Concealed Carry on Base

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ELLSWORTH AIR FORCE BASE, S.D. --  The Commander' s Action Line is a forum for the Ellsworth community to make suggestions or voice concerns about Ellsworth directly to Col. Gentry Boswell, 28th Bomb Wing commander. 

QUESTION 

Col. Boswell,

Are you and your staff considering implementing a policy to allow concealed carry permit holders who have access to the base to enter the base with their firearms secured, as the commander at Dyess AFB recently did? See: http://www.dyess.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123464561 As there is a large retired military population around Ellsworth, and South Dakota is the state with the highest per capita concealed carry permit rate, this would be advantageous to the many of us who visit the base.


Col. Gentry Boswell
Col. Gentry
Boswell		   RESPONSE

We are currently on hold as DoD completes a comprehensive assessment of this and our arming policies for all of the uniformed services. We expect to see the results of this comprehensive review and associated changes by late spring/early summer. Once that is complete we will conduct an annual review of our policies and address any areas such as a concealed-carry on base accordingly. You will see action on this in the future, bear with us.