Posted on 05/09/2013 11:42:01 PM PDT by GVnana
Dianne Feinstein - United State Senator for California
Thank you for your letter about solicitations for contracts for hollow-point bullets issued by the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I appreciate your taking the time to write and welcome the opportunity to respond.
As you may know, the Department of Homeland Security's mission includes preventing terrorism, enhancing national security, and securing our borders. To fulfill that mission, the Department trains and employs over 11,000 agents at agencies including the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These agents have full law enforcement authority and, as required by Department policy, use hollow-point ammunition.
The Social Security Administration also has agents with full law enforcement authority. The Administration's 295 agents work in 66 offices across the United States and are responsible for investigating violations of laws that govern the Administration's programs. For example, they not only investigate allegations of Social Security fraud, but they also respond to threats against Social Security offices, employees, and customers. The Administration's agents use hollow-point ammunition during firearm training and in the course of their law enforcement duties.
There were reports that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service solicited a contract for 40,000 rounds of hollow-point bullets. In fact, the Administration's Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement solicited the contract. According to the Administration, "due to a clerical error, a solicitation for ammunition for the Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement mistakenly identified the National Weather Service as the requesting office." The Administration states that that error is being fixed and will soon appear correctly in the federal government's electronic bidding system. The ammunition was ordered for the Administration's 63 enforcement personnel who work out of six divisional offices and 53 field offices throughout the U.S. These agents perform traditional law enforcement duties over more than 3 million square miles of open ocean and 85,000 miles of coastline from criminal fishing operations.
I recognize that media reports have raised concerns over these solicitations for hollow-point bullets. As stated in the solicitations, the requesting organizations were running low on ammunition and needed to replenish their supplies. Furthermore, hollow-point ammunition is standard issue for many law enforcement agencies. It is the same type of ammunition used at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and federal law enforcement agents use this ammunition during their firearms qualifications and other training sessions.
Additionally, hollow-point bullets are designed to stop when they hit a target as opposed to passing through it and striking other objects.
Again, thank you for your letter. Knowing your views is important to me, and I hope you continue to inform me of issues that matter to you. If you have any additional comments or questions, please feel free to contact my office in Washington D.C. at (202) 224-3841.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator
re fisheries
So there are 63 fisheries law enforcement officers. “These agents perform traditional law enforcement duties over more than 3 million square miles of open ocean and 85,000 miles of coastline from criminal fishing operations” So how many rounds per mile of coastline is that? Citing miles seems to be an attempt to justify the astonishing number of bullets but there’s only 63 officers. Could we see how many rounds those officers fired last year? Or on average over the past 5 years? It’s not like they routinely take ships in running gun battles - those officers may carry a gun (and need them at sea) but just how many rounds do they use? Overall, the numbers don’t add up.
Wow I never thought I’d hear Feinswine make hollowpoint ammo sound “warm and fuzzy.”
Fine-swine is an idiot communist.
So obvious, really, that she thinks it’s fine as long as it’s the government with all the guns and ammo, but it’s unacceptable for US little folks.
40,000 rounds for 63 officers is about 630 rounds each. To many Freepers that is “a start”. To the media that is an “arsenal”.
But - it does point to the vastness that is the Federal Government. To paraphrase: “40,000 here and 40,000 there, pretty soon you’re talking big numbers”.
LyinLibs....I really like that call name!! You are just not a kiddin’ our military is not even allowed to chamber their ammo with the stupid ROE that Zero has ordered and it is against regulations for the military to have hollow points!! What a lyin’ piece of DiFi is!!! The Bible says...believe a lie and be damned, so I guess what goes a ‘round’ comes a ‘round’! I mean these idiots think we are that stupid to believe that line of Bull? They ordered billions of rounds of hollow points....and you can betcha your bottom dollar they are intended for the likes of all the conservatives one of these days when they order Martial Law and police state!! Fema camps here we come! :(
My late husband when he was serving in Korea used to practice a lot with his pistol and the free ammunition. When we visited his family home in the middle west a decade later he killed 10 rabbits each with a 22 shot in the head. We froze them and took them back east and had hassenfeffer (sp?) for a week. Later who took me to a range to teach me to shot a pistol. He did a pattern on the bulls eye no bigger than a revolver chamber with 5 bullets around the edge and one in the middle. I was impressed. Who knows how much these guys practice and train?
