How many people serve in the National Guard?

The National Guard is a reserve service that trains troops and deploys them to national emergencies, such as September 11, 2001, during Hurricane Katrina recovery in 2005, and COVID-19 in 2020. It also supports global military priorities when the armed forces need additional support, and has been called into service for every war in American history.

As of June, the National Guard had 432,460 members, about 76% of whom served in the Army National Guard (the rest are in the Air National Guard). Texas had more troops than any other state: 22,367. New York was next (17,404), followed by California (17,346). 

The United States Code is the codification of the general and permanent laws of the nation. Title 10 of that code allows the president to activate the National Guard without the consent of a state governor. It’s previously been invoked to deploy troops to wars overseas. 

The president has called upon the National Guard within the United States at least 10 times since World War II. 

Many of these activations included the president invoking the Insurrection Act, in which they call on the military for civilian law enforcement during "invasion, insurrection, or obstruction of the laws," to protect civil rights or in cases when the president deems it impossible to enforce the law without intervention. The Insurrection Act was last invoked during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.