Silence of the Homelands: Why is DHS stockpiling guns and ammunition?

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Published time: March 23, 2013 09:01

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Arms, DHS, Human rights, Immigration, Law, Military, Politics, Robert Bridge, USA

The Department of Homeland Security has plans to buy enough ammunition to fight the equivalent of a 24-year Iraq War – on US territory – and even US congressmen don’t understand why.
Smack in the middle of the smoking gun-control debate, and despite deep spending cuts across the American heartland, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wants to buy 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the next five years.
Reports began surfacing in April, 2012 that the DHS, a government agency created in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, had begun arming itself to the teeth. Now, several US congressmen are attempting to get some answers, but so far they have been greeted by a deafening silence.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), Congressman Timothy Huelscamp said the DHS has refused to answer questions from “multiple” members of Congress regarding the plans.
“They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer that,” Huelscamp told Infowars and We Are Change reporter Luke Rudkowski on Friday.
Huelscamp then questioned the stockpiling of bullets at a time when government offices around the country have been forced to tighten their belts as part of the so-called sequestration.
“It comes down to during the budget process, during the appropriations process, are we willing to hold DHS’s feet to the fire,” the Republican asked. “We’re going to find out… I say we don’t fund them until we get an answer.”
Recently, Californian Congressman Doug LaMalfa and 14 other House members wrote a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, in which they suggest that the bullet hoarding is designed to create a shortage of ammunition in the country.

The Department of Homeland Security main complex (U.S. Win McNamee/Getty Images/AFP)

“The extraordinary level of ammunition purchases made by Homeland Security seems to have, in states such as my own, created an extreme shortage of ammunition to the point where many gun owners are unable to purchase any,” LaMalfa wrote.
The congressman asked if the purchases are being conducted in a manner that “strategically denies the American people access to ammunition.”
Peggy Dixon, spokesperson for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, attempted to tamp down the suspicions, telling the Associated Press that training facilities overseen by Homeland Security use as many as 15 million rounds annually, mostly on target practice and training exercises.
Yet everybody from critics to congressmen to conspiracy theorists say the numbers, as well as the government agencies lining up for the ammunition, just don’t make sense.
For example, much of the 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition will go to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal government's second-biggest crime investigative department. Incidentally, ICE is now releasing detained criminal illegal aliens onto US streets due to the wave of budget cuts.
Meanwhile, the Social Security Administration has reportedly purchased 174,000 hollow-point bullets - which are designed to explode on impact for maximum damage - for agents who investigate corruption and other crimes.
But why does this government agency need a type of ammunition for Main Street, USA, that has been categorically banned for use in international war by the Geneva Convention?
As former Marine Richard Mason told WHPTV News in Pennsylvania recently, hollow-point bullets are not the best choice for training purposes because they are more expensive than standard rounds.
"We never trained with hollow points, we didn't even see hollow points my entire four-and-a-half years in the Marine Corps," Mason said.

George Frey/Getty Images/AFP

Moreover, it seems questionable to say that the US government is simply attempting to deprive US gun owners of their ammunition when it is also being reported that the government is buying more than just fully-automatic assault rifles and bullets.
Homeland Security has reportedly acquired an undetermined number of Mine Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles, recently decommissioned from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, where they have been retrofitted for possible use on the streets of America.
“Regardless of the exact number of MRAP’s being delivered to DHS (and evidently some to Police via DHS, as has been observed), why would they need such over-the-top vehicles on US streets to withstand IEDs, mine blasts, and 50-caliber hits to bullet-proof glass,” asked ‘paramilblogger’ Ken Jorgustin in September.
Meanwhile, Forbes magazine, in an article asking for a “national conversation” on the matter, asked “why would DHS need such a vehicle on our streets?”
“It is utterly inconceivable that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is planning a coup d’etat against President Obama and the Congress to install herself as Supreme Ruler of the United States of America,” Ralph Benko wrote in the Forbes op-ed piece. “There, however, are real signs that the department bureaucrats are running amok.” 
Buying 1.6 billion rounds of ammo and deploying armored personnel carriers runs contrary, in every way, to what ‘homeland security’ really means, Benko concluded.
Now, given this spate of unexplained paramilitary purchases, an increasing number of Americans are wondering exactly what the US government is preparing for, especially at a time when Washington seems intent to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment right to arm themselves.