Another words, NY Guv doesn’t trust the NY State militia with guns.
You're thinking this is the New York Guard. It's not. I was a member of the NYG. That is the actual state militia. Unfortunately, being New York, the New York Guard is routinely unarmed (and has little-to-no access to normal military equipment, with some rare exceptions.)
This, however, is the New York NATIONAL Guard. The National Guard are people that went to Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the Reserve. They are the ones that are usually issued military small arms and can access other hardware as the mission requires. These are the people that are being sent to the NY C subways.
I'll tell you why they are being pulled back or being sent unarmed: This being NYC, you can expect more than a few of the troops to be forcibly disarmed, resulting in quite a few full-autos being available to the criminal element.