But Who Pays for Firearms Training? Examining the Case for Expanding State Defense Force Capabilities

This clip from Episode 9 of Scuttlebutt ‘Should State Defense Force Recruits Undergo Firearms Training During Basic Training?’ explores how such training would be funded including costs for weapons access, ammunition, qualified law enforcement instructors, and range use. The discussion emphasizes that achieving this capability is closely tied to structurally separating State Defense Forces from the Adjutant General and state military departments, reestablishing them as a separate state military organization still operating under their own state Uniform Code of Military Justice and military rules and regulations. This model follows The Florida State Guard, which was recently re-activated, and it would provide a larger, guaranteed annual budget, greater mission flexibility, improved coordination with other state agencies, and most importantly the ability to deploy faster than the National Guard for domestic missions such as wildland firefighting, shelter management, and point-of-distribution operations during emergencies. The episode highlights the Florida State Guard as a modern example of this structure, noting that it has received the largest State Defense Force budget in history, totaling tens of millions of dollars. The episode reinforces that the National Guard should focus on its primary warfighting mission, arguing that frequent domestic taskings, such as disaster response, border operations, and filing sandbags because a river or lake overflowed, reduces the combat readiness and erodes proficiency in soldiers’ MOS (Military Job) skills when deployed to overseas conflict zones, and that these domestic missions shoule be the primary role of State Defense Forces which are trained directly to perform these missions.

Listen to the full podcast -> https://www.patreon.com/posts/scuttlebutt-5-on-137501761?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

The Scuttlebutt Podcast are only available to our Patreon members – Corporal $5 Tier and above. We provide this to them as a thank you for keeping StateDefenseForce.com online and running. Through their funding we can pay authors to develop these historical pieces as well as fund our new lobbying program that furthers the State Defense Force cause nationwide.

Thank you to our Patreon member for making this episode possible:

Thank You To Our Patreon Members