AMMO Act?

[thallub]

The Congressional Research Service has checked out this ever evolving conspiracy theory.

From Congressman Paul Broun of GA. When the site opens click "Open" at the prompt:

http://broun.house.gov/policy/dhs-ta...mo-reports.htm

[thallub]

In addition, it shows that there's been an increase in purchasing since Obama took office, and it's not a new thing.

Maybe in the first year or two. Ammunition purchases have declined dramatically since FY 2010. Check out the link to senator Coburn's website or see table 3 at congressman Broun's link.

Solicitation numbers mean nothing. These are IDIQ contracts: The quantity of ammunition delivered is what matters.

[Gaerek]

Yep, I just read through it. Amazing what a little critical thinking can do. Also, 70 million...not 750 million. Like I've said before, much ado about nothing.

[thallub]

i'm waiting for the next logical component of the conspiracy theory: "There's an ammunition plant in that congressman's district: He's lying."

[Gaerek]

Yep. The problem is the ever shifting goal posts. You attempt to disprove their presupposition? Well, you MUST be wrong, and I'll find something to throw doubt. Once again, this is a Hallmark of a good conspiracy theory.

You want to see this in action? Do some research on the evolution of the 9/11 conspiracy theory. The original theories were actually fairly reasonable considering the information at the time. But as the different aspects became more and more debunked, the theory just became crazier and crazier. The current popular theory is nothing like the original ones that had been created, and it absolutely defies reality. But since we cannot 100% prove that it couldn't happen, it must be right.

[zincwarrior]

I'm not worried about the conspriacy guys - the true believers. I'm ticked off about flippers using this to keep the bubble alive.

[Come and take it.]

Let's see what the GAO finds out. I figure it will be something in between.

ATK layed off hundreds of workers in april of last year in Wisconsin and at another plant. At the same time they took on a huge order for 40 s&w. Also France paid out roughly 18 million US dollars equivalent of money for 9mm from ATK. Which international sales to foreign countries are an unknown quantity in trying to fathom demand.

These contracts and purchases were made before the 1.6 billion sourcing contract that is in the news.

ATK is an internationally involved company. 70% of their munitions are to military buyers. The majority of their munitions are not sold to civilians, contrary to what their website claims.( Although CCI itself most likely does sell a majority of its munitions to civilians.)

Another angle to explore is how much rimfire ammunition goes to help train soldiers and law enforcement in foreign countries. Have those numbers increased?

It would be interesting instead of just throwing out smoke, that some debunking of these statistics could be made.

So far no one has debunked that the DHS had 264,000,000 million rounds on hand at end of FY2012.

There comes a point where fact becomes conspiracy theory. But the conspiracy theory must have some fact to go on. Those facts are evident. Than intuition can expand on the fact and possibly get out of hand or in some cases can smell out a real conspiracy.

Lowell believed wholeheartily that Mars harbored intelligent life and that canals in fact could readily be observed on the planet. This was later confirmed by other astronomers. This in turn became a scientific theory and was published in leading scientific articles and even text books.

Later we found out this is totally false. So we in fact believed something that was accepted by practically all knowledgable savants of the days.

We learn than that the decisive facts can not be known until research is done. So that a push for GAO to investigate DHS purchases is totally within the realm of reason.

Only than will the "conspiracy" be a dead horse. Just like a bill that is voted down repeatedly or a hypothesis that was clearly proven wrong.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Why don't we let this one just slide for a bit until we have evidence that the Gummit is selling 264 trillion rounds to the Martians?

I don't see any more useful info and attempts to justify the tin foil hat.

[zincwarrior]

Well that would explain why the price of gold fell through the floor. All the gold the martians are giving the government in exchange.

The Truth is out there!

[pnac]

Well that would explain why the price of gold fell through the floor. All the gold the martians are giving the government in exchange.

Big money trading paper for gold, while they can, to buy up assets cheap (with hard money) when the economy goes (farther) south, perhaps? That's one theory, but who can really say at this point? Time will tell.

Glenn is right, martians aside, wait and see how it shakes out.

[Gaerek]

Only than will the "conspiracy" be a dead horse.

It's a conspiracy theory until it can be proven true. The problem with conspiracy theories is this, however. Conspiracy theories can never be proven wrong.

If it's proven true, the "truthers" involved will feel vindicated that their belief is true. However, conspiracy theories can never be proven wrong. So, even if the GAO comes out and says, "We can find no evidence of any type of market tampering with the ammo market, or stockpiling for civil unrest," the "truthers" will come out and say, "Oh, they must be in on it." In other words, it will never be a dead horse.

