Amid the protests, President Obama ordered a review of the military equipment program by a panel including the heads of the Defense, Homeland Security and Justice Departments. The panel’s report, made public last year, cited the public uproar caused by the police response in Ferguson and said the government had failed to adequately oversee the program. It also pointed to a June 2014 report by the American Civil Liberties Union that documented the flow of battlefield gear to local police departments and instances of its abuse.

The equipment, the A.C.L.U. report said, had resulted in more aggressive tactics by departments, particularly in minority neighborhoods, leading to deaths and serious injuries.

In one 2014 episode highlighted by the A.C.L.U., a heavily armed police officer in Cornelia, Ga., threw a stun grenade into a playpen during a raid, blowing a hole in the face of a 19-month-old baby and causing severe burns. The officer was not criminally charged.

“We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like there’s an occupying force,” Mr. Obama said last year as he announced the recall of some of the equipment, “as opposed to a force that’s part of the community, that’s protecting them and serving them.”

Local officials say the recent shooting rampages in San Bernardino — the nation’s worst terrorist attack since Sept. 11 — and at a Planned Parenthood building in Colorado Springs show that even modest-size departments need military gear. They point out that fears about terrorism have spread to the smallest communities.

They also say that the equipment has been helpful amid tight county budgeting and that it is used in all sorts of ways that do not involve civil unrest or terrorism, including training exercises and confrontations with gunmen. Armored vehicles, which move on tanklike tracks, are often used for search-and-rescue operations after storms or floods to navigate rough terrain, they say.