Army head says National Guard may be allowed to carry guns

Hahahahaha I got a LOT of shit for saying the NG's in NY immediately after 9/11 had no ammo!  People said well they look loaded to me. Hahaha just because they have mags in them doesn't mean the weapon is loaded! 


https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/01/08/army-head-says-national-guard-may-be-allowed-to-carry-guns-in-dc/

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/pentagon-authorizes-national-guard-troops-to-carry-firearms-in-dc-1.658346

I'm aware of this situation because in the early 70's I had to do guard duty at a fuel depot a couple of times and we had M-16's with empty mags because no one in command wanted an accidental discharge.  Hahaha we were told to "play the part". And I was RA !

I've long since suspected that they didn't carry live ammo ....
ESPECIALLY when "in a crowd" ....
(Or that they carried, however, had an unloaded mag in the gun, and kept the loaded mags in another pocket just in case)

Makes sense. Don’t need an accidental Kent state.

I've long since suspected that they didn't carry live ammo ....
ESPECIALLY when "in a crowd" ....
(Or that they carried, however, had an unloaded mag in the gun, and kept the loaded mags in another pocket just in case)

Yeah, that kinda doesn't make sense. They were there to make the people "feel safe", there was NEVER a ground threat after! They were only there as window dressing. Can you imagine a situation where you carry an empty mag, and what when shit hits the fan you're going to have to dump your empty mag, find the one with bullets while under an attack scenario.
Yeah not a good plan. And many NG's are poorly trained and completely green at being in charge of others, meaning the public.

Maybe in that situation a kid decides to lock the real ammo at the start and somebody gives him shit. No governor is going to want to deal with that.

Since many states retain partial control over their local guard there may be exceptions. For the most part , no ammo.

and Emp ... spot on!

Well, as you said, it's probably situation/local gov't policy dependent ...