Who Does The Government Intend To Shoot?

Daily Caller ^ | 8/17/2012 | Major General Jerry Curry, USA (Ret.)

[kenmcg]

This illustrates what’s wrong with government.....social security, homeland security,parks dept, interior, environmental, capital, state and local, FBI, courts, corrections, and on and on. Some of these law enforcement outfits could be done away and their duties be absorbed by other agencies,which would save billions.

[SnakeDoctor]

I don’t know if DOE has — or why they would need — a SWAT Team. My expertise on agency responsibilities falling under the DOE is limited.

SSA only ordered 174K rounds. That’s less than 600 per agent. Assuming they practice at all, that’s not excessive. They’re obviously not getting in all that many gunfights. Like I said ... this is more about waste than oppression.

Not sure your complaint about regulatory procedure has anything to do with bullet purchases. They’re unelected. Even if they weren’t ... the law would still need to be enforced — probably backed by bullets. If the law sucks ... change it.

SnakeDoc

[Tallguy]

Are these lead bullets? ‘Cause I thought the EPA said lead bullets were bad.

Good question. I'm not aware of any soft metal that would work as well as lead in a hollow point round. I've heard that a lot of military rounds are going away from lead due to EPA requirments. My own local outdoor shooting range was 'down' for like a month while they literaly excavated the impact area to cleanup all the lead rounds. Took their sweet old time about it, too.

[exnavy]

Is this loaded ammo? Chambered for 5.56, 7.62, .45? this is not good info. 500trillion hollow point bullets are useless. They need powder and brass, primers and a loading press to be useful.

[SnakeDoctor]

No kidding. If an SSA agent comes shooting, they’ll run out of ammo way before many of us. Haha.

SnakeDoc

[chrisser]

Talk to any lefty, and they’ll tell you:

There’s a lot of things that are OK for the gov’t or the [leftist] “elite” to do that you cannot be allowed to do.

I have had a similar conversation on similar terms. They actually believe that the people who elect to "serve" in the public sector are somehow nobler and more trustworthy than the average person. Likewise they believe that those in the private sector are corrupt and evil. Even worse, they believe this, somehow, "just happens" since there's no mechanism to insure it, yet it must be true because they believe it to be so.

[lacrew]

Frankly, I think the recent rush to buy ammo is just a way for these agencies to ‘fill out’ their budgets...so they can request more money the next year. Its a common goverment trick...and one I was an unwilling participant in many years ago, as I was ordered to burn through several hundred rounds of blanks at the end of a training exercise. So, I’m pretty sure I know why all these requests are coming now.

But lets talk about the ‘hoopla’ about them being hollow points. Somebody has taken it upon themselves to find all these ammo solicitations, and publicize them for the first time...exposing the large scale purchases of ammo by the government. The government reponse “don’t worry your pretty little self, this is just for qualifying at the range.” Well, I’d like to bring on the hoopla....because its government waste on top of government waste, if they are using premium ammunition at the range. Since we the people are paying for this, maybe these federal agencies should be forced to do what we do....and for me that means firing unjacketed crap for practice.

I view these ammo stories as a crack in the window, giving us a small view of what the federal government employees really think of the rest of us. I worked with DA civilians my last year in the Army, so I have a little bit of perspective. They view their day to day jobs in terms of how they can circumvent the law, and violate your liberties...and they treat your money as if it were water flowing from an endless spring. These ammo buy stories expose both of those attitudes.

[SnakeDoctor]

I think a few of them could easily be consolidated. I don’t see why Justice or Homeland couldn’t supply armed escorts when necessary for some of the agencies where armed agents don’t make as much sense (like the IRS, SSA, NOAA, DOE, etc.). Shooting at a federal agent is a federal crime ... it seems logical that agents that anticipate being shot at could bring a Marshal or Fed along with them.

But, I still hold that this is a case of waste and redundancy, not conspiracy.

SnakeDoc

[MrB]

Yes, I’ve point-blank asked a lib-in-law if she believed that elected politicians are inherently more moral and intelligent than the general population.

The answer was an unequivocal “yes - otherwise they wouldn’t be there.”

Head-shake...

[IbJensen]

Apply for the newly created job of gunnery sergeant. They need help if they’re going to kill any of us.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

My conspiracy theory to explain all the Gubmint ammo purchases is that the Obama administration is trying to over burden the ammo manufacturers. That way, the Gubmint gets the ammo they want for stockpiling and can create another shortage such as the one that happened right after his election.

