In Washington’s Most Dramatic Escalation Yet National Guard Troops Are Now Carrying Weapons Amid Trump’s Crackdown

24 August 2025

In a dramatic shift in urban law enforcement, roughly 2,000 National Guard troops stationed in Washington, D.C., have begun carrying weapons specifically M17 pistols or M4 rifles after a two-week period of being unarmed.

This escalation follows a directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, operating under President Trump’s sweeping crime crackdown initiative in the capital. A statement from the Joint Task Force D.C. emphasized that troops would deploy firearms only when faced with life-threatening situations, asserting the commitment to deploy force only as a last resort.

Trump has signalled ambitions to extend similar deployments to other Democratic-led cities such as Chicago and Baltimore even though local leaders including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker have pushed back. Jeffries has stated that Trump lacks the legal authority to send troops to these cities without justification.

In D.C., local officials like Mayor Muriel Bowser and Maryland Governor Wes Moore have condemned the weaponization of troops, pointing to declining crime rates Baltimore saw its fewest homicides in five decades and calling the deployment politically motivated and unnecessary.

This trend underscores a growing tension around federal intrusion in local law enforcement. Critics argue that such militarization bypasses democratic norms, citing concerns over the Posse Comitatus Act and the risks to civil liberties.