So, Why Did The DHS Buy All That Ammo?
- See also: Major General Jerry Curry: Why Are Domestic Government Agencies Purchasing Enough Lethal Ammunition to Put 5 Rounds In Every American?
– - So, Why did the DHS Buy all that Ammo?
by Brad Kozak, http://www.guns.com/
Awhile back, the American media reported several, often disparate, stories about Federal agencies stocking up on ammo. Now when the Army makes a big ammo purchase, nobody blinks an eye, but when the Social Security Administration, the National Oceanographic and the Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service make big buys, you might want to stop and ask “why”?
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Forecasts from the weatherman might be wildly inaccurate, but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a weatherman needing to arm themselves and ammo up because a resulting downpour ruined somebody’s picnic, though recent tragedies may prove otherwise. Regardless, when the NWS makes major ammo buys, it raises some questions from people who pay attention to such things. Ditto for the Social Security Administration – when’s the last time you heard of a Social Security office under siege by terrorists?
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The National Weather Service ordered about 46,000 rounds of .40 S&W JHPs, to be delivered to four locations – offices in Florida, New Jersey, Maine and Massachusetts. Whether or not any of these came in handy during the aftermath of hurricane Sandy, I don’t know, but would be interested to find out. The Social Security Administration put in an order for 174,000 rounds of .357 Sig JHPs, for locations in Baltimore, L.A., Detroit, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Denver, Philly, Pittsburgh and Seattle.
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On top of that, the DHS buy order was for about 40,000,000 rounds of .40 S&W JHPs all told. That’s a lot of ammo.
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Responses
Of course, when this news did hit the streets, the reactions were predictable. Those that see conspiracies under every rock immediately assumed that Uncle Sam was girding his loins for an all-out assault against We the People. Apologists for the government loudly proclaimed “nothing to see here…move along.” And the rest of us were left scratching their heads, wondering if this was something to be worried about.
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The government wasn’t much help in getting to the truth. Here’s a helpful suggestion to P.R. flacks shilling for Uncle Sammy – get your stories straight before you talk to the public. The first story we heard was “this is just practice ammo for our security force and field investigators.” Um…really? Look, I know that the Feds are famous for treating our tax dollars as if it’s a limitless resource, but using jacketed hollow points for practice is like buying 64GB iPads and throwing them away because they need to be recharged. JHPs can run over $1/round, even if you don’t buy the cheap stuff. Roundball practice ammo comes a lot cheaper – Walmart sells Winchester “White Box” FMJs for less than $33/per box of 100 rounds. Do the math. Who in their right mind is going to practice with FMJs, when roundball (or wadcutters for that matter) are so much cheaper?
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