Feds Admit Drying Up Ammo Supplies

WND – by Bob Unruh

At least police departments and other gun owners now know what’s creating a shortage of ammunition across the nation: It IS the federal government, as those online reports, including several at WND, have explained.

Word came just now when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was talking to members of Congress and was asked about the ammunition issue.

There have been a multitude of headlines about massive government purchases of ammunition, so that manufacturers have been unable to keep up with the admittedly rising demand from consumers alarmed that the Obama administration will succeed with its agenda of banning many kinds of firearms.

Napolitano was being asked by Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., about the reports of the purchases, and she explained her department dismissed the concerns when they arose, not feeling it was worth a response.

She said the widely reported purchase of 1.6 billion rounds – enough for many years of a war at the rate ammunition is used by the U.S. military these days – was right. At least she thought so.

“This was a five-year strategic sourcing contract for up to one-point-whatever billion rounds,” she confirmed.

The actual reports have contained the figure 1.6 billion rounds. And calculations done by the Washington Examiner suggest that would be enough for “something like a 24-year supply of ammunition on hand.’

What it is accomplishing is that other consumers of ammunition, from the weekend hunter to police departments, are finding the shelves bare.

For example, Utica, N.Y., police have been told it could take up to 10 months now to get the ammunition they order.

They especially have trouble getting .223 and .45 caliber rounds, those of the type that the government also orders.

In Mobile, Ala., Nick Sagler said, “You can’t find what you need.”

And Jeremy Windle called it an “extreme shortage.”

Ronica Williams, at the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds gun show, said all of the ordinary supplies are backordered “six months or better.”

In Boca Raton, Fla., the problem is just as bad.

“Right now ammo’s pretty hard to get. People bought everything that was to be bought, They’ve completely cleaned out the supply chain,” said a gunsmith.

In Caldwell, W.Va., retailers said the expense is going up for gun owners, because of the shortage of ammunition. The reporter there suggested it was “ammunition hoarding,” because of talk in Washington about gun regulations, rules, restrictions and requirements.

A range operator said, “I think it’s made more people panic and made more people purchase whatever they can.”

In Catoosa, Okla., law enforcement agencies report paying a lot more for ammunition.

Sgt. Keith Prince said, “America’s in a state of panic right now because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their Second Amendment rights.”

Other points reporting problems:

• In West Texas, consumers and police alike reported problems.
• South Carolina’s ammo supply for police departments is short.
• In Waco, police have noticed a ammo shortage.
• In Illinois, handgun training is being hindered because of the shortage.
• New York gun owners are getting frustrated by the ammo shortage.
• In Vermont, local shops can’t keep their customers satisfied, because they can’t get the supplies.
• In Alaska, gun owners are left searching for ammunition.
• Lodi, Calif., police also are walking a thin line of keeping their weapons loaded.
• In Fort Wayne, Ind., store operators complain they are being hurt because they cannot obtain the supplies.
• The U.S. government ammo grab is hurting stores in Hastings, Neb., owners say.

And in East Texas, operators of a gun shop have taken to making their own ammo to keep up with customers’ demands.

The pushback already has started developing. In Kansas, the governor has signed what’s been called the strongest pro-gun bill in the nation.

The law is designed to counter the push by liberal federal lawmakers for increased restrictions on gun rights. It nullifies any new limits on firearms, magazines and ammunition – whether enacted by Congress, presidential executive order or any agency.

If Congress would have passed the Senate amendment expanding federal background checks, for example, the Kansas law would nullify it in the state.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, signed Senate Bill 102 into law, which exempts Kansas from any laws the federal government might pass that would infringe on Second Amendment rights.

Specifically, the Kansas law prevents federal law enforcement officials from enforcing any laws restricting Second Amendment rights.

An impressive 32 state legislatures have now introduced pro-Second Amendment “nullification” bills. The progress of the bills can be tracked at the Tenth Amendment Center’s website.

Montana began the trend with its Firearms Freedom Act. The law is currently tied up in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments last month. The Cato and Goldwater Institutes have filed a friend-of-the-court brief, “arguing that federal law doesn’t preempt Montana’s ability to exercise its sovereign police powers to facilitate the exercise of individual rights protected by the Second and Ninth Amendments.”

Even on the national level, the campaign launched by President Obama is tasting the bitter flavor of defeat. Just this week, the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate shot down Obama’s effort to control guns in a series of votes.

The votes were on amendments to a bill by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the loss was so bad that Reid immediately removed his entire bill from consideration.

The first, and key, amendment was to expand background checks widely. It failed 54-46 under a requirement of 60 votes for adoption.

Obama was bitter, saying the Senate’s performance, because it did not give him what he wanted, was “shameful.”

