Why does Homeland Security need 1.4 billion rounds of ammunition?

[Jesse]

that dont seem like much if you think about all the soldiers around the country using it for practice etc...

[Reservoir Dog]

Just as a thought, perhaps the DHS is not buying all this ammo for its own use. Since "enemy combatants" are not covered under the Hauge Conventions it would not be against international conventions to use hollow point ammunition in fighting them. It is not uncommon, so I have read, for the Government to budget money for one organisation that is actually to be spent on a "Black Project". DHS may be purchasing this ammo for DOD and the bureaucrat who thought this up may have thought that this was the best way to hide it. Or it could be just end of the fiscal year spending.

You spend far too much time on websites like WND and Alex Jones. DHS is simply buying ammo for their agencies. Nothing more.

Here's what the NRA has to say about it.....

http://www.nraila.or...ammunition.aspx

Excellent explanation. Hopefully people will read it. It's sad when our representatives and the NRA have to take time away from legitimate issues to deal with this tinfoil BS.

[QuietDan]

From the NRA article: If DHS were to purchase all 450 million rounds over 5 years, then that would equate to only about 1,384 rounds of ammo per year per law enforcement [officer] … assuming the lower estimate of only 65,000 law enforcement personnel at DHS. Considering those agents go through training exercises several times per year, that is not a lot of ammunition.

Therefore, using the same numbers, 1.4 Billion rounds over five years would equate to about 4305 rounds of ammo per year per law enforcement [officer].

I leave it to others to note whether or not 4305 rounds per year per officer is excessive . . . or not.

Edited September 23, 2012 by QuietDan

[TMF]

Here's what the NRA has to say about it.....

http://www.nraila.or...ammunition.aspx

Facts.... ppffft.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Yeh, good explanation, but why, all of a sudden would this or other rumors start. These things aren't usually

broadcast to the public, are they. if they're routine?

Someone just needs to find out who started this one and cut his legs off.

[vontar]

Good read on that NRA article.

[DaveTN]

Facts.... ppffft.

I know.

[gregintenn]

Be careful bringing this subject up....one of the moderators locked my thread up because of this. I brought this up before and asked the same question. It makes no sense. You do not train with the rounds that you carry....that makes no sense at all and its an expense that any government agency would automaticly deny. How do you practice with hallowpoints....its just not done......you practice with the cheapest rounds possible, then carry the rounds you feel neccessary to nuetralize the threat you feel that you think you will encounter. Makes you wonder what threat do they think they will encounter. Mine covered the Social Security Agency departments questionable purchase, maybe they will leave your thread alone....good luck.

I disagree. I believe you should, indeed, practice with what you carry. My kids don't practice baseball with walnuts; they use baseballs!

[Guest robin.kempton]

I guess its me being military....it just doesn't make sense to shoot paper targets with hollowpoints.It just doesn't compute....sorry. Maybe one day it will all make sense, then again.....it is a government agency we are talking about. I could understand if you were shooting dead pigs or cows....but paper targets, nope it still doesn't compute. I think the military did this to me...my apologies fellow shooters.

[RichardR]

1.4 Billion (with a simply put is a staggering amount of ammunition for "domestic law enforcement" a branch of our armed forces buying this enormous amount of ammunition probably wouldn't raise any eyebrows but we are not talking about this ammunition being used over in Iraq or Afganistan, this ammunition is for use here on US soil, by domestic law enforcement agents, assumably against US citizens.

There are no other conclusions, that is it's purpose.

Now with that said, what specific reason would preempt our government to procure such a vast stockpile of ammunition for domestic use, when there (to my knowledge) never been a shortage of ammunition in the supply to any of our law enforcement agencies or academies?

It is not like our police forces are in constant short supply of anything, let alone in constant short supply of ammunition.

The whole "nothing to see here, move along" explination just isn't cutting it with some folks, there is a genuine concern that there is preparation and planning for large scale "civil unrest" by our government, and I personally think that concern is looking more and more legitimate and not just wingnut tin-foil hattery.

I for one would like a better explaination than the "everything is fine, situation normal" Han Solo one.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

There were some speculations that some of the ammo in the big dhs order might get drop-shipped places like Syria which would kinda-sorta make sense if we wanted to buy syrian revolutionaries ammo. Reagan's arms trading with central american insurgents, iran and afghanistan weren't all exactly straight-line transactions from point a to point b. Just saying, there seems precedent for such shenanigans, not that we are currently doing such or that it would be good or bad if'n we are doing it.

Is it really true that there is any reason hollow point ammo would be more than miniscule more expensive to manufacture in giant gov orders? Does it really cost any more to manufacture jacketed hollow-point 124gn 9mm bullets compared to 124gn jacketed round nose? Materials consumption near identical in copper and lead, and does a hollow-point bullet stamper machine cost more or operate more slowly than a round-nose stamper machine?

A civilian can shoot practice ammo that is light-loaded, and most defense hollow-point tends to be +P or better, so a civilian practice round would use slightly less powder, but it is a tiny differential because there is only a grain or two difference between a light load and a stiff load. Presumably premium self-defense ammo has "higher quality control" and some of the premium hollow point bullets cost more for a civilian to buy. OTOH usually a Rainier plated soft lead hollow point costs exactly the same as a Rainier soft lead plated round nose of the same weight. For that matter, a round nose or flat point XTP usually has the exact same (high) price as hollow point XTP. Hornady just likes to charge for those bullet styles to civilians. Ain't sayin we get "ripped off" buying the gold dot or XTP hollow points, but maybe the profit margin is higher on those kind of bullets, in cases when they are more expensive?

Selling a big enough quantity to the gov, maybe the ammo plants wouldn't have a big price differential between round nose vs hollow point? The NATO loaded round nose ammo is stiff +P already as far as I can tell. Velocity ranges as fast as defense ammo, and ferinstance the "for civilian sale" NATO loaded winchester ammo warns don't shoot it in an old gun, that it has pressures higher than SAAMI standards. Just sayin, the round nose gov stuff is already hot as a firecracker, so maybe putting a hollow point in the same load wouldn't have much affect on the price?

[RichardR]

Lester, I am sure that they got bulk pricing, but unlikely that they got premium ammo for the same price they would have gotten the same amount of cheaper target ammo for, premium ammunition will always cost more to manufacture than cheap target stuff, especially if we are talking about a billion and a half rounds of ammunition, even just a few extra grains of powder would add up to an extra couple of train cars full of powder, and a miniscule 1 extra second per bullet of additional manufacturing would end up costing thousands of hours in extra processing.

Anyway I dont think that very many of those Syrian rebels are armed with .40, 5.56 & .308 caliber weapons, while those calibers are very popular here in the States they are not all that common in that part of the world where soviet era designed weapons are more commonplace, I think it is safe to say that this ammunition is intended to be used right here in the US.

[diablo982]

All I'm seeing is tax money being spent on U.S. businesses, hopefully keeping more Americans employed. I'd rather have my tax dollars go toward American employees with Federal and Remington rather than the wonderful citizens of Pakistan.

[Guest Wildogre]

You spend far too much time on websites like WND and Alex Jones. DHS is simply buying ammo for their agencies. Nothing more.

I am sorry I was not clear in my comments. I used the term "Black Project" meaning Covert nothing sinister much like Stealth was a "Black Project". I consider WND only slightly more factual than "The Onion"

[hornett22]

There were lots of good reasons given last time around. Is this a new order?

Also remember, this is the end of the fiscal year, meaning that gov agencies need to spend whatever is in their budgets so they don't get reduced next year. I know that sounds stoopid and wasteful, because it is, but having been a useless gov employee once, I can remember on many occasions sitting in a meeting in September regarding how much we need to spend and how quick we need to spend it.

And regarding the fact they purchased HP ammo, it really means nothing. The other thread has all the explanations so I'm not retyping it. The thing to remember, if your job is turning wrenches on an aircraft, you have to accept the possibility that you don't understand the intricacies and inner workings of an organization that has multiple agencies under their wing. Perhaps, just perhaps, there are reasonable answers out there if you just look.

That is called stealing in my book.

[TMF]

That is called stealing in my book.

Sure. Every organization in the government does it. In fact, I've seen it used as career stumper before, where an individual that had such an excess that wasn't used at the end of the year ended up with a negative bullet on their evaluation report because it caused the budget for the next year to be lower. The system is actually set up to encourage waste, and not doing so could cost you a promotion or position. Is it right? No, of course not. Is it normal? Absolutely.

[leroy]

They need this ammo to practice with in the secret war games they are staging to inter us all into the FEMA Camps after the Nobama election riots of late 2012 and early 2013.

They need the practice. After all, it took two NY policemen, 15 to 17 shots, and 9 wounded passerbys to get one bad guy in new york the other day. They will confiscate the next one billion rounds of ammo right after the election. I would recommend checking to see if they have bought a billion gallons of aviation fuel for the FEMA black helicopters.

.....looney leroy opining from the supersecret bunker deep in the hills of east tennessee. ....

My real advice; quit worrying about this. We are an armed society. Who is gonna come and take your guns? More importantly, who is gonna suspend the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the State and Federal courts??? Who is gonna run over all the individual state governments and local police and sheriff departments to do all this bad stuff???

Food for thought.

leroy

[RichardR]

I don't think its "loony" to ask questions or to speculate about something as potentially as serious a topic as this could turn out to be.

Especially when it has been the stated goal of this administration (paraphrasing:) "to create a national police force, just as strong and just as well armed as our armed forces".

That isn't tin-foil hattery, that's just what the President said he thought this nation needed.

Personally I don't think we need a domestic militarized national police force that rivals the worlds most powerful military in size & strength, but there is no denying that our current President does and these ammunition purchases would be in-line with those stated goals he laid out for us.

Why he believes we need a domestic police force of that massive size & strength can only be speculated on, but there is no rational explanation that I can come up with other than to quell some sort of large scale civil unrest that has not yet occured yet.

Think about that for a few minutes and let that sink in.

They need this ammo to practice with in the secret war games they are staging to inter us all into the FEMA Camps after the Nobama election riots of late 2012 and early 2013.

They need the practice. After all, it took two NY policemen, 15 to 17 shots, and 9 wounded passerbys to get one bad guy in new york the other day. They will confiscate the next one billion rounds of ammo right after the election. I would recommend checking to see if they have bought a billion gallons of aviation fuel for the FEMA black helicopters.

.....looney leroy opining from the supersecret bunker deep in the hills of east tennessee. ....

My real advice; quit worrying about this. We are an armed society. Who is gonna come and take your guns? More importantly, who is gonna suspend the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the State and Federal courts??? Who is gonna run over all the individual state governments and local police and sheriff departments to do all this bad stuff???

Food for thought.

leroy

[leroy]

....I don't think its "loony" to ask questions or to speculate about something as potentially as serious a topic as this could turn out to be. ....

Especially when it has been the stated goal of this administration (paraphrasing:) "to create a national police force, just as strong and just as well armed as our armed forces".

That isn't tin-foil hattery, that's just what the President said he thought this nation needed.

Personally I don't think we need a domestic militarized national police force that rivals the worlds most powerful military in size & strength, but there is no denying that our current President does and these ammunition purchases would be in-line with those stated goals he laid out for us.

Why he believes we need a domestic police force of that massive size & strength can only be speculated on, but there is no rational explanation that I can come up with other than to quell some sort of large scale civil unrest that has not yet occured yet.

Think about that for a few minutes and let that sink in. ...

Richard:_____________

I didnt intend to stir up a hornet's nest or offend sensibilities with the first part of the post; it was an attempt at humor. Havin said that; the second part of the post is why i dont believe what some here believe they would like to do cannot be done. I'm in agreement with your opinions of what this bunch of would be dictators and autocrats would do if they could; i simply dont believe they can.

Here are some details of why i think they cant do what they dream of; and it contains a bit of a history lesson. A variation on the nobama dream scheme of declaring martial law and enforcment via a national police force in the good ole USA was tried by the feds (...and some state governments...) in the union unrest strired up by the "Reds" and the "One Big Union" bunch from about the time of the 1890's thru the 1920's here in the usa when socialism was in vogue.

