Supply of ammunition at many gun stores is running low for anyone who wants to buy it. But not for the government.
There's a bullet buying spree going on right now by the Department of Homeland Security.
It’s becoming a common problem at retails stores and ranges across the country, they have no ammunition.
“They come in, they want ammo, we don’t have ammo,” explained Scott McCurley, Sales Manager at Horst and McCann Firearms.
But the Department of Homeland Security appears to be on a buying spree
Their most recent request is for ten million rounds of hollow point bullets for a 40 caliber pistol, another ten million rounds for a 9 millimeter, plus 1.6 million pistol cartridge 9mm *ball* bullets. And that’s just this year.
Last March, DHS bought 450 million bullets and in September, another 200 million.
That's in addition to the reported 1.6 billion rounds the government already had ordered.
During the height of the Iraq War, U.S. soldiers used about five and a half million rounds of ammunition every month. If you do the math here, that means the Dept. of Homeland Security has enough bullets to wage a full scale war for the next 30 years.
DHS says the bullets are needed for training, but military veteran Richard Mason is doubtful.
“We never trained with hollow points, we didn’t even see hollow points my entire four and a half years in the Marine Corps,” stated Military Vet Richard Mason. “Why would they need all those hollow points, why would the need all those ball rounds just for training?”
Sales manager Scott McCurley says it’s been a hot topic of conversation at his gun range.
“It takes a lot of ammunition to run,” McCurley admitted. “15 million, I’ll give you 20 million, but when you start getting into the billions in one year. That’s not training. That’s excessive waste.”
Even some state lawmakers aren’t convinced.
“It serves one purpose, it’s subterfuge,” commented Michael Smigiel. “It’s to keep it from being able to get out to the public, to raise the cost up.”
“Within the first month of 2013 we’re talking about the fiscal cliff, we’re talking about sequestration, somehow the Dept of Homeland Security has enough money to buy 22 million rounds of ammunition,” McCurley concluded.
According to the National Rifle Association, the ammunition buy-up should not be cause for concern.
They said: “hollow-points are the defensive ammunition of choice for federal, state and local law enforcement officers across the country, just as they are for private citizens.”
