Hegseth Reverses 30-Year Gun Policy After Citing Pensacola Attack Where Shooter Was Saudi Military Student

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that military service members can now bring personal firearms onto military bases for self-defense, overturning a policy that has been in place for more than 30 years.

The new directive requires base commanders to approve requests from service members to carry personal weapons on post. If a commander denies a request, they must provide a written explanation for the denial.

"Our warfighters defend the right of others to carry," Hegseth said in his announcement. "They should be able to carry themselves."

Hegseth specifically pointed to the December 2019 terror attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola as justification for the policy change. In that attack, Saudi Arabian aviation student Mohamed Saeed Alshamrani opened fire on the base, killing three U.S. Navy sailors and wounding eight others.

Ryan Blackwell, who survived the attack after sustaining six gunshot wounds, told WEAR News he supports the new policy. When asked how events might have unfolded differently if he had been armed, Blackwell said: "It would have never gotten to that point."

The Policy Gap Hegseth Isn't Addressing

What Hegseth's announcement does not address is the central security failure of the Pensacola attack: a foreign military trainee was able to carry out a mass shooting on a U.S. naval base.

Alshamrani was part of a Saudi military training program at NAS Pensacola. The attack raised serious questions about vetting procedures for international military students and the broader U.S.-Saudi military relationship -- questions that have never been fully answered.

Allowing U.S. service members to carry personal firearms does nothing to address the security vulnerabilities created by hosting foreign military personnel on American bases. It does, however, introduce new variables into base security that commanders will now have to manage.

Under current law, service members are prohibited from carrying personal firearms on base unless they are training or serving as military police. Hegseth's policy change shifts that default, requiring commanders to justify denials rather than approvals.

What This Means for Northwest Florida Bases

The policy would apply to NAS Pensacola, Whiting Field, Eglin Air Force Base, and Hurlburt Field if local commanders approve implementation. WEAR News reached out to these installations for comment but had not received responses at the time of publication.

"Our military is the tip of the spear," Blackwell said. "I do think that it's the right direction that they're heading."

The policy represents a significant shift in how the Pentagon approaches security on military installations. For three decades, the default position has been that personal firearms create more risk than protection in densely populated military environments where thousands of personnel work in close quarters.

Hegseth is reversing that calculus without presenting data on accidental shootings, suicide rates, or security incidents that might result from more widespread firearm presence on bases.

The announcement fits a broader pattern in the Trump administration of using high-profile tragedies to justify policy changes that do not directly address the root causes of those tragedies -- while avoiding uncomfortable questions about U.S. relationships with authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia.