Tag Archives: ammo

Activism, Business, Civil Liberties, Economy, Editor’s Pick, Featured, Government Accountability, Government Corruption, Gun Rights, Politics, US

Washington Gun Show Defies State Law, Will Not Require Background Checks

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Yakima, Wash. – Despite a new state law that expands background checks beyond federal requirements, the patriot group Liberty For All is hosting a gun show that will allow gun sales without background checks.

The Arms Expo 2015 will be held June 20-21 in Yakima and its organizers have presented it as a “liberty market and gun show” and a “patriot campout for the whole family” that will not comply with Initiative 594, a controversial new law expanding background checks in the state of Washington.

Guns.com reported that Initiative 594 was “backed extensively by a core group of billionaires and national gun control groups,” and after it was passed in November 2014, it resulted in “protests that have drawn thousands.”

Shayne Downing, the owner of Tactical Supply and a sponsor of the Arms Expo told NBC Right Now that he expects a large turnout at the event, because when Initiative 594 passed, many individuals were upset.

“The no background checks has been occurring for as long as this country has been around, so it’s nothing new,” Downing said. “Gun shows have been operating this way for quite some time now until recently, unfortunately that changed.”

Kit Lange, one of the organizers of the event, told Ammoland.com, “the point of Arms Expo is liberty.”

“We have the right to self-defense and the duty to resist unconstitutional law,” Lange said. “The expo will allow people to come and not only experience true liberty, but will also learn how to apply that liberty in their everyday lives, network with other like-minded people, and learn some new skills.”

According to the event’s website, while private sales of guns will be welcome, organizers also “encourage commercial vendors to refuse unconstitutional laws and background checks, and encourage patriots to support those bold vendors as well as buy from each other in defiance of lawless legislation.”

Mike Vanderboegh, the operator of the blog Sipsey Street Irregulars and one of the speakers at the event, told Guns.com that he thinks non-compliance is a “logical step to help defeat draconian gun laws.”

“The Arms Expo in Yakima is just the latest example of the nationwide campaign of armed civil disobedience in the wake of the unconstitutional state laws passed in the anti-firearm hysteria after Sandy Hook,” Vanderboegh said.

While there is speculation as to how law enforcement will respond to the Arms Expo’s non-compliance with the law on background checks, Mike Bastinelli, a spokesperson for the Yakima Police Department told NBC Right Now that they do not plan on patrolling the event.

“The Yakima Police Department has never policed gun shows and we have no intention to start doing that despite this new law that we believe is going to be challenged in courts,” Bastinelli said. “It’s really the responsibility of the people putting on the gun shows to police themselves.”

Civil Liberties, Gun Rights, Politics, US

House Passes Rep. Massie’s Amendment to Block ATF from Banning Common Rifle Ammo

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Last Wednesday, the US House of Representatives passed an amendment, originally introduced by Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) into the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) appropriations bill, that would block the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives from retroactively redefining common rifle ammo as “armor piercing” in an effort to use a legal loophole to ban bullets through the executive branch. The legislative push to protect rifle ammo comes on the heels of a failed Obama administration effort to direct the ATF to ban .223-caliber M855 “green tip” rounds, which are popular among AR-15 enthusiasts.

In addition to Massie’s amendment, two other pro-gun amendments were tacked on to the CJS appropriations bill. “Congressman Richard Hudson (R-NC) introduced an amendment that would prevent any M855 or SS109 (.223 caliber / 5.56mm x 45mm) type rifle ammunition from being treated as ‘armor piercing’ ammunition. This comes after the [ATF] backed off a controversial proposal in March to restrict the popular M855/SS109 ammunition. Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) introduced an amendment that would overturn a 2014 administrative ban on 7N6 type (5.45mm x 39mm) ammunition. Both the Hudson amendment and the Gosar amendment passed by voice vote,” read a press release from Representative Massie’s office.

While the Gosar and Hudson amendments directly target the specific ammo bans recently attempted by the executive branch, Congressman Massie’s amendment more broadly prevents the ATF from redefining rifle ammo as armor piercing in the event that a firearms company manufactures a pistol capable of firing the type of rounds in question.

[RELATED: ATF Director Resigns Amid Controversy Over Backdoor Ammo Ban]

“The administration has banned, and threatens to ban, common rifle ammunition using an overly broad interpretation of a law that was written for handgun ammunition. My amendment uses the congressional power of the purse to defund ammunition bans from the executive branch,” said Congressman Thomas Massie.