One of the few places where significant new gun limits have been adopted is in Colorado, where Democrats control the Senate, House and governor’s office.

But there sheriff’s already are preparing a lawsuit against their own state over the new rules, which they say are unconstitutional and impossible to enforce.

Weld County Sheriff John Cooke said, “The legislators ignored the will of the people and passed these unconstitutional gun laws, and they need to be held accountable for their decision.”

Colorado was a test case for the Obama administration, which dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to lobby for the state limits.

David Kopel, an attorney with the Independence Institute, which will handle a lawsuit against Colorado’s legislation, said the brief is still being prepared, but he expects to file it in the next few weeks.

“We are still working out the details, but there is a very solid case here. We are still working on some of the specifics, however we do feel we have a variety of strong legal claims that are worth bringing to court,” he said.

State officials admitted they were doing the bidding of the White House. In February, Biden flew to the state to strong-arm Democratic lawmakers who were feeling pressure from their constituents to vote against the bills.

“He (Biden) said it would send a strong message to the rest of the country that a Western state had passed gun-control bills,” Tony Exhum, a Democratic lawmaker from Colorado Springs, told the Denver Post.

House Majority Leader Mark Ferrandino, an open homosexual who also pursued a “civil unions” agenda this year, admitted the gun-control bills introduced by fellow Democrats had national implications.

“I was shocked that he called. He said he thought the bills could help them on a national level,” Ferrandino said.

The Colorado gun battle also created a number of opportunities for Democrat gaffes. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., for example, displayed her ignorance of ammunition magazines.

“I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now they’re going to shoot them; so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot, and there won’t be any more available,” she said.

The Denver Post said DeGette didn’t appear to understand that a firearm magazine can be reloaded with more bullets.

Another notable comment came from state Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, who scolded a witness opposing one of the gun restrictions.

Amanda Collins, 27, of Reno, Nev., was telling her story of being assaulted and explained that had she been carrying a concealed weapon, the incident might have ended differently.

“I just want to say that, actually statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun,” Hudak said. “And, chances are that if you would have had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you.”

Hudak continued, speaking over the committee witness, “The Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence says that every one woman who used a handgun in self-defense, 83 here are killed by them.”

Finally able to resume her testimony, Collins said, “Senator, you weren’t there. I know without a doubt [the outcome would have been different with a gun].

“He already had a weapon,” she told the meeting of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. “He didn’t need mine.”

Then there was the comment from state Rep. Joe Salazar.

He said that a woman who feels threatened by rape on a college campus doesn’t need to be armed because she can use a call box to get help.

Salazar’s statement came in a debate over a proposal to ban citizens possessing a concealed-carry permit from being armed on university campuses.

“It’s why we have call boxes,” said Salazar, “it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at.

“And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around, or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.”

WND also has reported that Jim Sitton, who lost multiple family members to a shooting, delivered a message to lawmakers and citizens who advocate restricting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.

“[I understand] what it’s like to be completely helpless and powerless when someone attacks your family with a gun. … For me, it comes down very simply to, when someone bursts into your home with murderous intent in their heart, wanting to kill you and your family, you have a choice: You either choose to be armed and trained to protect yourself – or you choose not to arm and protect yourself and your family.”

He said congressional plans for more limits are not foolproof. He noted the government had five opportunities to rein in the man who eventually shot and killed his family members and failed.

Meanwhile, a forensic profiler who worked on the disappearance of Natalie Holloway and the double-murder case against O.J. Simpson says it’s clear Obama’s goal is total gun control.

Andrew G. Hodges, M.D., who wrote “The Obama Confession: Secret Fear, Secret Fury,” explained in an analysis of the president’s statements for WND that Obama’s words suggest the unconscious message that “one day the government’s coming for our guns.”

Hodges previously said Obama’s statement “I am not a dictator” actually meant, “I am the dictator president,” and concluded Obama unconsciously confessed to stealing the 2012 election.

On Hodges’ website, Steven A. Egger, associate professor of criminology at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, has written that Hodges’ technique is “becoming the cutting edge of forensic science.”

“Dr. Hodges’ investigation of forensic documents in the Natalee Holloway case indicates that his ‘thoughtprint decoding method’ and ‘reading between the lines’ is, in fact, becoming a major contribution to law enforcement tools used by criminal investigators,” wrote Egger.

Hodges is not new to the field, already having identified killers by studying ransom notes, emails, letters and police interviews to spot secret confessions. He decoded Simpson’s “suicide note” to confirm Simpson had committed a double murder. He deciphered the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note in Boulder, Colo., to identify the child’s killer. He decrypted letters from BTK to predict that he was about to kill again – the only profiler to do so. He studied statements by Joran van der Sloot and Deepak Kalpoe to tie them to the slaying of Holloway. He showed how Casey Anthony secretly confessed to killing her daughter in 200 letters written to a jail mate. He even decoded Bill Clinton’s comments about Monica Lewinsky.

