Posted on 08/21/2012 4:20:19 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Washington, DC --(Ammoland.com)- ” I’m from the Government and Im here to help”, one of the most simultaneously laughable and also frightening jokes made about the utter ineptitude and often down right vicious mindset that populates far to much of the Federal Leviathan.
Much has been made over the last month or so about the 6,000 rounds of ammunition Aurora Colorado Shooter James Holmes had acquired, with breathless commentary from the know nothing usual suspects in the media and political circles about how “no one needs that much ammunition unless they are up to something “. A patently ridiculous idea that reveals only the ignorance of those that would make such comments, since 6,000 rounds of ammunition is hardly a large quantity, something I wrote about previously.
Forgetting for a moment the numerous perfectly lawful and logical reasons for a Citizen to have that much ammunition, and indeed an exponentially greater amount, while not harboring any evil intent, if we accept the exhortations that owning or possessing several thousand rounds of ammunition is to be treated as some sort of “warning sign” or “red flag” indicator of nefarious intentions at some future point, then the unasked question, the gargantuan elephant in the room that no one is talking about is;
What exactly are the future intentions of the myriad of Federal Government “Alphabet Agencies” and their collective purchase orders and bids for fulfillment to acquire 1 BILLION rounds of anti personal ammunition for delivery no later then December 31st 2012?
There are literally dozens of Federal Agencies that have armed agents and, shockingly enough, their own SWAT Teams, while having little, if any connection to a traditional Law Enforcement role.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
“”rounds of anti personal ammunition””
Sigh.... “anti-personnel ammunition” would be the correct spelling, but the terminology is still ridiculous from a “gunblog”. If a left wing idiot made the same statement there would be plenty of scorn heaped upon them by FReepers.
Bulk purchasing by government agencies saves taxpayer money and guarantees pricing/availability for years.
The NRA obviously thinks this is conspiratorial crap -
http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2012/federal-law-enforcement-agencies-buy-ammunition.aspx
Last paragraph from the NRA:
“””As most gun owners will agree, skepticism of government is healthy. But today, there are more than enough actual threats to the Second Amendment to keep gun owners busy. With two key Supreme Court decisions hanging by a one-vote margin, the Justice Department deeply involved in a cover-up of a disastrous Mexican gun smuggling operation, and President Obama touting a ban on popular semi-automatic firearms, there is no need to invent additional threats to our rights.”””
Reply from a GOP Congress critter’s office -
http://westmoreland.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=642&Itemid=372
We can fairly question the need for some of these departments to have SWAT teams and I certainly do. However, that is a seperate issue from ammo purchasing via long term contracts. All Federal agencies have criminal investigator positions (Office of Inspector General) who have arrest powers under Federal law and therefore are considered job series 1811 (Federal Agents). All Federal agencies have armed security forces that protect official buildings and other sensitive locations. These individuals all qualify quarterly with their duty weapons and that adds up quickly. Even the agencies that subcontract their armed security usually supply the ammunition to the “contractors” for the required qualifications.
There are many other issues that I am far more concerned about than this. Namely the 16T in federal debt they are passing on to my children.
If the military only used 70 million a year in a war, may I ask how many rounds per year are manufactured?
..just in case Obama cancels the election and we don’t like it.
..just in case Obama cancels the election and we don’t like it.
Sigh indeed. This is what happens when someone who just started paying attention looks at a federal budget. Something to add to volunbeer’s comments: federal agencies (and state and municipal government employees) routinely make what look like outrageous purchases for the simple reason that if they don’t spend the money in their budget toward the end of the fiscal year, it gets “swept,” that is, taken back. So they stock up on things they think they will eventually need anyway in the unlikely event that they receive LESS money in next year’s budget. The federal fiscal year ends September 30. Go figure.
I had the same problem. It turns out the credit card bonus points don’t kick in until 500 million rounds. That’s gonna take up the whole rumpus room and then some.
Never ever trust militant homosexuals?
Never ever trust an undocumented president when he states we neen a civilian army as well armed as the military!
