The Pentagon will allow some National Guard soldiers deployed in Washington, D.C., to carry weapons, a Defense Department official said Friday.
But gaps in training could limit the number of troops who can actually carry weapons — and the military isn’t saying how many troops could be armed.
The DOD official said soldiers will “be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training.”A spokesperson for the D.C. National Guard made a similar statement: Troops “may be armed consistent with their mission and training” and “all personnel are operating under applicable laws and regulations.”
It’s unclear how many of the nearly 2,000 National Guard troops in the District have the required training to carry weapons in the city — another question in a deployment with no public price tag or end date.
Only National Guard troops that certified with their weapon in the past year are allowed to carry it with them, according to Army regulations and D.C. National Guard statements.
NOTUS asked the joint task force handling the deployment — Joint Task Force-District of Columbia, or JTF-DC — for specific information on troops’ qualifications both via spokespersons and a Freedom of Information Act request. The task force did not provide information on how many soldiers had qualified with their weapon in the past year or how many had received training as military police.
A spokesperson for JTF-DC said they “do not have the information on specific” job qualifications, adding: “All service members are expected to receive the proper training and meet qualifications standards for them to execute their mission successfully.”
The spokesperson said that “National Guard members that are armed must meet rifle qualification standards.”
Not all National Guard troops necessarily hold current firearms certification. Troops that are not slated for deployment sometimes have certifications lapse given limited resources and lack of attendance at annual training events when rifle and pistol ranges are available for soldiers to train and qualify. Studies by the RAND Corporation across multiple decades found that “even with the additional resources,” units “could not complete individual, crew, and maneuver training.”
Six states have now sent their National Guard troops to support the operation in Washington, all with authorization by Republican governors. All of those troops “fall under the direction of the D.C. National Guard interim Commanding General and the Joint Task Force commander,” another defense official told NOTUS.
These states are responsible for providing “equipment of any sort” for their deployed troops, the JTF-DC spokesperson told NOTUS.
All the major military equipment seen throughout the District so far has come from the 273rd Military Police Company, a unit that is part of the D.C. National Guard.
Most of the states involved have thus far specifically sent military police soldiers to the capital, but not all soldiers are trained to do that job. Army regulations require military police officers to conduct specific training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in order to be qualified. They also require troops to take a separate “traffic management” course of instruction at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio to direct traffic. Military police officers receive a special designation under Army regulations once they complete those training courses.
Of the 300 to 400 National Guard troops being sent to D.C. from West Virginia, 175 are “certified law enforcement officers,” according to West Virginia Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Jim Seward.
The 150 soldiers from the Ohio National Guard are all military police, as are the 135 soldiers from Louisiana, according to statements from the states’ governors. It is unclear how many of the 200 guardsmen from South Carolina are similarly qualified.
Another major question of the deployment is its cost. The government has not specified how much Trump’s federal takeover of D.C. is costing. In 2020, during the first Trump administration, a deployment of more than 5,000 National Guard soldiers in response to protests cost the federal government an estimated $2.6 million per day, with the final cost being more than expected.
Gen. Daniel Hokanson, then the chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters in June 2021 that $521 million needed to be reimbursed by the federal government and the D.C. National Guard.
The current deployment could cost close to $1 million per day, according to an estimate by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project provided to The Intercept.
“Guard members have lodging conveniences at their disposal throughout the District,” a D.C. guard spokesperson told NOTUS in a statement. “Local vendors have been contracted to provide three daily meals for guard members, ensuring access to nutritious food while supporting the local economy.”
Those contracts have not been made public.