See all the details in Hodges’ book “The Obama Confession.”

Hodges now has looked at Obama’s recent statements about gun control, especially his April 3 appearance in Denver where he insisted on being surrounded by law enforcement officers, leading some police department members to protest they were being used for a political agenda.

“We again pay close attention to his ‘right-brain’ images and his denials for unconscious warnings from his super intelligence, his deeper moral compass which must tell the truth and spot any deception. Deep down his mind’s eye constantly monitors his true motivations,” Hodges explained.

He noted Obama’s statement, “ginned up fear among gun owners that have… nuttin’ to do with the facts but feed into fears about the government.”

“His denial accompanied by images of ‘fear among gun owners’ and ‘facts that feed into fear about the government’ suggest the unconscious message: the facts about Obama indeed lead to fear about the government,” Hodges wrote. “His image of ‘ginned up fear’ suggests his primary tactic in proposing more gun control which, in truth, has nothing to do with the facts.

“We find a key message marker: ‘you hear’ implying ‘hear my deeper message’ – pay close attention to what comes next. The unconscious mind often uses key communication images (e.g. ‘hear’) to underscore a vital message. When he follows with (you hear) ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government,’ the image itself strongly suggests the Second Amendment to the Constitution – as in citizens need to be armed in case of ‘a government gone wild.’”

Hodges wrote that Obama denies any reason to worry about the government “but we must keep in mind that denial attached to an idea can tell us to keep an eye on that particular idea and consider deception. Denying the very plan he secretly has in mind. For this reason we always contemplate denial as a revelation of the real truth with the cover-up, ‘Let me tell you what I’m not going to do – ‘wink-wink.”

“Obama follows with a second comment of denial and ridicule, ‘(you hear) we can’t do background checks because the government’s going to come take my guns away.’ Again read his condescending denial as a warning of the possibility one day the government’s coming for our guns,” he wrote.

Hodges said, “Read through his denial ‘can’t do background checks’ as an unconscious instruction: do background checks on Obama to see if he personally has intentions for extreme gun control. We can even read the entire sentence as an unconscious confession – no background checks on Obama about gun control because it would reveal his wishes to take our guns away. Indeed it is publicly known from a former fellow law professor at the University of Chicago who Obama dubbed ‘the gun guy’ that Obama doesn’t believe anybody should own a gun,” Hodges wrote.

WND’s reports have included the DHS plans to buy well over a billion rounds in just the past year. Most recently confirmed were plans by the FBI to spend up to $100 million over five years on millions of rounds for its machine guns and pistols.

According to a solicitation revised and released March 25 that WND discovered during routine database research, the FBI is gathering the ammunition “to be carried and fired [by FBI Special Agents] in defense of life” as well as for training purposes.

The ammunition includes a combination of field-ready Glock 9mm rounds as well as reduced-lead training ammo. Weapons listed in the Statement of Work, or SOW, are Glock Model 17, Glock Model 19, Glock Model 26, SIG Sauer P226, SIG Sauer P228, Heckler and Koch MP5 9mm submachine gun (K, A2, A3, SF and SD versions).

“The FBI is the federal government’s principal agency responsible for investigating violations of more than 260 federal statutes,” the SOW points out. “As the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI Special Agents (SA), in the pursuit of duty, may be involved in high threat assignments where deadly force may be used in the face of violent confrontations.”

Although DHS has not yet awarded contracts in that proposed CBP acquisition, late last year it revealed its intention to buy 250 million rounds of Smith & Wesson .40 ammunition over the life of a five-year contract.

DHS yesterday separately issued a revised solicitation to buy a combination of 100,000 handgun and rifle rounds destined for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, or FLTC, in Artesia, N.M. It did not disclose the estimated cost.

The department also additionally released another amended procurement notice for 360,000 rounds of jacketed hollow-point .40 caliber training ammo also destined for the Artseia FLTC.

InfoWars.com reported on the initial release of that particular procurement earlier.

Although the estimated cost of the solicitation, likewise, has not been disclosed, DHS last month awarded a $49,000 contract to Grace Ammo LLC for a similar batch of ammo for the Artesia facility.

DHS in January purchased an additional 200,000 rounds of jacketed hollow-point .40 caliber rounds. It awarded a $46,000 contract to Evian Group Inc. in that instance.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/feds-admit-drying-up-ammo-supplies/#lGkB1fV4MGjhz2x0.99