The speculation about why the US Department of Homeland Security would want to buy another 1.6 billion (with a b) rounds of ammunition over the next few years as been ‘enthusiastic’-if not just creepy at times, but worry not, they have put the issue to rest.
The Homeland Security Department wants to buy more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition in the next four or five years. It says it needs them — roughly the equivalent of five bullets for every person in the United States — for law enforcement agents in training and on duty.
The article goes on to tell us that they spend about 15 million rounds annually on training. Just for perspective during the Iraq war the US military used about 70 million if the rumors are true. It looks like the pre-Obama military (in response to the needs of the global war on terror) were placing its orders in the 100 million rounds a year range, though I suspect that figure is a bit soft. And if you want more perspective, even if DHS and its associated agencies used up 20 million rounds a year on practice fun and friends it would take them 80 years to use up the 1.6 billion rounds they’ve requested.
Democrats can’t even write a budget for the next 12 months, why is Obama’s DHS contracting ammo purchases to cover the rest of the century?
So this does not suggest that the conspiracy theorists are necessarily wrong. They are stockpiling ammo, either to defend against something or to attack something.
Further along the article breaks down the buy but not to my immediate satisfaction. budget ever having been passed for almost four years now, to just order up that much ordinance for ‘training and duty’ is absurd.
Immigration enforcement is getting 450 million rounds of duty ammunition and 200 million rounds of rifle ammunition over the next five years. 650 million rounds for ICE? Obama’s ICE isn’t allowed to shoot anyone any more than soldiers in theater are. And that’s not likely to change until we figure out what the progressive 5-year plan for ammo buys is really all about.
Meanwhile, anyone with a more concrete grasp of what the feds typically purchase for the military and law enforcement, pre-Obama, Pre-obama trying to put a crimp in the stride of the clingers, please feel free to share that. Any details on annual total ammo production over the last decade, anything that can put this into perspective is appreciated.
I’m happy to be wrong about the size of this order or the idea that the Feds are trying to make it harder for the rest of us to buy our own but 1.6 billion is only a small number when we talk about Democrats spending our money.
Exit Question; Or are they as careless and wasteful with ammunition as they are with our tax dollars? (which, funny thing, they are spending to buy 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. Irony.)
