Plus Thousands Of Guns And over 2,700
Mine-Resistant Armored Vehicles?
By Larry Bell
3/10/2013
Is there something really serious brewing
that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano isn’t telling us? Like for example, is she concerned that those
thousands of illegal immigrant prisoners her organization is releasing will
join with others crossing our border to reclaim former Mexico
territory…and accomplish this before the Democrats can manage to capture Texas
for themselves in 2016 using Amnesty votes? Hey, if some of us may be getting
just a bit paranoid, DHS certainly isn’t making it easy to resist that
temptation.
First, we hear that DHS is in the process of
stockpiling more than 1.6 billion rounds of hollow-point ammunition, along with
7,000 fully-automatic 5.56x45mm NATO “personal defense weapons” plus a huge
stash of 30-round high-capacity magazines. Incidentally, those are also known
as “assault weapons”, but are not the limited single-fire per trigger-pull
semi-automatic types that we civilians are currently allowed to own. By some
estimates, that’s enough firepower to fight the equivalent of a 24-year Iraq
war.
Then, to cap it off, we find out that DHS,
through the U.S. Army Forces Command, recently purchased and retrofitted 2,717
Mine-Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles formerly used for
counterinsurgency in Iraq. They are specifically designed to protect occupants
from ambush attacks, incorporating bullet-proof windows designed to withstand
small-arms fire, such as .223-caliber rifles.
The Investor’s Business Daily quoted Robert Whitaker, a DHS officer stationed in
El Paso, Texas, proudly describing these mobile marauding
marvels as: “Mine-resistant…we use to deliver our teams to high-risk warrant
services…[with] gun ports so we can actually shoot from within the vehicle; you
may think it’s pretty loud but actually it’s not too bad…we have gun ports
there in the back and two on the sides as well. They are designed for
.50-caliber weapons.”
No mention was made of any provisions to
outfit the MRAPs with loudspeakers to inform unfortunate warrant resisters of
their Miranda rights.
While most fellow shooters I know don’t have
occasion to buy many hollow-point rounds (which make large, unsightly holes in
people they hit), several have expressed curiosity regarding reasons for
soaring ammunition prices and a scarcity of available supplies. One inclination
has been to simply attribute these circumstances to a run on gun and ammunition
sales provoked by Obamaphobia in general, most recently, exacerbated by
opportunistic anti-gun lobby proposals following the Newtown school tragedy in
particular.
While President Obama’s influence upon the
overall U.S. economy may not inspire much confidence, he at least deserves
clear credit for his contributions to the domestic firearms industry, an
achievement which began even before he took office. The number of gun dealer
requests for customer background checks through the National Instant Background
Check (NICS) system rose 49% during the week before he was elected in 2008
compared with the same week one year earlier.
And why might that be? Perhaps partly because
of a time between 1998 and 2001 when he served along with Bill Ayres and his
current senior advisor Valery Jarrett on the 10-member board of the radically
anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago…a
period when that organization contributed more than $18 million in grants to
anti-Second Amendment causes. And maybe because a former Illinois State Senator
Barack Obama voted four times against legislation giving gun
owners an affirmative defense… even when they used firearms to defend
themselves and their families against home invaders and burglars.
But forget about that old history stuff.
Maybe some folks remain confused about what he really meant during 2008 campaign remarks, when speaking in Colorado,
then-presidential candidate Obama said: “We cannot continue to rely only on
our military in order to achieve national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve
got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as
strong, just as well funded.”
Huh?
It probably didn’t help to alleviate gun
rights concerns when, during a private San Francisco meeting on April 6 of that
same year, candidate Obama spoke of “small towns in Pennsylvania” and
the Midwest beset by job losses in a changing economy where: “they get
bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like
them or anti-immigrant sentiment.”
Nor was it comforting when a 2009 DHS report
titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling
Resurgence in Radicalism and Recruitment” indicated that conservatives and
the unemployed represent a clear and present danger. It warned: “The
economic downturn and the election of the first African American president
present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.” It
also concluded that “rightwing extremism” may include “groups and
individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to
abortion or immigration.”
So, just who, after all, exhibits the most
compelling evidence of unjustifiable paranoia? And which is more dangerous…a
paranoid government, or a wary citizenry?
Okay, let’s take a deep breath and realize
that all this speculation about DHS armament purchases being earmarked for an
Orwellian national security force probably rises to a few floors over the top
of rational alarm. We should also understand that other government agencies
began purchasing large amounts of ammo at the same time as DHS. A big
difference, however, is that they have offered reasons for doing so, while DHS
has made a point not to. For example, the Social Security Administration issued a post on its official blog explaining that the
ammunition they purchased was “standard issue” used by special agents
during “mandatory quarterly firearms qualifications and other training
sessions, to ensure agent and public safety.”
As reported by the U.S. Bureau of Statistics
in 2008, 73 federal law enforcement agencies then employed approximately
120,000 armed full-time on-duty officers with arrest authority. Of the four
largest, two under the DHS and two in the Department of Justice employed
four-fifths of the total. That obviously represents a lot of guns, and demands
an enormous amount of practice ammo. It’s also appropriate to consider that in
order to ensure adequate supplies will be available, government agencies must
place large orders from commercial suppliers well in advance of the time they
are needed.
Still, despite active public inquiry, DHS has
not only remained silent, but has gone so far as to literally black out information regarding its purchases. Such redactions are only
supposed to be allowed when authorized by Congress or for national security
reasons. In at least one solicitation, the DHS asserted that its contract to
purchase ammunition on behalf of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE)
was not subject to “full and open competition”, claiming that the waver was
justified by an “unusual and compelling urgency” to acquire bullets.
