To demilitarize the police, lawmakers and communities work on four levers at once: a federal statute that permanently blocks certain military transfers, executive restrictions on federal grant money used to buy military-style gear, state laws that require public approval before a department acquires anything, and local rules that limit how tactical teams and aggressive tactics get deployed. Since 1990, the federal government has transferred roughly $7.6 billion in surplus military property to about 6,300 civilian agencies through the 1033 Program alone.1Defense Logistics Agency. 1033 Program FAQs Turning that flow around takes work at every level of government, and the strongest tools sit closer to home than most people realize.
Hardware and Culture Are Both on the Table
Demilitarization has two sides. The material side pulls military surplus hardware out of civilian departments or restricts what they can receive going forward. The cultural side retrains officers away from a warrior posture and toward de-escalation and community partnership. Reforms that touch only one side tend to stall. A department stripped of its armored vehicle can still run drug raids the same way; a department retrained in de-escalation can still request grenade launchers next fiscal year. Effective policy hits both.
The Federal Ban on Specific Transfers
The strongest federal restriction currently in place is statutory, not executive, which matters because it doesn’t disappear when administrations change. The FY2021 National Defense Authorization Act added subsection (e) to 10 U.S.C. 2576a, permanently prohibiting the Defense Department from transferring the following items to state, tribal, or local law enforcement:2GovInfo. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021
- Bayonets
- Grenades, other than stun and flash-bang grenades
- Weaponized tracked combat vehicles
- Weaponized drones
Read that list carefully, because it’s narrower than the debate around it suggests. Armored vehicles without mounted weapons remain transferable. So do grenade launchers, large-caliber firearms, and military aircraft. Whether those items reach a local department still depends on executive policy and state law.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 2576a Excess Personal Property Sale or Donation for Law Enforcement Activities
The same statute already requires each recipient agency to certify annually, with authorization from its local governing body, that it has adopted publicly available protocols for how controlled property will be used, supervised, audited, and evaluated.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 US Code 2576a – Excess Personal Property Sale or Donation for Law Enforcement Activities That certification is a lever most residents don’t know exists, and it becomes central to community-level action later on.
The Grant-Money Lever
The 1033 Program isn’t the only pipeline. Departments also buy military-style equipment outright using federal homeland security and justice grants, which means transfer bans alone leave a large gap.
Executive Order 14074, signed in 2022, targeted that gap by directing federal agencies to prohibit grant-funded purchases of a specific list: firearms and ammunition above .50 caliber, silencers, grenade launchers, grenades including stun and flash-bang, weaponized drones, combat-configured aircraft, and vehicles with no commercial application.5GovInfo. Executive Order 14074 – Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices To Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety FEMA implemented the restrictions for all awards issued on or after January 1, 2023.6Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA Policy Prohibited or Controlled Equipment Under FEMA Awards
Executive orders are fragile. President Obama’s 2015 Executive Order 13688 imposed a Prohibited Equipment List through both transfers and grants.7Obama White House Archives. Recommendations Pursuant to Executive Order 13688 Federal Support for Local Law Enforcement Equipment Acquisition President Trump revoked it in 2017 through Executive Order 13809, and the restrictions vanished until Congress acted through the NDAA four years later.8GovInfo. Executive Order 13809 – Restoring State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement’s Access to Life-Saving Equipment and Resources Whether the grant restrictions in EO 14074 remain enforced under the current administration is an open question. Proposed legislation like the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2026 (H.R. 7766) would convert these restrictions into statute, but as of mid-2026 it remains a bill, not law.
Restricting How Tactical Units Are Used
Equipment restrictions only go so far if departments keep deploying the teams and tactics they already have. Demilitarization proposals also target three specific practices.
SWAT Deployments
SWAT teams were built for hostage rescues, barricaded gunmen, and active shooters. In practice, warrant service dominates. A federally funded study of SWAT operations found warrant service accounted for roughly 34,000 operations over a 12-year period, outnumbering barricaded-suspect calls by more than four to one and hostage incidents by nearly thirty to one.9Office of Justice Programs. A Multi-Method Study of Special Weapons and Tactics Teams Most of those warrants were drug-related. Reform proposals would limit SWAT deployment to situations with an active threat to life and route routine warrant service back to patrol officers and detectives.
No-Knock Warrants
No-knock warrants let police enter a home without announcing themselves. In 2021, the Department of Justice restricted federal agents to no-knock entries only when knocking could put someone in imminent danger, and required top-level supervisory approval. As of March 2026, the DOJ rescinded that policy and now permits no-knock entries for a broader set of searches, including situations where agents believe evidence could be destroyed. State legislatures have moved the other direction: a growing number have restricted or banned no-knock warrants since 2020, particularly for drug cases. The rule that applies to your front door depends on whether federal or state officers are on the other side of it.
Less-Lethal Weapons in Crowd Control
Tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets carry the label “less-lethal” because they injure seriously and sometimes kill. Reform model policies require officers to exhaust de-escalation and issue clear dispersal warnings before deploying any of them, prohibit aiming kinetic projectiles at the head, neck, or chest, and ban tear gas in enclosed spaces.
State Laws That Require Public Approval Before Acquisition
Because federal policy shifts with each administration, states have increasingly written their own rules. The most consequential trend requires local governing bodies to approve equipment acquisitions before they happen, not after.
California’s law has become the model. Every law enforcement agency in the state must get approval from its city council or board of supervisors before acquiring any military equipment, and that approval must come before the agency even applies for a grant or solicits a donation to buy it. Agencies must publish a military equipment use policy describing the equipment’s capabilities, authorized uses, financial costs, and oversight mechanisms. They must file an annual report on how each piece was used and what it cost. If an agency hasn’t obtained proper approval, it must stop using the equipment.
Other states have adopted similar frameworks with varying strictness. The common thread is forcing acquisition into public view, with hearings, published inventories, and consequences for noncompliance. Federal law already calls for annual local certification;4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 US Code 2576a – Excess Personal Property Sale or Donation for Law Enforcement Activities state laws give that requirement teeth.
What Communities Can Do Without Waiting for a New Law
The federal statute already requires each participating agency to obtain authorization from its local governing body annually.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 2576a Excess Personal Property Sale or Donation for Law Enforcement Activities Your elected officials are signing off on this equipment whether or not the public knows about it. Three actions don’t require any new legislation:
- Request a full inventory of 1033 equipment your department has received.
- Ask the governing body to publish the department’s use policy for controlled property.
- Demand annual public reporting on when and how the equipment gets deployed.
When the annual certification comes before the city council or county board, that hearing is the most direct point of accountability available. A resident asking why a town of 15,000 needs a mine-resistant vehicle is exercising authority the federal statute already contemplates. Where state law adds a pre-acquisition approval requirement, the leverage is stronger still, because the vote happens before the equipment arrives rather than after it’s already sitting in the motor pool.