Original Article Here
Daily Mail editorial: Why is the government buying so many guns?
June 20, 2016
As gun ownership in the United States is a hot topic among many, a columnn in Friday’s Wall Street Journal reveals a disturbing increase by several affiliated groups in the amount of guns, ammunition and gear the groups have purchased.
In fact, during a nine-year period through 2014, 67 afflilated organizations spent $1.48 billion on guns and ammo, reported Tom Coburn and Adam Andrzejewski of a group called American Transparency.
One group, with 2,316 "special agents," spent nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment.
Another group spent $200,000 on night-vision equipment, $2.3 million for body armor, more than $2 million on guns, and $3.6 million for ammunition.
And another group, known for its increasingly aggressive posture, spent $3.1 million on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment.
It sounds like these groups ought to be placed on the nation’s terror watch list. Who are they?
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, respectively.
Last Friday, American Transparency released its OpenTheBooks.com oversight report on the
militarization of America. The report catalogs federal purchases of guns, ammunition and military-style equipment by bureaucratic federal agencies.
None of the 67 agencies cataloged are affiliated with the Department of Defense, yet they are buying guns like crazy. They include the Smithsonian Institution, the Small Business Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Mint.
"We estimate that federal non-military agencies now employ more officers with arrest and firearm authorization than there are U.S. Marines," the report’s authors state. "There are 182,000 U.S. Marines and over 200,000-plus officers employed within the rank-and-file federal agencies."
Talk about a scary gun culture.
Should the IRS, which
recently was caught singling out conservative groups for enforcement, have any guns at all? Can’t they hire out security? Why does the VA need night vision goggles — to see how long the lines of veterans needing care stretch into the night?
The report raises many disturbing questions. And if the answers to those questions can’t be answered satisfactorily, there should be a big government gun surplus sale soon.