WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday he will allow service members to carry personal weapons onto military installations, citing the Second Amendment and recent shootings at bases across the country. In a video posted to the social media platform X, Hegseth said he is signing a memo directing base commanders to allow requests for troops to carry privately owned firearms with the presumption that it is necessary for personal protection.

He said any denial of a service member's request to carry a personal weapon must be explained in detail and in writing.

"Effectively, our bases across the country were gun-free zones. 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."

"In these instances, minutes are a lifetime. And our service members have the courage and training to make those precious, short minutes count."

Defense Department policy prohibits military personnel from carrying personal weapons on base without permission from a senior commander and imposes strict protocols for how firearms must be stored. The policy was originally enacted under President George H.W. Bush. Typically, military personnel must officially check their guns out of secure storage to go to on-base hunting areas or shooting ranges and then check all firearms back in promptly after their sanctioned use. Military police are often the only armed personnel on base, outside of shooting ranges, hunting areas, or training when soldiers can wield their service weapons without ammunition.

Shootings on military bases have ranged from isolated events between service members to mass casualty events, such as the shootings by an Army psychiatrist at Texas' Fort Hood in 2009 that left 13 people dead. He cited a shooting that injured five soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia last year. Officials said the shooter, an Army sergeant who worked at Fort Stewart, used his personal handgun before fellow soldiers tackled him and he was arrested.

Tanya Schardt, senior counsel at the Brady gun violence prevention organization, challenged the characterization of military bases as unprotected. "Our military installations are among the most guarded, protected properties in the world, and they've never been 'gun-free zones.' If 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's working to prevent that crime."

Most active duty service members who die by suicide do so with a weapon they own personally rather than a military-issued firearm. Suicide rates among active duty troops gradually increased between 2011 and 2024, although fewer American service members died by suicide in 2024, according to a Pentagon report released Tuesday.