Who Needs that Much Ammunition

Gun control advocates often freak out when they hear how much ammunition some of us gun owners keep in stock, especially when we shoot competitively. Usually they ask, “Who needs that much ammunition?!” It seems that gun control advocates aren’t the only people asking that question, some members of the state are wondering why other members of the state are buying so much ammunition:

Democratic Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., at the opening of the hearing, ridiculed the concerns as “conspiracy theories” which have “no place” in the committee room.

But Republicans said the purchases raise “serious” questions about waste and accountability.

Chaffetz, who chairs one of the House oversight subcommittees holding the hearing Thursday, revealed that the department currently has more than 260 million rounds in stock. He said the department bought more than 103 million rounds in 2012 and used 116 million that same year — among roughly 70,000 agents.

Comparing that with the small-arms purchases procured by the U.S. Army, he said the DHS is churning through between 1,300 and 1,600 rounds per officer, while the U.S. Army goes through roughly 350 rounds per soldier.

He noted that is “roughly 1,000 rounds more per person.”

“Their officers use what seems to be an exorbitant amount of ammunition,” he said.

It’s rather strange when the military purchases less ammunition per solider than the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) buys per office. Don’t get me wrong, I will often go through more than 1,300 rounds in a shooting season but I’m also footing my own ammunition bill and using my ammunition for sport. In the case of DHS they are expropriating wealth from the general populace to pay for their ammunition purchases and using it to arm agents whose primary job is to expropriate wealth from the general populace. If their agents are going to use ammunition to steal from people they could at least foot the ammunition bill themselves.