We had enough live nukes to blow up the whole f**king world, though, so we weren't completely unarmed.
*** if you wanted to fire a weapon, you went to the range. ***
Same at our SAC base. I was issued a Colt .38 Special in a sealed plastic bag for overseas combat missions. I found that our local base would let us bring our private owned handguns to the indoor pistol range and we were allowed to use our own ammo (non magmnum). I even got to shoot my black powder pistols there.
All that changed in June of 1968 when Bobby Kennedy was shot. Then a whole new set of rules came in. No giving away brass for reloading. Privately owned weapon shooting was discouraged or forbidden. All empty brass had to be counted and accounted for.
Today I still have several boxes of IVI .38 brass I got before the clampdown.