the “denied” list in NICS, it should be reported to NICS (and, if the circumstances warrant, they should be unceremoniously booted out of the military)”
Should be coming soon. Sutherland Springs comes to mind.
Update: having listened to SecWar, his order doesn’t go far enough, but still the trend is our friend.
Going far enough might be: A loaded sidearm in a standard caliber, using a standard magazine for that caliber, is a part of the uniform for all officers and NCOs and all junior enlisted meeting the qualification standard. Inference: you’re not going to be an officer or NCO unless you’re competent to constantly bear and employ a sidearm.
Note that I said “standard magazine”, not standard pistol. Let the serviceman buy their own; they might have more than one according to the uniform of the day, or they may have just the one workhorse they got from the uniform store. A mess dress sidearm might as well be a BBQ gun, so long as it shoots.
Obviously, there are circumstantial situations where one might not be armed: certain hazardous situations, certain technical work where it would get in the way, assigned a different weapon, chaplains/medics being exempt for Geneva Convention qualification (unless a sidearm is deemed not to count as an offensive weapon, but defensive), inside a courtroom, in a surgical suite, etc. But the default should be to put the sidearm back on when you’re done. If you can’t be trusted with the discipline and attention to detail to be constantly armed, you shouldn’t be in the military. If it is a mental health issue, maybe being absolutely sure they have a gun is finally an unavoidably good reason not to ignore a situation, or tolerate ineffective psychobabble treatment or stigmatization of seeking treatment.
IPSC/IDPA ratings should go on the OPR/EPR, and count for points towards promotion like other awards. Why not an in-house set of standards? So some “guns are icky” Yale-graduate JAG doesn’t write local regulations that undermine actual individual preparedness.
Naturally, some idiot officers (and I say this as a former officer) will treat any ND on base as a “leadership failure” because Pvt Schmuckatelly was goofing around and lit one off, and otherwise good officers will see their chances of wearing chickens on their shoulders/collars evaporate. I have a matériel solution: red anodized, serialized, extra loud 9mm blanks. Anyone that doesn’t have their IDPA/IPSC rating, that blank is what goes in the chamber. It is expected that noobie-round will be turned in, unfired, or there had better be a damned good explanation.
If a unit can set aside PT time during duty hours, they can set aside Sidearm Drill time, too. Do it individually, or do it as a unit, either way, you’re individually responsible to be competent at using it, in all regards. You’re not wearing that heavy thing just for uniform regulations.
There should be lots of training time left over if they really have abolished the DEI stuff. Good suggestion about IDPA/IPSC. Military should sponsor matches. Maybe do it off base so as to allow cross pollination with civilian shooters.
It would certainly squash the “we’re military, so we’re the only ones that know about guns” attitude when they’re getting smoked on the course of fire by a chiropractor.
As a bureaucrat, I once smoked an entire SWAT team on a course of fire. Needless to say they got a lot of shit from their commanders.
I heard a story about the SWAT team on the Kitsap Peninsula (it might have even been the team for the Naval Submarine Base Bangor, now called Naval Base Kitsap) who got smoked at an USPSA match by a woman–who was on crutches. The range officer did help a little. She would shove her crutches at him, grab her gun, and shoot standing on one foot. She would then holster her gun, grab the crutches, and do the crutch thing to the next shooting position and repeat. Of course, this was not an ordinary woman. She was a really good shooter with lots of match experience, but the SWAT team could not make any excuses that would fly.
I floated a similar idea in ’02.
https://weckuptothees.blogspot.com/2002/08/rethinking-wondernine-william-thomas.html
“. Those COs will likely put in place some stringent standards and hoops that people will have to jump through to get permission.” That’s not what he said. There are no permitted “standards” or “hoops”. If the individual is lawfully allowed to carry, they can carry unless the base CO says no…and then the base CO has to justify that *in writing* to Sec War. So the post commander of Pensacola NAS can’t mandate that anyone attend a special class or course as a pre-requisite to carry on base. Obviously he can order them to attend one, but he can’t stop them from carrying without attending. And if he wants to use “failure” of the course as a justification to prohibit that will have to go in writing and be sent up the line…..and if it’s BS I think you and I can both predict what the Sec War’s response will be. Now…on a ship? Aircraft? Different situation entirely.
I suspect that the tradition of no carrying of arms on base off-duty started when most of the soldiers (except the officers) were pressed into service rather than volunteers. Lots of hard feelings towards the officers in those days, i’d imagine.
John Lott says it was Bush 1. This was well into the volunteer era.
We are literally talking about the people who invented the expression, hold my beer. It’s going to be a disaster.
BLOOD IN THE STREEEEEEEEETS!!!!!!!!!!!
This time, the dire predictions will come true, I just know it. 3,333rd time’s the charm, you know.
My ANG base has allowed concealed carry for years with a CCL from the state. They have a few areas (very few) that are posted for non carry. So few I am not sure what they are. Harden the target.
Bet the victims of the Ft. Hood massacre would have like to have been able to shoot back…. jes, sayin’