Posted on 04/29/2013 8:48:22 PM PDT by Nachum
Last Thursday, Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who chairs one of the House oversight subcommittees, held a hearing to find out why the Department of Homeland Security has been ordering so much ammunition. "It is entirely ... inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition," Chaffetz said at the hearing.
He revealed that the department currently has more than 260 million rounds in stock.
He said the department bought more than 103 million rounds in 2012 and used 116 million that same year -- among roughly 70,000 agents.
Comparing that with the small-arms purchases procured by the U.S. Army, he said the DHS is churning through between 1,300 and 1,600 rounds per officer, while the U.S. Army goes through roughly 350 rounds per soldier... He noted that is "roughly 1,000 rounds more per person."
Now, according to US News Washington Whispers, the GAO is looking into the ammo purchases.
The congressional investigative agency is jumping into the fray just as legislation was introduced in both the Senate and the House to restrict the purchase of ammo by some government agencies (except the Department of Defense). The AMMO Act, introduced Friday, would prevent agencies from buying more ammunition if "stockpiles" are greater than what they were in previous administrations.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
We all know damned well why they are doing it
Bump
Can the GAO actually DO anything about these purchases? For example, sell the excess inventory on the general market?
DHS has some contingency plan or supporting memos that justify the amount of ammo it has warehoused. It is only a matter of time before someone leaks enough so we can get a glimpse into this expensive and possibly dangerous stockpile.
Given budget realities, when the justification no longer can stand political scrutiny, since this is stockpile is so way beyond its rational needs, it will be forced to disgorge at least some of it. Any quantity of surplus sale will have an effect on market prices. However, this eventuality is at least one presidential election away.
More folks ought to read about Chaffetz. He’s a rising star who made the transformation from Liberal to Conservative by using his mind. Here’s hoping he smokes out the ammo stockpile nonsense.
Starting to wonder if that 116 million was really used, lots of other possibilities other than it was really used.
Where's the spent brass, where's the documentation that it was used?
Surely agents had to sign out for it.
>> roughly 70,000 agents
The hundreds of millions of rounds is only the tip of the iceberg.
THat we pay seventy thousand agents to belong to an unconstitutional federal police force/paramilitary unit — THAT is the REAL problem.
Consider that these US SS forces — all seventy THOUSAND of them — couldn’t stop two Chechen rebels from killing and maiming hundreds.
Yet apparently they have time to put more than a thousand rounds downrange APIECE — as well as write up internal training materials painting law-abiding Christians as the enemy.
THIS is an OUTRAGE.
And just think.
WE get to pay for it! Every single round!
Isn’t that special?
“DHS has some contingency plan or supporting memos that justify the amount of ammo it has warehoused. It is only a matter of time before someone leaks enough so we can get a glimpse into this expensive and possibly dangerous stockpile.”
I do believe that someone will crack on this, or they already have, and it is being sat on by the ‘pubs until the 2014 election cycle (AS THOUGH THEY WERE ACTUALLY SMART ENOUGH TO DO THIS).
Yes, Chaffetz is impressive and I’ve never seen him back down. Let’s hope he sticks this out.
Chaffetz, Gowdy, Cruz ...maybe there is hope afterall.
As by all accountable records and historical accounts, the last year that any federal agency, civilian or military, had any revolvers on inventory, was 1991. 1992, all agencies transitioned to the Beretta M9, and retired all .38 Special caliber firearms.
WHAT THE HECK IS THE REASON THAT DHS HAS BEEN BUYING A WHOLE LOT OF AMMUNITION, FOR A FIREARM THAT HAS NOT BEEN IN ANY ACTIVE GOVERNMENT INVENTORY, SINCE 1992????????????????
WHICH BRINGS A SECOND QUESTION ... SINCE IT IS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION THAT HAS STOPPED ALL SALES OF FIRED AMMUNITION CASES, WHY ARE ALL THE COMMERCIAL REMANUFACTURING HOUSES STATING THAT THEY ARE EXPERIENCING MAJOR LOT ORDERS??? FROM WHOM??!?!?
Will they is a better question.
and buying all-white person targets to shoot those hundred million rounds at.
The question that was asked of the military was “will you shoot an American?” should have been, “Will you shoot a white person?”
Not all agencies transferred to the Beretta. Feds are carrying Sigs and HKs, and Glocks.
If the rounds are supposedly being spent, not merely hoarded, and are therefore not recoverable, could the objective be an “ammo laundering” scheme, where the ammo is purged out of our system and mysteriously shows up in older weapons that CAN use it, such as might be found in the overseas killing fields of the Arab Spring?
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