Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Unbelievable - Guards at the Navy base are unarmed, and dead!

I've been on base in Camp Lejeune in NC several times and I've been on base at Pensacola once. Every single time the guards checking each and every vehicle entering Camp Lejeune were armed, usually with holstered M9's but at times they had slung M4's. Pensacola entrance was like meeting the greeter at Walmart, at least at the entrance I used, which I don't recall as being the main entrance. I could never understand the difference between the two.

Same here.

Walked perimeter of a VERY active AHA on a major stateside post with only a wooden baton. 7 day duty, locked down in secure barracks away from assigned unit. Two lane county road was just outside west perimeter chain link. NO FIREARM! SF guys laughed at me as they dropped off their unused ordinance and ammo. I pointed out they were unarmed as well. We all laughed.

It was always up to the higher-higher as to procedure. Seems they always focused on the issued sidearms/rifles and pocket knives, but often forgot about the other inventory. I look back in amazement things did not go sideways more often than they did.

Strong salute to those who have paid the ultimate price in their duty to their country. May they never be forgotten.

It's been decades, but my only state side guard duty was around a bomb facility within a USN airfield. A presence only with no arms. In Nam, both barracks and airfield watches were armed with full magazines, but few had any expertise in handling such.

Nope,standing watch you are not armed.At the entrance to the base they are standing guard and they are strapping what ever pistol they use now.

The sub base in New London used private security guards and a tv reporter was able to get onto the pier where they tied up the nuke sub. This was several years ago and i am not sure if anything has changed.

It may be time for a Presidential Executive Order that all personnel assigned watch or guard duty on all military bases be armed and trained in their use. It is utterly stupid for someone on watch or guard duty to not be able to defend themselves and protect what they are watching or guarding.

Military should be armed and protecting at all times.

Doesn’t make sense at all. Mall cops are better armed.

When I was at Ft Leonard Wood in '70, we walked guard duty with night sticks. The only armed guards were at the post bank and the PX. Military bases have been disarmed for many years. Remember how well that worked out at Ft Hood?

Nonsense. This is my business and ALL Navy Civilian Guards and Master At Arms folks are armed with an M4 with three 40 round mags and an M9 with three fifteen round mags. Midshipman Watson was standing the Quarterdeck Watch (probably) at building 633 (Naval Aviation Schools Command) which is an unarmed post.

According to the Washington Times it was BJ Clinton who disarmed the military at there own installations.


Time after time, public murder sprees occur in “gun-free zones” - public places where citizens are not legally able to carry guns. The list is long, including massacres at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School along with many less deadly attacks. Last week’s slaughter at Fort Hood Army base in Texas was no different - except that one man bears responsibility for the ugly reality that the men and women charged with defending America were deliberately left defenseless when a terrorist opened fire.

Among President Clinton’s first acts upon taking office in 1993 was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases. In March 1993, the Army imposed regulations forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection. For the most part, only military police regularly carry firearms on base, and their presence is stretched thin by high demand for MPs in war zones.

Because of Mr. Clinton, terrorists would face more return fire if they attacked a Texas Wal-Mart than the gunman faced at Fort Hood, home of the heavily armed and feared 1st Cavalry Division. That’s why a civilian policewoman from off base was the one whose marksmanship ended Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/11/end-clinton-era-military-base-gun-ban/

In the 1983 truck bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut that killed 221 marines the sentries of the compound were standing guard with unloaded weapons, they couldn’t do anything but watch the truck drive right by.

In the late 90’s I was stationed on a Naval Air Station and they switched to rent a cops for base security.

In my opinion the poor security on bases comes from an extremely risk adverse mentality in the leadership. If some PFC has a negligent discharge then the base CO will most likely get relieved of duty after the investigation so they solve the problem by having them unarmed or an empty weapon. They’re betting on the come that nothing is going to happen, until it does. Civilian cops have legal protection which allows them a pass for screw ups on the job, qualified immunity it’s called. The military doesn’t have that so a case of a sentry getting over zealous and shooting at somebody in a judgement error has repercussions all the way up the chain of command. A base commander is usually an O-6 that’s marking time while he’s waiting to pin on a star so he doesn’t want any scandals on his watch. One way he ensures that is to disarm the guards. The security at most stateside bases now are basically traffic directors.

Jorge, do the civilian guards carry 3 - 40 round magazine or 30 round magazine for the M4's? If it is 40 round magazines, what brand if you don't mind me asking?

The Peace Time mindset, post Viet Nam, of the 1970s is still alive and well. I was a young Marine Stationed at Marine Barracks Rota, Spain, aboard the Naval Station which hosted a nuclear Submarine repair facility, in the early 1970s. Our main mission was to provide security for the movement and storage of the boomer ballistic missiles from the pier to the on base magazine. Our standing orders did not allow us to have magazines loaded into our Colt or Remington 1911s nor our M-14s while standing our 24-7 posts. We all locked and loaded, anyway, once we reached our posts, and there were some accidental discharges. I personally was responsible for an accidental discharge of my 1911 in the wee hours after midnight. It now seems ludicrous that the flag officers in charge of setting security policy in the Marine Corps back then would sign off on such a ridiculous policy as that, but it has persevered. Someone mentioned the Beirut attack (I lost a close friend of the family in that one) where the same inane policy was in force, which cost us dearly. Even President Reagan was not in tune with the sheer stupidity of such a policy put in place by the "peacetime" flag officers.

I do not remember ever standing a watch without strapping on a 1911 45 with two 7 round magazines and accounting for every bullet when I accepted the watch and when I was relieved. Watch meant quarterdeck watch in port and prior to E4 it meant walking a post guarding a facility of some sort.

Not that the 45 was going to save my ass. I fired dozens of them and most were less precise than flinging rocks. For most of my time my standard plan of action should I need to use that thing was to get as close as possible and then shoot until I was out of bullets and lastly to fling the damn 45 as hard as I could at the person I was shooting at and then run for help.

Kind of embarrassing, if I may be so bold as to say.

This is correct, it was an EO by the scumbag clinton....

Ft Bragg, N.C. in the mid 1970s had a number of facilities with overnight guard watches. Most of these guards carried an unloaded 1911a1 with one loaded magazine in a pouch.

The Military Police on post carried a 1911a1 with one 5 round mag loaded, and one 5 round mag in reserve. Policy dictated that the chamber be empty while holstered. Many followed that policy.

In reality the rules changed with each new Provost Marshal, and sometimes with each oncoming duty officer. There were far fewer mishaps than there might have been.

Ditto - when I was topside watch on the subs we had the same items issued..

But that was not the case when I was on base..

All personnel except for muzzies and dimocraps and commies, but I repeat myself.