My last year on active duty, 1970-1971 in Germany, we didn't carry our weapons on guard duty. Firearms went out of fashion in the Army in the 1970s and 1980s, the attitude was that weapons security was more important than proper training. The loss of a small arm was a greater offense than losing a multimillion dollar aircraft and involved more paperwork and more people getting their butts reamed out. Troops saw their small arms as a nuisance and a PITB and often handled them as they were poisonous stakes or radioactive and decided they less they saw of them the better.
Also with the feminzation of the military in the 1990s firearms were seen as a sign of an over aggressive macho mentality. I have been told that dependent wives were often given veto power over their spouses keeping firearms at home, people who tried to revive rifle and pistol teams were slapped down by their superiors.