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Are you talking about drug abusing rail road prostitutes? I gave up that stuff several months ago! |
Good police firearms instructors know that you qualify with what you carry. Every time. Good police firearms instructors know that numerous idiots will load their duty weapons with non-duty carry ammunition. Good police firearms instructors know that having the same duty ammunition on the shelves, in range bags, in magazines, and in the trunks of vehicles prevents common brainfarts (in my humble experience) where folks carry the wrong ammunition in a duty firearm. In 17 years I have seen duty weapons loaded with frangible ammunition, ball ammunition, reloads (true story), and other non-issued ammunition. As an armorer, I don’t want anyone shooting non-issued ammunition with different specs and performance. I can consistently predict maintenance needs for firearms kept in service for a decade even if they only fire 400 rounds a year or 5000+. Using the same ammunition allows the agency to track the lot numbers and identify any performance problems (recently there was a primer issue with a certain lot that led to failures to fire) with the exact same ammunition used for duty carry.
At bulk pricing in these numbers the cost of hollowpoint ammunition is not significantly higher than ball ammunition. Those are not my words... they are the words of one of the production supervisors for ATK - the busiest ammo plant in the world.
If it is clear that Obama actually lost the election but that he is trying to carry out a putsch to stay in office, how many employees of those agencies would be willing to fire on their fellow citizens for his benefit? Some of them might--the more fanatical Democrats--but my guess is the majority of them would not. Washington was able to call up citizens to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, and Lincoln was able to get volunteers after the flag was fired on at Fort Sumter, but what kind of pretext would Obama be able to manufacture to get the rank-and-file of those federal agencies to shoot at people just because they had voted Republicans? I don't think he would be able to deputize a sufficient number of SEIU and AFL-CIO and OWS types to do the job on short notice.
“..just in case Obama cancels the election and we don’t like it.”
I guess federal agencies and be preppers, too. It must be nice to have our tax dollars to pay for the prep.
Perhaps they believe in the Mayan prophesy and the end of civilization is on the horizon and they all want enough ammo to fight of millions of crazy people?
“I don’t think he would be able to deputize a sufficient number of SEIU and AFL-CIO and OWS types to do the job on short notice.”
Holder could deputize his New Black Pampers as US Marshals to take care of all of the Randy Weavers out there.
Well then I stand corrected.
If the government creates more and more swat teams, such as used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and many other agencies, would they not demand more ammunition?
Did ya happen to notice government has now armed simple park rangers all over the country? Or the fact they have created armed divisions within all types of government departments?
How about the hundreds of billions spent on turning city, state and federal buildings into armed fortresses complete with every kind of security measure known?
Even going into many courts nowadays they appear as high security prisons, with armed guards, scanners, dogs, metal detectors, CCTV cameras everywhere etc.
In addition, why do so many smaller rural type towns nowadays have their own swat teams?
What is all this for?
They ordered 750 million rounds over 5 years? We produce 6 billion rounds per year so this buy amounts to .3% of our annual production.
Not really a threatening number.
Fun watching Bobo try to push a string...I've never seen anything dumber in my life than his attempt to hyperinflate his way out of trouble by disincentivizing risk.
I beg to differ on several fronts. You don’t need hollow points for practice or qualification and would save hundreds of millions by buying standard FMJ rounds for practice. For those with little or no experience in firearms and practice/qualification procedures, you take the hollow points out of the magazines that are used daily and replace with FMJ practice/qualification rounds. When you are done practicing/qualifying, you reload your hollow points back into your magazines. I’m sure if I can get 2nd Lts to follow and understand the practice, 3 out of 5 federal agents could probably figure it out ... the other 2 of 5, you’d probably have to do the unloading and loading yourself as they probably wouldn’t be familiar with weapons or ammo enough to trust them to do it safely. The number of rounds ordered is ridiculous. If they can’t qualify with 50 or so rounds with a pistol, they should be issued bricks instead of pistols for their own safety or maybe assigned to desk jobs where scissors or staplers are not required. Additionally, I suspect that they don’t practice/qualify more than twice a year with most only once a year which again leads to why so much ammo.
I think SWAT is used far too much in many situations where it is not called for. I also question the need for some of these agencies to have SWAT. If they are serving “high risk” warrants they should utilize another agency like the Marshals Service. We will agree on that.
However, you wrote “Did ya happen to notice government has now armed simple park rangers all over the country?”
Are you serious?
Park Rangers have one of the most dangerous jobs in law enforcement. They have one of the most dangerous jobs period. They usually work alone in the middle of nowhere and often can’t get radio reception when it counts. If the radio does work the closest backup is normally too far away to do any good. Really, what can go wrong when confronting a felon who is poaching on federal land in the middle of nowhere?
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