House narrowly backs allowing troops, Pentagon workers to carry personal guns on military bases
By a single-vote margin of 215-214, the U.S. House on Tuesday night approved an amendment that would presumptively allow qualified service members and Pentagon civilian employees to carry personal firearms on installations, provided their commanders sign off. The closely divided vote reflects an ongoing national debate over gun access on military property and comes roughly a year after a shooting incident at the Georgia Army base that left five soldiers wounded.
The amendment, offered by Rep. Jeff Crank, a Republican from Colorado, does not give personnel blanket authorization to carry on base. Instead, it establishes a presumption that installation commanders approve requests from eligible service members and civilian employees, shifting the default position on personal weapons within military communities.
Three Democrats joined most Republicans in supporting the measure, while three Republicans and independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of California voted against it. The vote occurred less than a year after an Army sergeant allegedly used a personal handgun to shoot five fellow soldiers at Fort Stewart, Georgia, in August 2025. Other soldiers intervened and subdued the shooter, and all five victims survived. Personal firearms were prohibited on post at the time of the incident, according to military officials.
The firearms provision was one of several amendments the House considered as lawmakers began working through the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. The annual NDAA has passed every year for more than six decades and is typically one of the most bipartisan major bills in Congress, but the firearms and transgender-related amendments adopted Tuesday have begun to complicate that tradition, potentially forcing GOP leaders to rely on their narrow majority for final passage and setting up friction with the Senate.
Also on Tuesday, the House voted 219-208 to approve an amendment from Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, that prohibits TRICARE, the military health program, from covering transition-related hormones, puberty blockers and surgeries for service members and military dependents. Five Democrats voted in favor and one Republican opposed the provision, which would broaden restrictions already in place under the Trump administration by writing them into federal law.
Lawmakers then voted 221-203 to approve a second Mace amendment barring transgender girls from participating in girls' sports at Department of Defense Education Activity schools, which serve children of military families. A separate amendment from Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado, that would have codified President Donald Trump's 2025 executive order barring transgender troops from serving in the military and required personnel to serve according to their biological sex, failed 217-212. Four Republicans joined all voting Democrats in opposition.
The House also rejected a proposal from Rep. Eli Crane, a Republican from Arizona, that would have largely eliminated funding for the Pentagon's Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, permitting funding only for security at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. Seventy-six Republicans supported the proposal, underscoring continued unhappiness within the GOP conference over U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. In a much more lopsided result, lawmakers rejected 360-61 an amendment that would have barred foreign nationals from attending U.S. military academies, ending longstanding programs that bring cadets from allied and partner nations to institutions including West Point, the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy.
Among other actions, the House voted to eliminate a proposed pilot program that would have used voice-based risk-assessment technology to flag service members for drug testing, and narrowly approved language intended to keep California's Santa Ynez Pipeline System operating. That pipeline moves crude oil to refineries that supply military installations and passed 215-214.
The underlying defense bill would authorize roughly $1.15 trillion for national defense, about $252 billion more than Congress appropriated for defense programs in fiscal year 2026. It would provide service member pay raises ranging from 5% to 7%, expand weapons and munitions production, and accelerate investment in missile defense, autonomous systems, hypersonics and other emerging technologies. The NDAA sets defense policy and authorizes spending levels, but does not provide the actual money. Congress must pass separate appropriations legislation to fund the programs and priorities in the bill. The legislation would also formally rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, deeming existing references to the defense secretary and department in federal law to mean the secretary and Department of War.
Amendment debate is expected to resume Wednesday, with a vote on final passage once lawmakers finish considering the remaining proposals. The House made 320 amendments eligible for consideration, eight more than were included in a procedural package that collapsed last month during a Republican revolt over the SAVE America Act, Trump's election legislation requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and identification to cast a ballot in federal elections.
The House approved the SAVE America Act in February by a 218-213 vote, but the measure stalled in the Senate, where Republicans lacked the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Republican leaders had initially tried to revive the election bill by directing the House clerk to merge it with the NDAA after the defense bill passed but before the combined package was sent to the Senate, a procedural move that would have transmitted both as a single bill without inserting the SAVE America Act into the NDAA text itself. That rule failed 198-224 on June 30, when 13 Republican holdouts joined Democrats in opposition. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, also voted against the rule for procedural reasons.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, argued that attaching the election measure through the procedural maneuver would make it easier for the Senate to strip out and demanded that lawmakers add it directly to the NDAA. Luna later accepted the original approach after Speaker Mike Johnson committed to attaching the SAVE America Act to appropriations and other must-pass legislation.
The House approved a replacement rule Tuesday that again directed the clerk to merge the election legislation with the NDAA before sending it to the Senate, while expanding the number of defense amendments eligible for consideration from 312 to 320. The SAVE America Act is still expected to face resistance in the Senate and could be removed when lawmakers reconcile the House and Senate versions of the defense bill.
The Senate's NDAA has had problems of its own. Senate Democrats blocked consideration of their chamber's defense bill last week in protest of the Trump administration's war with Iran, leaving both chambers with significant work to do before they can negotiate a final package. The Pentagon is seeking additional money to cover the cost of the Iran conflict and replenish weapons stockpiles. The White House has requested an $87.6 billion supplemental package, including $67.1 billion for defense needs.
House Republicans are also weighing a new reconciliation package that could provide $60 billion through the Armed Services Committee and $13 billion for intelligence programs. Reconciliation would allow the package to bypass a Senate filibuster and pass without Democratic support, but the proposal still faces resistance from GOP fiscal hawks and an uncertain path through Congress.