The text of Representative Massie’s amendment states, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to treat ammunition as armor piercing for purposes of chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, except for ammunition designed and intended for use in a handgun (in accordance with 18 U.S.C. section 921(a)(17)).”

Townhall notes that supporters of the abandoned ATF plan to ban common rifle ammo argued that the commercial development of AR-15 handguns transformed “green tip” rounds into armor piercing bullets and that banning them would save the lives of law enforcement officers.

According to The Washington Times, “AR-15 ‘handguns’ are nearly 2 feet long and weigh about 6 pounds, making them difficult to conceal [like a traditional handgun].”

The CJS appropriations bill passed the House by a vote of 242 to 183. The pro-gun amendments must pass the Senate before the appropriations bill would be sent to President Obama’s desk.

Gun Rights, US

ATF could ban .223 ammunition by reclassification

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This article has a correction. Please click HERE to read.

 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has released a plan which would reclassify the popular .223 (M855) round as an armor piercing round.

This particular ammo type is most commonly used in all AR-15 style rifles, and if the ammo were to be reclassified, these firearms would be rendered obsolete without the proper ammo.

Reclassification of the .223 round as an armor piercing round would effectively ban sales of the round to all civilians under the Gun Control Act of 1968. The GCA says any ammo “primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes,” is the only ammo allowed to be sold to the general public. The ATF defines armor piercing rounds, though, as any ammo which is meant to penetrate body armor and was manufactured for military or police use.

However, the GCA was amended in 1986 to allow exceptions in the original Act. The amended Act, therefore, allows armor piercing rounds to be sold to”government agencies,” as well as “for testing or experimentation authorized by the Attorney General.” 

The NRA Institute for Legislative Action though, is calling the new ban a “continuation of Obama’s use of his executive authority to impose gun control restrictions and bypass Congress.”

The NRA-ILA also said by definition, the .223 (M855) round cannot be classified as armor piercing because the law lists a number of metals, such as tungsten alloy, steel, or even depleted uranium, which are used in the cores of armor piercing rounds. The .223 (M855) round however has a traditional lead core with a steel tip, and “therefore should never be considered ‘armor piercing,'” according to the NRA-ILA.

The ATF has said they will accept comments on the new framework for 30 days, and the comments will be taken into consideration for the final draft of the framework.

 

This article has a correction. Please click HERE to read.

Featured, Politics, US

Waste Report: Dept. of Defense to Spend $1 Billion Destroying $16 Billion Worth of Ammo

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Senator Tom Coburn issues an annual report on wasteful federal spending which he calls the “Wastebook,” and his office released the 2014 edition today. A video trailer for it can be seen in the above-embedded video player. The 2014 Wastebook contains a mind-numbing display of absurdities in government waste, from studies on “hangry” couples stabbing voodoo dolls to NASA’s “launchpad to nowhere.” However, the report also tallied the final costs of the Pentagon’s program to destroy $16 billion worth of potentially-usable ammunition that it no longer intends to use: $1 billion.

Back in April of this year, USA Today reported on the conundrum, though cost estimates at the time were unclear due to the Department of Defense’s poor record keeping on ammunition inventories. In fact, this ineffective accounting may have led to the ammunition over-purchases in the first place. USA Today cited a Government Accountability Office report which said that officials often buy excess ammunition when supplies are already sufficient “because the Army does not report information on all available and usable items.” The same GAO report also noted that the Army does not tell the DOD how many missiles it has in its stockpile, which “risks other services spending additional funds to procure missiles that are already unused and usable in the Army’s stockpile.” The DOD’s antiquated record keeping system requires other military branches to submit ammo requests to the Army via email, which then have to be printed out and typed into a different database, as the Navy, Air Force, and Marines have outdated inventory systems that can not share directly with the Army’s master list.

A GAO audit cited by Coburn’s 2014 Wastebook stated, “According to an Army financial statement in June 2013, the Army had about 39 percent of its total inventory (valued at about $16 billion) in a storage category for ammunition items that were excess to all the services’ requirements.” Some of the ammo is being decommissioned due to international treaties that ban their use. Coburn’s report noted that “the amount of surplus ammunition is now so large that the cost of destroying it will equal the full years’ salary for over 54,000 Army privates.”

Furthermore, the destruction of some of the ammo may be unnecessary. The 2014 Wastebook also pointed out, “…the Pentagon may be throwing away ammunition that could still be used. According to GAO, some of the material set for destruction has at times been found usable.”

US

Why Is The Postal Service Purchasing Ammo And Guns?

