Why The Heck Is DHS Buying More Than A Billion Bullets Plus Thousands Of Guns And Mine-Resistant Armored Vehicles?
39 comments, 3 called-out
Comment Now
Follow Comments
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano . (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
First, we hear that DHS is in the process of stockpiling more than 1.6 billion rounds of hollow-point ammunition, along with 7,000 fully-automatic 5.56x45mm NATO “personal defense weapons” plus a huge stash of 30-round high-capacity magazines. Incidentally, those are also known as “assault weapons”, but are not the limited single-fire per trigger-pull semi-automatic types that we civilians are currently allowed to own. By some estimates, that’s enough firepower to fight the equivalent of a 24-year Iraq war.
Then, to cap it off, we find out that DHS, through the U.S. Army Forces Command, recently purchased and retrofitted 2,717 Mine-Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles formerly used for counterinsurgency in Iraq. They are specifically designed to protect occupants from ambush attacks, incorporating bullet-proof windows designed to withstand small-arms fire, such as .223-caliber rifles.
The Investor’s Business Daily quoted Robert Whitaker, a DHS officer stationed in El Paso, Texas, proudly describing these mobile marauding marvels as: “Mine-resistant…we use to deliver our teams to high-risk warrant services…[with] gun ports so we can actually shoot from within the vehicle; you may think it’s pretty loud but actually it’s not too bad…we have gun ports there in the back and two on the sides as well. They are designed for .50-caliber weapons.”
No mention was made of any provisions to outfit the MRAPs with loudspeakers to inform unfortunate warrant resisters of their Miranda rights.
While most fellow shooters I know don’t have occasion to buy many hollow-point rounds (which make large, unsightly holes in people they hit), several have expressed curiosity regarding reasons for soaring ammunition prices and a scarcity of available supplies. One inclination has been to simply attribute these circumstances to a run on gun and ammunition sales provoked by Obamaphobia in general, most recently, exacerbated by opportunistic anti-gun lobby proposals following the Newtown school tragedy in particular.
While President Obama’s influence upon the overall U.S. economy may not inspire much confidence, he at least deserves clear credit for his contributions to the domestic firearms industry, an achievement which began even before he took office. The number of gun dealer requests for customer background checks through the National Instant Background Check (NICS) system rose 49% during the week before he was elected in 2008 compared with the same week one year earlier.
And why might that be? Perhaps partly because of a time between 1998 and 2001 when he served along with Bill Ayres and his current senior advisor Valery Jarrett on the 10-member board of the radically anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago…a period when that organization contributed more than $18 million in grants to anti-Second Amendment causes. And maybe because a former Illinois State Senator Barack Obama voted four times against legislation giving gun owners an affirmative defense… even when they used firearms to defend themselves and their families against home invaders and burglars.
But forget about that old history stuff. Maybe some folks remain confused about what he really meant during 2008 campaign remarks, when speaking in Colorado, then-presidential candidate Obama said: “We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”
Huh?
It probably didn’t help to alleviate gun rights concerns when, during a private San Francisco meeting on April 6 of that same year, candidate Obama spoke of “small towns in Pennsylvania” and the Midwest beset by job losses in a changing economy where: “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment.”
Nor was it comforting when a 2009 DHS report titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalism and Recruitment” indicated that conservatives and the unemployed represent a clear and present danger. It warned: “The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.” It also concluded that “rightwing extremism” may include “groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”
So, just who, after all, exhibits the most compelling evidence of unjustifiable paranoia? And which is more dangerous…a paranoid government, or a wary citizenry?
Okay, let’s take a deep breath and realize that all this speculation about DHS armament purchases being earmarked for an Orwellian national security force probably rises to a few floors over the top of rational alarm. We should also understand that other government agencies began purchasing large amounts of ammo at the same time as DHS. A big difference, however, is that they have offered reasons for doing so, while DHS has made a point not to. For example, the Social Security Administration issued a post on its official blog explaining that the ammunition they purchased was “standard issue” used by special agents during “mandatory quarterly firearms qualifications and other training sessions, to ensure agent and public safety.”
As reported by the U.S. Bureau of Statistics in 2008, 73 federal law enforcement agencies then employed approximately 120,000 armed full-time on-duty officers with arrest authority. Of the four largest, two under the DHS and two in the Department of Justice employed four-fifths of the total. That obviously represents a lot of guns, and demands an enormous amount of practice ammo. It’s also appropriate to consider that in order to ensure adequate supplies will be available, government agencies must place large orders from commercial suppliers well in advance of the time they are needed.
Still, despite active public inquiry, DHS has not only remained silent, but has gone so far as to literally black out information regarding its purchases. Such redactions are only supposed to be allowed when authorized by Congress or for national security reasons. In at least one solicitation, the DHS asserted that its contract to purchase ammunition on behalf of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) was not subject to “full and open competition”, claiming that the waver was justified by an “unusual and compelling urgency” to acquire bullets. They noted that a shortage could cause “substantial safety issues for the government” should law enforcement officials not be adequately armed.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know what constitutes the nature of that unusual and compelling urgency? One that additionally warranted the purchase of nearly three thousand armored mine-resistant vehicles with multiple gun ports to accommodate 50-caliber weapons?
And how can we afford these expenditures now at a time of that looming financial sequestration apocalypse the president has been incessantly lamenting? Remember? That one that which will cause us to gut our military budget, release illegal prisoners who have been arrested for additional undisclosed crimes, and will even necessitate discontinuing public White House tours?
Why The Heck Is DHS Buying More Than A Billion Bullets Plus Thousands Of Guns And Mine-Resistant Armored Vehicles?
Page 2 of 2
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the Obama administration
now plans to save money by furloughing 60,000 border protection and
customs agents. But then, this raises a couple more questions. Won’t
that introduce more bad people into the country who will have to be
served with warrants, jailed and then, of course, released to reduce
costs? And might it also produce a shortage of people to drive all those
mine-resistant armored vehicles, manipulate their onboard 50-caliber
guns, and shoot those billions of bullets out of the high-capacity
magazines provided with the new rapid-fire assault rifles we are buying
them?Perhaps some of you, like me, may find the logic behind many of these policies somewhat bewildering. But if you happen to be one of us, let’s not jump to a conclusion that this involves anything “conspiratorial” on the part of government leadership. Instead, it might be more appropriate to apply a different term.
What about “stupid”?
Correction: An early version of this article cited a report that DHS had also purchased an additional 21.6 million bullets. This number appears to be incorrect. The actual number shown on the purchase invoice released is approximately 240,000 additional rounds.