I guess I have to start over...I lost all my guns and ammo in that canoe accident...
It also breaks out to 50 Rds per month of training and 30 rds for duty carry.
She conveniently leaves out the fact that hollow point bullets are not used by the military (at least officially) because it is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions which OUTLAWs them, primarily to the great damage they do when striking a human.
Humans in this case are Americans our government feels it is more important to maim or kill than to go straight through and risk killing a dumb ass reporter, for instance.
Based on some of the recent events in Los Angeles (going after the renegade cop) and in Boston, these ‘agents’ sure have gotten used to the “spray and pray” technique.
They practice and practice on their tac ranges under all sorts of conditions and with plenty of ammo. They get pumped up, quarked out and develop a burning itch to hit some flesh instead of paper. By the time they get into the real stuff, it is a foregone conclusion what will happen.
Welcome to AmeriKa.
“It also breaks out to 50 Rds per month of training...”
For the Fisheries Department???
They shoulda’ sent one of their guys up to Boston instead!
OTOH, I work near a nuke facility every once in awhile. They have a shooting range for their security teams. Every morning they burn through thousands of rounds an hour from the sounds of it. (Semi-auto and auto). It always gives me pause when one of them comes out of their truck to see what I’m up to and they already have their rifle in hand as they are climbing out.
Parks and Recreation may not seem like a branch that needs to be armed but our national parks have unfortunately become home to drug dealers growing pot and other drug producing cash crops on public lands.
In reality, Parks and Recreation field officers are some of the LEOs most likely to get into a serious fire fight with hard core bad guys in very remote locations with little or no back up. Think Mexican Mafia, Sinaloa Cowboys, Aryan Nation and even the Crips and Bloods doing the Green Acres thing.
More than a few Park Rangers have been killed in the line of duty by illegal drug growers in recent years.
If you are carrying a gun as a duty weapon maintaining proficiency is part of the job.
If you are not proficient you have no business carrying a weapon as part of your job description.
Shooting 50 rds per month is not a lot for maintaining proficiency. More like a bare bones minimum.
That works out to shooting two and half , maybe three depending on the gun, full magazines of ammo a month. It also works out to one box of pistol ammo per month if you want to look at it for that perspective.
On the other hand, I have been skeptical about the rumors of excessive DHS ammo purchases .
That was until I saw the historical ammp purchase history charts from DHS.
I was wrong and there is cause for legitimate concern.
Ever since Obama took office and put Janet Napolitano in charge of DHS, ammo purchases have doubled or tripled over the purchase volume under the Bush Administration at a time when we are being told that the war on terror is winding down and DHS ammo requirements should be going down not up.
Not a good sign from a group of DHS anti terror enforcement officers who seem consider and are trying to re define as “Terrorist” “right wing, homophobic and racist Christians” and pretty much anyone who disagrees with them or opposes their agenda in any way shape or form.
Somebody at DHS has some explaining to do on that one, but lets not reflexively have a paranoid, knee jerk reaction to every ammo purchase because it really plays into the hands of people who wish to ridicule those with legitimate concerns about the huge spike in DHS ammo buying.
Wow....I feel so much safer now...that this premier gun grabber cleared that up...
Sounds like the same letter I got from my Alabama representative, Martha Roby, who claims to be a conservative Republican but is turning out to be just another RINO.
Strictly speaking, it’s the Hague Convention of 1899 that outlaws bullet design intended to enhance damage, not the Geneva Conventions.
Okay....always heard Geneva, but hey, I got that from the Media....ha ha...
I always love these form letters these Jerks in the Congress use when you send them a letter in opposition to their liberal fascist.
They always start off Thank You, when they really mean F —You.
Then they always say I appreciate the time you took to write me——like you are too stupid to know that one of my staff threw your letter in the trash and I never even looked at it.
What a pack of congenital liars we have running this country.
My understanding is that bid solicitation calls for delivery over a five year period. If so, then the average annual allotment of 126 rounds per oficer would barely cover an hour at the practice range.
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