Department of Homeland Security and their ammo
Two sides of the same story depending on who you ask.
From
The Washington Times:
Sequester, tight budgets means DHS buying less ammunition
Homeland Security officials tried to mollify Congress� concerns over the department�s ammunition purchases Thursday, but they may have made things worse by providing conflicting information that left House members fuming.
Department officials testified that their agents and officers average about 1,300 rounds of ammunition a year for training, qualifying and operations � about 1,000 more small-arms rounds than are assigned for every member of the military.
And from
The Washington Free Beacon:
Well-Armed
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reserves the right to buy up to 750 million rounds of ammunition over the next five years and currently has �two years worth� of ammo on hand, or around 247 million rounds in its inventory, the department�s top procurement official said Thursday during congressional testimony.
DHS has already purchased around 41 million rounds of ammunition this year alone, Nick Nayak, DHS�s chief procurement officer, said during an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill. Some $37 million in taxpayer dollars will be spent on the purchase of ammunition in the entirety of fiscal year 2013.
If they have two years on hand, why buy more than a billion additional rounds? Sure, it's great to train -- I recently got a nice CO2 BB gun because it's a lot cheaper than any of my pistol ammunition but expending 1,300 rounds per DHS employee works out to 6.5 rounds for each and every employee per day (200 working days in a year). Is every DHS employee firearm qualified? My guess would be no.
And do not forget that the Sequester is just a 2% reduction in the growth of the Federal budget, it is not a cut.
Posted by DaveH at April 25, 2013 9:15 PM