The Great DHS Ammunition Stockpile Myth

[badrose]

http://nation.foxnews.com/dhs/2013/04/05/great-dhs-ammunition-stockpile-myth

[CitizenBBN]

Raises as many questions as it answers IMO. Like this part:

A well-trained police officer will expend a minimum of 2,000 to 5,000 rounds per year, yet may never fire their weapon in defense. There is a significant disparity between rounds fired for training and those fired in a real world scenario.

Similarly, DHS agencies train quarterly, with an expectation of using 1,000 rounds per year per firearm for training and qualifications, while an officer may never fire a single round from their firearm on duty.

Per suncat that 2K-5K numbers is very high. Lots of questions in his statements. I only skimmed, tied up on some projects, but maybe over the weekend I'll be able to take a closer look.

Part of it is confirmed though, there is just some financial mismanagement here if they're firing their duty HP ammo for practice. FMJ is far cheaper the way they're ordering it, and they could order so as to match recoil with the grain weight of the rounds so I'm not sure firing HP is really necessary. Maybe it's the ideal scenario, but it's also part of why were $16 trillion in debt. 5 million here, 5 million there and pretty soon we're talking about real money. lol.

They also show one order being done by Immigration but if you do the quick math on that being just an ICE order the numbers again don't match up right. I'll look closer this weekend before I form an overall opinion on it.

[Doc]

Well thats no fun.

Party pooper!

[CitizenBBN]

Well thats no fun.

Party pooper!

lol. He isn't there yet. Some of his numbers don't make any more sense than the others.

Personally I hope it's just normal fiscal loose belts and internet rumors and not a buildup of the DHS, but not quite there yet. Not full blown ready to get my tinfoil hat either, but still sifting through the smoke to see if there are any embers.

[suncat05]

Once again, don't want to seem like the conspiracy theorist, but "where there's smoke, there's fire". Not always, but usually, more than not.

Because, at first glance, the numbers don't seem to be even remotely close, not even in another alternative galatic dimension.

[KeithKSR]

Their numbers don't work.

[CitizenBBN]

The "myth" isn't so mythical. DHS continues to play a shell game with Congress on this, with the numbers changing a lot depending on the question. Seems the House is fed up with the lack of a detailed answer, they put an amendment in the DHS budget bill that they can't spend any more on ammo until they submit some real answers.

The amendment blocks funds from being used to buy ammunition until the department submits to Congress a comprehensive report on its ammunition usage and purchase history.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/05/house-votes-to-curb-dhs-stockpiles-ammo/?intcmp=obinsite


if you read that story you see the careful shell game. DHS denied the 1.6 billion figure, you guys no doubt remember that, but in this story we again see that total come up b/c when DHS said they wouldn't be really buying that many bullets over 5 years they didn't mention that ICE (immigration) was separate for purposes of that answer and they'd be buying the other half to get to 1.6 billion.

DHS has said they'll buy 750 million, less than that, 100 million a year, all kinds of answers depending on the day. Even at 750 million if you take out ICE it's still a ton of ammo.

The question they really can't answer is this one: by their own admission they currently have 260 million rounds in inventory. Based on their "we only use 100 million round" answer to the House that means they have a 2.5 year reserve of ammo right now, so why are they buying more this year and every year? How did their 100 million number when pressed by the House get back to 150 million per year over 5 years in the contract, and why won't they provide details about how many are actually expended in detail?

They managed to accumulate a 2 to 3 year supply of ammo and are going to buy enough that they are expanding their reserve based on even their most favorable publicly stated numbers. The 1.6 billion number doesn't appear to be as fictitious as they claimed, a result of a bit of a shell game within the contracting, that half of that isn't "DHS" but is still federal agents. Since ICE is the 2nd largest LE agency in the fed government if you take their agents out of the DHS total for which the 750 million is purposed then how many is that per agent?

I have been suspect of any conspiracy in this area, but as DHS continues to refuse to provide an open and detailed accounting to the House my level of suspicion grows. Given that we now know:

- NSA has been spying on us all for years via approval from a court we didn't even know existed,
- IRS and others are systematically pursuing obvious agendas (whether traced to the White House or not clearly there is an agenda at work),
- ATF approved at the highest levels the running of 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels with no plan for their recovery while they reported the deaths as justification for increased gun restrictions,
- the Dept of State actively has blocked importation of perfectly normal hunting and sporting rifles with no real justification

is it really so far fetched that DHS is buying ammo with an eye to keeping ammo tough to get? We know State has purposefully restricted the availability of weapons that are an incredibly low risk of being involved in any crime and there is a great deal of buzz out there ATF is dragging its heels when possible too, why wouldn't DHS or the White House want to restrict the ammo market as well? Would it be so out of character in a government that thinks nothing of American civil liberties to prepare for upheaval and the need to keep its citizens under control?

As the NYT Editorial Board has said, this Administration has lost all credibility on these issues. Whether one thinks it's a master plan or just normal government purchasing, isn't it right for Congress to demand a detailed explanation in light of the long string of scandals that show this government and this Administration has run amok at the agency level? This is IMO just good oversight by Congress, if for no other reason than to wonder why we're spending money we dont' have on ammo their numbers show we won't need for years.