They noted that a shortage could cause “substantial safety
issues for the government” should law enforcement officials not be
adequately armed.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know what constitutes
the nature of that unusual and compelling urgency? One that additionally
warranted the purchase of nearly three thousand armored mine-resistant vehicles
with multiple gun ports to accommodate 50-caliber weapons?
And how can we afford these expenditures now
at a time of that looming financial sequestration apocalypse the president has been incessantly
lamenting? Remember? That one that which will cause us to gut our military
budget, release illegal prisoners who have been arrested for additional
undisclosed crimes, and will even necessitate discontinuing public White House
tours?
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the Obama
administration now plans to save money by furloughing 60,000 border protection
and customs agents. But then, this raises a couple more questions. Won’t that
introduce more bad people into the country who will have to be served with
warrants, jailed and then, of course, released to reduce costs? And might it
also produce a shortage of people to drive all those mine-resistant armored
vehicles, manipulate their onboard 50-caliber guns, and shoot those billions of
bullets out of the high-capacity magazines provided with the new rapid-fire
assault rifles we are buying them?
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The Billionaire Versus We, The People
By Wayne
LaPierre
January 2013
With the
combination of Barack Obama holding onto the vast executive power of his
presidency to abuse our freedom and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s personal
declaration of war on the NRA, the nation’s gun owners are facing an
unprecedented assault on the Second Amendment.
Obama, to succeed in his second term gun-ban agenda, needs Bloomberg to
buy a massive propaganda operation designed to destroy the only true shield
protecting the Second Amendment. Almost in the same breath as his endorsement
of Obama’s bid for a nothing-to-lose lame-duck four year term, Bloomberg has
pledged to use his billions of dollars to destroy the National Rifle
Association—to liquidate the assembled power of 4 million individual Americans
who are the first and best line of defense against his dream of total civil
disarmament.
In a November 3, 2012, puff piece touting Mayor Bloomberg’s
self-coronation as the nation’s gun-ban king, The National Journal crowed,
“…the billionaire is laying the groundwork to become a one man counterweight to
one of the nation’s most powerful lobbies: the National Rifle Association.” The
article said he is dedicating “his massive wealth” to that end.
The Journal piece concentrated on just one of Bloomberg’s gun-ban
money-dumps—his personal endowment of his very own Super Political Action
Committee (PAC)—“Independence USA”—created to seed Congress with his
hand-picked political puppets.
One man counterweight? Massive wealth? Try: “He, the billionaire” versus
“We, the people.”
His Super-PAC mouthpiece bragged, “There is a new anti-gun-lobby sheriff
in town.”
No, Bloomberg is no sheriff. He’s a spoiled-rich political bully. He’s
the same anti-Second Amendment despot who bankrolled crippling punitive
lawsuits against lawful firearm commerce across the nation using a hand-picked
New York federal judge to do his bidding.
He is the same pompous aristocrat who demands ordinary New Yorkers go
disarmed against violent thugs, while surrounding himself with a phalanx of
armed bodyguards.
If you want a study in Bloomberg’s tone deaf arrogance look no further
than his shameful failure to serve New Yorkers suffering from the total
devastation of Hurricane Sandy.
The manifesto in the Nov. 3 National Journal came just days after
the soda-pop-banning little dictator of Manhattan essentially abandoned tens of
thousands of New Yorkers in the outer boroughs, the forgotten parts of his
city—victims of Hurricane Sandy who were without shelter, food, power, water
and police protection. While they suffered, the mayor turned his attention to
the circus of his annual New York City Marathon.
In his preparations for the big race, the mayor diverted precious
resources like police and emergency generators. Only after a tsunami of
national rage did Bloomberg petulantly abandon his marathon celebration.
But Bloomberg’s twisted priorities got even worse. In response to
demands that National Guard troops come into the city to augment police against
flash-mob looting, Bloomberg refused, saying, “The NYPD is the only people
[sic] we want on the streets with guns.”
Insane. In Bloomberg’s world-view, our young men and women in uniform
are not to be trusted with arms to protect against criminal anarchy.
Bloomberg is scheduled to leave office when his term ends in 2013. And
that is good for New Yorkers. But it is bad for the rest of us. He will be the
full-time DEAR LEADER of the gun-ban movement—even eclipsing his fellow billionaire
George Soros.
As the founder and banker for Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG),
Bloomberg has been building his personal cadre of urban politicians, an
army of gun-ban zealots with untold taxpayer resources at his disposal. And
through MAIG grants to cities and towns in his political control, Bloomberg is
salting local governments with taxpayer-funded lobbying operatives. These are
bureaucrat-termites working to ban firearms at the state level. (Remember,
“illegal guns” refers to your guns. My guns.)
Furthermore, constitutional scholar, lawyer and blogger Dave Hardy is
reporting that Mayor Bloomberg, by laundering funds through the Joyce
Foundation, is bankrolling George Soros’ Media Matters in a specific campaign
to defame the NRA. It is bearing fruit—big time.
Billionaires versus individual Americans.
How do you fight an unspeakably wealthy troll obsessed with a
sociopathic vision for the destruction of the rights and freedom of citizens?
There is just one Michael Bloomberg with his millions of dollars to be spent on
taking down our NRA and with it the Second Amendment. But there are millions of
us.
A one-man counterweight? Massive wealth? Just what do the Bloomberg
big-media water-carriers think the NRA is? We know. It is people—millions of
individual Americans who believe in our liberty and will fight for it wherever
it is threatened. And yes, NRA spends millions to protect the Second Amendment.
To do less would guarantee the loss of our freedom.
We fight a Michael Bloomberg or a George Soros with our collective voice
and collective funds that can only come from individuals of modest means—the
price of a tank of gas or a box of ammunition or a day at the range. That’s how
we stop Bloomberg.