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What is the story behind all these federal agencies that keep attempting to purchase small arms and ammo?
We’ve told you about these issues before… with DHS making huge purchase orders for ammo but this latest one is coming from the U.S. Postal Service
On January 31 of this year the USPS posted a solicitation to purchase “assorted small arms ammuntion” on the federal government’s federal business opportunities website (FBO.gov). The solicitation is structured to begin a bidding process for the purchase of guns and ammunition.
Why is the US postal service soliciting orders for small arms ammo? Is this not a fiscal sanity issue?

Politics, US

US Postal Service Preparing For Mass Gun/Ammuniton Buy

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PO

WASHINGTON, February 5, 2014– On January 31, 2014 the United States Postal Service (USPS) posted a solicitation to purchase “assorted small arms ammunition” on the federal government’s federal business opportunities website (FBO.gov). The solicitation is structured to begin a bidding process for the purchase of guns and ammunition.

The USPS has been posting $1-5 billion quarterly losses for years. In fiscal year (FY) 2012 alone the USPS lost  a record $15.9 Billion. At it’s current rate of spending, the USPS is projected to hit $45 Billion in debt within the next three years.

Regardless of this debt, and the national debt at $17.3 Trillion, the US Government has been purchasing firearms and ammunition off of the market at an alarming rate.

Multiple federal agencies have recently bought billions of dollars worth of firearms and ammunition. These agencies include the Department of Homeland Security,  the Department of Education,  the IRS, the Social Security Administration,  and more.

The intended purpose for these firearms and ammunition is currently unknown. Conspiracies have flooded the internet, and multiple members of Congress have questioned the purchases without receiving straight answers.

Congressman Huelskamp (R- Kans) has questioned DHS officials multiple times concerning the ammunition purchases and has yet to receive a serious answer (Video Above).

It is likely that the Obama administration is attempting to put a squeeze on the supply of firearms and ammunition in the market in an attempt to manipulate prices. Some believe the administration’s actions are of more insidious intentions.

Follow Michael Lotfi on Facebook and on Twitter

 

US

Backdoor Gun Control: Will Obama Use an Executive Order to Ban Lead Ammo Imports?

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U.S. Congressman Jeff Duncan’s communications director told Benswann.com’s Joshua Cook, “we’re very concerned and extensively looking into the lead issue.”

After Congress defeated the Democrat led anti-gun bill this year, President Obama said he would use executive action to promote his gun control agenda. One of the executive orders signed by Obama prevents military-grade weapons from being imported into the U.S.

If the President can bypass Congress by using agencies like the EPA to shut down lead ammunition smelters, and stop lead ammunition imports by executive order, then you essentially have backdoor gun control.

According to the National Rifle Association (NRA), the only lead smelter in the U.S. is located in Herculaneum, Missouri, and owned and operated by the Doe Run Company. It has existed in the same location since 1892.

The Environmental Protection Agency is forcing the company to close due to the excessively emissions restrictions placed on the facility.

According to the NRA, Doe Run made significant efforts to reduce lead emissions from the smelter, but in 2008 the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued new National Ambient Air Quality Standards for lead that were 10 times tighter than the previous standard.  Given the new lead air quality standard, Doe Run made the decision to close the smelter.

Alan West wrote that this closure is basically backdoor gun control because a gun without ammo is useless. TheBlaze.com questions West’s main thesis that the smelter plant closure will effect lead ammunition, but for the NRA it’s a big concern.

According to the NRA website, “At this time, it’s unclear if Doe Run or another company will open a new lead smelter in the United States that can meet the more stringent lead air quality standards by using more modern smelting methods.   What is clear is that after the Herculaneum smelter closes its doors in December, entirely domestic manufacture of conventional ammunition, from raw ore to finished cartridge, will be impossible.”

It’s a big concern for Congressman Jeff Duncan’s office too. U.S. Congressman Jeff Duncan communications director told Benswann.com’s Joshua Cook, “we’re very concerned and extensively looking into the lead issue.”

Earlier this year gun owners experienced ammo shortages that sent ammo prices soaring. Duncan’s office said that his investigation into the  shortages is almost complete.

A shortage of lead used to make conventional ammunition is a big concern not only for gun owners, but also for law enforcement. While visiting a local gun shop in Greenville, S.C., Joshua Cook was told by the owner that local law enforcement was trying to acquire 9000 rounds, but couldn’t because of ammo shortages.

For most Americans, cutting off the ammunition supply chain is not only a national security threat, but a serious threat to the 2nd Amendment and liberty itself.

 

Benswann.com will investigate further into this issue and report new information as it develops.