Hegseth's Military Carry Memo Is a Start — Not a Finish

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's April 2 memo directing military commanders to presume approval when service members request to carry privately owned firearms for personal protection on base is the right constitutional call. It is also, by itself, insufficient.

The memo is correct in principle. The Second Amendment doesn't stop at a base perimeter. Active-duty service members — the most thoroughly trained and vetted gun handlers in the country — have been legally disarmed on their own installations for decades, casualties of a bureaucratic default-deny posture that had no constitutional foundation and demonstrably failed in the worst possible way at Fort Hood and other tragic examples.

Reversing the presumption is the right move. But here's what pro-2A advocates need to watch: memos don't enforce themselves. The same institutional culture that created default-deny will now be tasked with implementing presumptive approval. Watch for commanders inventing narrow "security exceptions" that swallow the rule. Watch for approval processes that are technically available but practically impossible to navigate. Watch for retaliatory career consequences for service members who request carry permission. These are the predictable bureaucratic responses to any policy that challenges institutional control.

The $8 million DOJ allocation for Second Amendment civil rights litigation matters here too. If the military invents pretextual denials, that money should fund challenges. Service members' Second Amendment rights are civil rights, and they deserve the same enforcement apparatus the federal government brings to other civil rights violations.

Hegseth has made the right call. Now gun rights organizations and congressional allies need to monitor implementation, document abuses, and make noise when the bureaucracy ignores the policy. Progress without accountability is temporary.