WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that 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 X, Hegseth said he is signing a memo that will direct 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 must be explained in detail and in writing.
“Effectively, our bases across the country were gun-free zones,” Hegseth said. “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.”
Questions about why service members lacked access to weapons have often emerged following shootings on the nation's military bases. Such shootings have ranged from isolated events between service members to mass casualty events, such as the shootings by an Army psychiatrist at Texas’ Ford Hood in 2009 that left 13 people dead.
Hegseth cited some of the events in his video, including a shooting that injured five soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia last year. Officials said the shooter, an Army sergeant who worked at the base, used his personal handgun before he was tackled by fellow soldiers and arrested.
“In these instances, minutes are a lifetime,” Hegseth said. “And our service members have the courage and training to make those precious, short minutes count.”
Defense Department policy has prohibited military personnel from carrying personal weapons on base without permission from a senior commander, with strict protocol for how the firearms must be stored.
Typically, military personnel must officially check their guns out of secure storage to go to on-base hunting areas or shooting ranges, 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 in training, where soldiers can wield their service weapons without ammunition.
Tanya Schardt, senior counsel at the Brady gun violence prevention organization, said in a statement that Defense Department leaders and the military’s top brass have opposed relaxing the current policy, which was originally enacted under President George H.W. Bush.
Schardt noted that most active duty service members who die by suicide do so with a weapon they own personally, not one military-issued, and argued that there will “undoubtedly be an increase in gun suicide and other gun violence.”
While fewer American service members died by suicide in 2024, the suicide rates among active duty troops overall still have gradually increased between 2011 and 2024, according to a Pentagon report released Tuesday.
“Our military installations are among the most guarded, protected properties in the world, and they’ve never been ‘gun-free zones,’” Schardt said. “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.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to members of the media during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and blazed toward the moon Thursday night, breaking free of the chains that have trapped humanity in shallow laps around Earth in the decades since Apollo.
The so-called translunar ignition came 25 hours after liftoff, putting the three Americans and a Canadian on course for a lunar fly-around early next week. Their Orion capsule bolted out of orbit around Earth right on cue and chased after the moon to nearly 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away.
It was the first such engine firing for a space crew since Apollo 17 set out on that era’s final moonshot on Dec. 7, 1972. NASA said that preliminary reports indicate it went well.
“Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of, and it’s your hopes for the future that carry us now on this journey around the moon,” said Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
He said they were glued to the windows to take in the view, calling it “phenomenal."
NASA had the Artemis II crew stick close to home for a day to test their capsule’s life-support systems before clearing them for lunar departure.
Now committed to the moon, the Artemis II test flight is the opening act for NASA’s grand plans for a moon base and sustained lunar living.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen will dash past the moon then hang a U-turn and zip straight home without stopping on land. In the process, they will become the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970. They also may become the fastest during their reentry at flight’s end on April 10.
Glover, Koch and Hansen already have made history as the first Black, the first woman and the first non-U.S. citizen to launch to the moon. Apollo’s 24 lunar travelers were all white men.
To set the mood for the day’s main event, Mission Control woke up the crew with John Legend’s “Green Light” featuring Andre 3000 and a medley of NASA teams cheering them.
“We are ready to go,” Glover said.
Mission Control gave the final go-ahead minutes before the critical engine firing, telling the astronauts that they were embarking on “humanity’s lunar homecoming arc” to bring them back to Earth.
The engine accelerated them to 24,000 mph (38,000 kph) to shove them out of Earth's orbit.
Koch replied: “With this burn to the moon, we do not leave Earth. We choose it.”
The next major milestone will be Monday’s lunar flyby.
Orion will zoom 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) beyond the moon before turning back, providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the lunar far side, at least for human eyes. The cosmos will even treat the Artemis II astronauts to a total solar eclipse as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their perspective.
While awaiting their orbital departure earlier Thursday, the astronauts savored the views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles high. Koch told Mission Control that they can make out the entire coastlines of continents and even the South Pole, her old stomping ground.
“It is just absolutely phenomenal,” radioed Koch, who spent a year at an Antarctic research station before joining NASA.
NASA is counting on the test flight to kickstart the entire Artemis program and lead to a moon landing by two astronauts in 2028. Orion’s toilet may need some design tweaks before that happens.
The so-called lunar loo malfunctioned as soon as the Artemis crew reached orbit Wednesday evening. Mission Control guided astronaut Koch through some plumbing tricks and she finally got it going, but not before having to resort to using contingency urine storage bags.
Controllers also managed to bump up the cabin temperature. It was so cold earlier in the flight that the astronauts had to dig into their suitcases for long-sleeved clothes.
The contingency urine bags came in handy later in the day. Mission Control ordered the crew to fill a bunch of the empty bags with water from the capsule’s dispenser. A valve issue arose with the dispenser following liftoff, and NASA wanted plenty of drinking water on hand for the crew in case the problem worsened. The astronauts used straws and syringes to fill the pouches with more than 2 gallons (7 liters) worth before pivoting to the moon.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
In this photo provided by NASA, a view of the Earth from NASA's Orion spacecraft as it orbits above the planet during the Artemis II test flight, on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)
In this photo provided by NASA, an Artemis program patch floating in the International Space Station's cupola, on March 30, 2026. (Jessica Meir/NASA via AP)
Spectators view NASA's Artemis II moon rocket launch from the A. Max Brewer Bridge, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Titusville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
Spectators view NASA's Artemis II moon rocket launch from the A. Max Brewer Bridge, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Titusville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