The trouble started in the coal fields of West Virginia with the "mine wars" and spread out to the western states (...think west coast and colorado fuel and iron here...). The individual states and sometimes the federal government stepped in and declared martial law in the places where the unrest was the hottest; especially in West Virginia in the Cabin Creek and Paint Creek territories. Folks were, indeed, interred, and sentenced to prison without benefit of a "real trial" by military tribunal; including that noted radical union organizer "Mother Jones". Every one of these sentences were later reversed by none other than the Supreme Court of the United States. The court ruled that military sentences could not be handed down without proper trial in the state courts (...think "Due Process" here....). They further stated in general terms that "military tribunals" could not be convened and do their arbitrary sentencing as long as the local and state courts were functioning. They were functioning in this case. Said another way, the government just couldnt declare martial law and do away with the local and state courts. Another point to remember, is that the state government is the principal keeper of the peace in each state; not the federal government. The state government has to ask the fed in.

I'm sure there are those who will opine that the Patriot Act allows for a "swift federal acton" in time of chaos (...whatever that is....). My guess is that the only place this can work out is in the big inner city locations with blue state governors and blue state mayors. I simply dont see this kind of thing happening where people who believe liberty live. I dont necessarily like our congressmen nor our present governor; but i simply dont see them goin along with any of this "swift federal action" stuff.

It also appears that the Federal Appleals Court aint buyin this Patriot Act bunk either.... . A major portion of the "....were gonna hold 'em without trial or without charges 'cause they are suspected terrorists who happen to be american citzens..." provision wuz struck down the other day; and it appears that the "IN"Justice Department aint goinna appeal the decision. They knew it was unconstitutional to begin with.

Do i believe that watchin what the government does and being suspicious of it is a good thing? You bet. They know we are watchin; and that's a good thing. Do i believe that opining on in in a forum like the TGO Forum is a good thing? You bet!!!

Hope this asuages a bit of indignation.

leroy

[Guest robin.kempton]

Just my personal opinion and nothing else....I don't want anything to do with those FEMA camps.....I can take care of myself and my family just fine.....the words in the back of my head keep going round and round......"Its just a train ride to a work camp" 1940's Germany.......nope, not me....no thanks. Yes, I'm a bit paranoid but its kept me alive this long. Good luck with that. Have you seen the size of those camps....they are freaking huge. I'll just wonder around in the hills of Tennessee with the rest of you folks and observe the madness....thank you very much. I've been to the ones in Germany.....too much simularity. See ya'll up in the mountains...just say hi when we pass.

[RichardR]

Thanks for the clarification Leroy, I enjoyed reading it.

I haven't really delved too deeply into this topic beyond publically speculating that the only rational reason for these massive amounts of ammunition (slated for Homeland Security use) is clearly because of our current Presidents stated goal of creating a "super-sized" national police force.

And that the only rational explaination that I can think of for creating such a powerful police force would have to be to quell future civil unrest, but it would have to be such wide spread civil unrest on a scale of/that which existing law enforcement agencies/national guardsmen would be unable to control.

As to the potential causes of such future civil unrest? I (intentional or unintentional, result is still the same) collapse of our monetary system ranks as the most likely, unfortunately zombie virus outbreak is probably the least likely.

But to be honest I haven't really put much thought into what our judicial branch of government would do in such a crisis, especially if some of those black robed folks who ruled wrongly simply started dissappearing like what historically has happened in other "coups" but alas I am not sure that I want to go down that particular rabbit hole with any speculation, at least not just yet, that still seems a bit tin-foily to me at this point.

I am enjoying the conversation though.

[leroy]

Richard:____________

Thanks for the kind comments. If you are interested in this sort of stuff; i would recommend that you get this book: http://www.amazon.co...a, howard b lee

The title is "Bloodletting is Appalachia" by Howard B. Lee. Mr Lee wuz a lawyer (...he is long dead...), a West Virginia native, and an active participant in the legal issues surrounding the "Mine Wars" and the martial law issues. It is a great read. The cost, a whopping $12.00 dollars plus shipping.

Highly recommended.

leroy

Edited September 24, 2012 by leroy

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Yeh, Leroy was poking a little fun. I know because he and I usually ask the same questions.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Lester, I am sure that they got bulk pricing, but unlikely that they got premium ammo for the same price they would have gotten the same amount of cheaper target ammo for, premium ammunition will always cost more to manufacture than cheap target stuff, especially if we are talking about a billion and a half rounds of ammunition, even just a few extra grains of powder would add up to an extra couple of train cars full of powder, and a miniscule 1 extra second per bullet of additional manufacturing would end up costing thousands of hours in extra processing.