With little or no ammo on store shelves, We The People will be hard pressed to continue stockpiling and once inventories are depleted, he'll move to raise the tax on ammo to something like 500% so We The People cannot afford it when the shelves are restocked....and probably putting the ammo manufacturers out of business in the process.

It's a Win-Win-Win for him and his minions.

[Cvengr]

The article goes on to document that DHS purchased 750 million hollow point rounds in March and another 750 million of other types of bullets including some that are to penetrate walls. Friendly forces consumed roughly 70 million rounds a year in Iraq.

Even NOAA is buying 46,000 hollow points.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry in regulatory agencies are being armed including ‘environmental compliance’.

Be careful how you dispose of those AAA cell batteries. It might appear threatening to those so equipped.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Hollow point? I believe that the intent is to arm the government employees with frangible rounds..

the Obama Administration is afraid that ordinary rounds would penetrate the target and get one of their dwindling supporters. However, they may get splattered with what's left of us.

[MrB]

I’m with you on your theory...

When it was clear that 0bama was going to be elected (when McCain got the nomination), ammo supplies got real short for a while, but then they caught up, and you could actually find some pistol rounds at Walmart.

I’m thinking that the PTB are trying to make it scarce again, because people are steadily buying 2-3 where they would usually buy 1 and putting it back “just in case”.

[exnavy]

Except I wouldn’t want to work for the Gubmint.

[Hugin]

One more thought regarding the Dept. of Agriculture—don’t they run the National Forest Service? Given that National Forests are being overrun by armed drug cartels, it may not be unreasonable for them to have a SWAT team or two.

[Juliathemechanic]

The Geneva convention prohibits the use of hollow tipped bullets in warfare. There is absolutely no reason U.S. government agencies like the Social Security Administration or the NOAH should have them AT ALL. If this doesn’t disturb you perhaps you should check your pulse to make sure you have one.

[af_vet_rr]

I looked at this guy's record and it's pretty embarrassing - if his website is accurate, and he was an Army Ranger, an adviser in South Vietnam, and a whole slew of other assignments, he of all people should know that you need a few hundred rounds (minimum) per year per person who is carrying a firearm.

The math comes out to around 500 - 600 rounds per agent. You know what I call 500-600 rounds? A good weekend. A lot of agencies that have law enforcement personnel call 500-600 rounds a normal amount of training/ yearly qualifications.

This guy has bigger fish to fry. Much bigger fish. Getting hung up on an ammo purchase, the majority of which will be expended in training/qualification makes him look pretty damned foolish.

Roughly 75% of his writing is focused on the ammo itself and the rest about why some agencies have agents or don't rely on normal law enforcement agencies.

He needs to be 100% focused on why those agencies have armed agents, and not getting hung up on the small things.

[nomad]

What about all the .40 hollow points the DHS has purchased?

[af_vet_rr]

The article goes on to document that DHS purchased 750 million hollow point rounds in March and another 750 million of other types of bullets including some that are to penetrate walls. Friendly forces consumed roughly 70 million rounds a year in Iraq.

I'm not defending DHS - I was against its creation under Bush and the Republicans in Congress, and I'm still against it. However, step back for a moment and run the numbers.

DHS has over 200,000 employees. That's less than 4,000 rounds per employee. Obviously not every employee is carrying a firearm, however DHS contains the Border Patrol, TSA, the US Coast Guard, and the Secret Service. They also operate the larger federal law enforcement training facilities, FLETC (established in the 1960s or 1970s), which burn through an enormous amount of ammo - a friend of my son's worked at a FLETC facility for a few years and for somebody who likes firearms, it was almost a dream come true. I don't know how it is now, but he indicated they burned through a lot more than civilian law enforcement agencies.

I would hope that the TSA, Border Patrol, Secret Service, and quite a few members of the Coast Guard are using up a lot more than 500 or 600 rounds for training and qualification, and are getting into the thousands of rounds per year range.

And lest we forget, it's a federal bureaucracy, don't believe for one moment that everybody involved in the contract process is 100% law-abiding and clean-cut. Lot of favors exchange hands, people get promised jobs if they can get extra things added to contract. Far too many federal contractors try and milk the system for all it's worth, and they even offer "discounts" to get the feds to purchase more of something.

I can picture a scenario where the requirements were down to under half a billion rounds and somebody promised somebody something or threw in some things if they drove it up by a few hundred million.