Posted on 04/30/2009 8:46:34 AM PDT by Rameumptom
For four days in March, gun owners across the country were up in arms about a Department of Defense decision to not resell its spent brass casings.
The DOD sells more than 100 million used casings a year -- in .223 and .308 variants -- to businesses such as Georgia Arms, near Atlanta, which in turn reloads the cartridges and sells them to the public.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz says the decision not to resell was made intentionally by the Obama administration, and he plans to introduce legislation to ensure it doesn't happen again.
It was "a concerted effort by this administration to short the supply" of ammunition, said the 3rd District Republican who views it as back-door gun control.
Georgia Arms co-owner Larry Haynie agrees. He said he was told by government officials that it was a clerical error.
"Hell no," he said when asked if he believed that. "That's just the government catch-all right there."
There is a press release from the Defense Logistics Agency four days after it was initially stated that the casings would be destroyed instead of resold. The DLA is in charge of handling the spent cartridges, including determining their impact on national security.
It reads in part: "Upon review, the Defense Logistics Agency has determined the cartridge cases could be appropriately placed in a category of government property allowing for their release for sale."
Haynie says it was the uproar that caused the change, not a question of national security.
"The American system still works," he said.
Chaffetz wants to make sure the river of empty brass continues to flow from the DOD into private hands. The legislation will read: "The Secretary of Defense may not implement any policy that would prevent or place undue restriction on the continued sale of intact spent military brass ammunition casings to domestic manufacturers of small arms ammunition."
The ammunition market seems to be doing a fine job of keeping prices high all by itself.
"Since Obama was elected, they've just run away," Haynie said, because of fears of gun control legislation. The last time sales were this high was when Bill Clinton was president and talking about an assault weapons ban.
"He's armed up America way more than Clinton ever thought about doing."
Well good luck, but it's kinda like trying to put limits on a compulsive drinker or eliminate reasons for an abusive spouse to go crazy -- you might think that "it's just this one thing", but they'll always figure out another one.
The proposed legislation is to take such a decision out of the hands of anonymous Obama administration flacks.
A good idea which I support 100 percent.
By the way, I do a lot of business with Georgia Arms. Larry is a great guy. This DOD order would have put him out of business, he employs 60-75 people in Georgia and supplies reasonably priced reloads for folks who don't want to pay top dollar for factory ammo (that's usually on back order).
The angle I used while screaming at my legislators was that this stupid order was going to put honest Georgians out of work and inconvenience a LOT of voters. It did get their attention.
They tried to stop it until Georgia Arms made a huge stink about this and got gun rights groups involved. Four days after the DOD directive came out it was rescinded. I believe this bill is codifying the current procedure in place so that no one can attempt to change it in the future.
Will it go anywhere?
The Dems control Congress
Maybe it was surplus arms back then... Pay to destroy them rather than sell them to the Civilian Marksmanship Program or some such.
Shell alert...
NO BRASS! NO AMMO! DRILL SARGENT!
It was, mostly M14s, which were fed to Captain Crunch, for destruction. Most of those that survived have been pulled out of storage, refurbished, and sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly for use by "designated marksmen", not full snipers, but with extra appititude and training. Some where made into M21 rifles, pending arrival of the "M110", which is a version of the SR-25, sort of an AR-15 on steriods, or if you will an updated AR-10, from which the AR-15 (including the full auto M-16 varients) was derived by shrinking.
M21
XM110
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.