Thanks RichardR. I'm ignorant of it, but when I blow thru a lot of practice ammo it is plinking recreation. Perhaps my wastage results in slightly better proficiency or perhaps enjoyable recreation is the main tangible benefit. I'd suspect that someone practicing "for keeps" professional suvival would want to always practice with ammo that behaves exactly the same as combat munitions? Same point of aim, recoil, etc?

Maybe that isn't true, and it would be just as good practice doing war games with wimpy ammo then only use the good stuff when it matters. Dunno. The NATO round nose stuff is already loaded hot as a firecracker , so you are already using those extra boxcars of powder regardless the shape of the bullet. You are using the same weight of lead and copper regardless whether the bullet has a hollow or round nose.

Anyway I dont think that very many of those Syrian rebels are armed with .40, 5.56 & .308 caliber weapons, while those calibers are very popular here in the States they are not all that common in that part of the world where soviet era designed weapons are more commonplace, I think it is safe to say that this ammunition is intended to be used right here in the US.

That is a good point.

My real advice; quit worrying about this. We are an armed society. Who is gonna come and take your guns? More importantly, who is gonna suspend the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the State and Federal courts??? Who is gonna run over all the individual state governments and local police and sheriff departments to do all this bad stuff???

Thanks Leroy. I've never had a good grasp of reality, what is possible or likely.

An assault on the populace commanded by intellects cunning as Generals Holder and Nepolitano would be a bit disorganized and inefficient. Dunno if state and local law enforcement accustomed to duties of writing crime reports, resolving domestic disputes, issuing traffic citations, collecting taxes and fees, would be better organized or more efficient than the fed brown shirts. They are good enough at what they do, but standing up to feds is not in their usual job description and so it is difficult to imagine how well they would do that job.

For one thing they are in habit of cooperating with the feds, so it would be a shifting of mental gears to go into reverse, which would take some time. Each local authority would adapt at a different rate and different depts of the highway patrol or different sheriffs would decide different ways of response, wheras the feds would be presumably "top down" following orders, though they would be following incompetent orders, with incompetent and uneven following of the orders.

Unless armed civilians could be quickly organized and led by local/state authorities, and enough civilians would decide to cooperate with local authorities, resistance of civilians would complicate the situation. Except for a tiny subset of civilians in informal militias, the civilians are not organized at all. I may be giving too little respect to the informal militias, but would expect them to by-and-large do uproductive actions, at least early on. Even small neighborhood units where the civilians can constructively agree and cooperate might be the exception rather than the rule. Even if the majority of neighborhoods could effectively organize, each neighborhood would likely develop different policies and actions.

The disorganized anarchy of various civilian groups might frighten state and local authorities into cooperating with the feds in imposing order. Disorder and fragmentation of neighborhoods might serve to unify feds, state and local authorities to "impose order". In that case, feds and locals would be on "the same page".

The problems might be brought about by people on the top who have just as poor a grasp on reality as anyone else. A man who spends his time at press club comedy banquets, high-security golf games, jetting around to read teleprompter to vast drooling audiences, having private pop music concerts at the white house, dining with similarly out-of-touch foreign dignitaries, captains of industry and labor leaders, occasionally attending meetings where underlings tell him how great everything is going, spending idle fun time picking targets for drone hits and enjoying drone video of the snuff scenes. Such a fella might not have a firm enough grasp on reality to know that it could be a bad idea to command esteemed Generals Holder and Nepolitano to poke the hornets nest with a stick.

[RichardR]

That book sounds very interesting, thanks for the recommendation Leroy.

As far as Homeland Security buying 1.4 billion rounds worth of "carry" ammunition, it is at the very least curious in nature and absolutely terrifying to think about at it's very worst.

I am not sure which way to feel at this point, but I can't shake the same sort of feeling of impending dread that some folks must have also been feeling in Germany circa mid 1930's.

I sure hope I am wrong, but I am seeing the same sort of "blame those people over there for all of your problems" rhetoric & policies that they did so I can't help but wonder just how far this administration is willing to go down that same road.

If Jeremia Wright & Bill Ares (sp) are any indication of just how radical this President's administration could be, than I am afraid that they might be willing to travel all of the way down that exact same road in order to get the nation to where they want this nation to be.

Which is not anything remotely like it is or ever has been before.