Even with piles and piles of evidence to the contrary, people still believe the moon landing was faked. I would personally say that this argument is a dead horse, but moon landing truthers would completely disagree with me.

Anyway, yes, I'd like to see what the GAO says. If I were a betting man, however, I'd say they aren't going to find anything out of the ordinary.

I'm just curious here. If the GAO comes out and says just that, are you going to take them at their word? I can pretty much guarantee that Alex Jones and ilk will not. If anything, it will fire them up even more.

[Plumbnut]

I'm going to write my congressman and request that the goverment start a ammo welfare program.

The goverment has plenty of ammo and I think they should hand it out to anyone who can prove they have a gun to shoot it.

Like a goverment cheese line except for ammo.

[Tom Servo]

All the gold the martians are giving the government in exchange.

That brought me a chuckle, but...

We're really drifting here. Let's see what evidence comes in before commenting further.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Amen!

[Come and take it.]

Still no one has debunked that the DHS had 264 million rounds on hand at end of FY2012.

It is nice to poke fun and all that (it gives me a few laughts) but you refuse to look into the matter yourself and if the figure is untrue please provide evidence that the figure is fiction.

As they did have 264 million rounds on hand (at end of FY2012) and there is failure to provide evidence otherwise, than it is completely understandable why such an act should be passed.

Please debunk that the federal government has expended 37 million on ammunition through the first half of FY2013.

I take it as you quoted the link from Broun than we can assume that the 264 million round figure is correct. Also note that Broun mentions in his "blog" that there are quantities of ammunition in the DHS inventory that are "classified". Not further elaboration on that.

This means there was more than 264 million rounds in inventory if his statement was accurate.

[Gaerek]

Still no one has debunked that the DHS had 264 million rounds on hand at end of FY2012.

You're missing the point. This fact is irrelevant.

You are taking two pieces of information. They have 264 Million rounds on hand. They buy 1.6 Billion, oh wait, no, it's 750 Million, oh wait, no, it's 70 Millions rounds. And your conclusion is immediately that they are trying to influence the market? That is an enormous logical jump.

An equivalent logical jump would be this. I was my car on the first Saturday, and third Sunday of the month. The last two months, it rained the Monday following me washing my car on Saturday, but it didn't rain at all after I washed my car on Sunday. Logically, I can conclude that washing my car on Saturday's causes it to rain the following Monday. Observations seem to prove this, but there's a huge amount of information missing from my observations to be able to make logical conclusion, such as how rain has been proven to form. In addition, I cannot articulate why washing a car on a Saturday will cause it to rain on Monday. Just like you can't articulate why having that amount of ammo immediately means they are trying to influence the market. You are making a claim based on a presupposition (gubbermint want my guns) and a piece of very circumstantial evidence that fits that presupposition.

Please tell me what that number, the 264 million rounds actually means. I'll tell you what it means. It means they have 264 million rounds on hand. That's it. It doesn't mean they're stockpiling for civil unrest, or trying to influence the market (I'm not saying these couldn't be a possibility, but we can't make that jump based off of very little circumstantial evidence we have). If you have something that can show that's what they are trying to do, please post it. The burden of proof is on YOU to prove what that information means, since you made the claim. It is not my burden to prove you wrong.

Please debunk that the federal government has expended 37 million on ammunition through the first half of FY2013.

I don't need to. You made the claim that the government is trying to influence the market based on this information. It's your burden to properly back up your claim. I will take this information at your word, as far as how much ammo and money they've spent. BUT IT PROVES NOTHING.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You've provided the former without providing the latter.

[Come and take it.]

I posted the link to an article which quoted figures directly from DHS.

In the article the numbers demonstrated that DHS has spent 37 million dollars on ammunition during the first half of FY2013.

I provided a source. Now the ball is in your court to discredit the figures.

Mostly all I see is voiced criticism with but one source trying to discredit my claims which is fact only proved that the DHS has in fact stockpiled 264 million rounds of ammo by end of FY 2012.

Now as the claim of the intention to buy 750,000,000 rounds I may give ground but not yet until I do a little research.

We can assume however that 37 million dollars in expenditure has already surpassed the purchase of 75 million rounds of ammo unless those are some very expensive hollow points.

according to one of the critics sources rounds are going for an average price of 0.25 cents a round. If the stated 37M expenditure is correct than that is 148,000,000 rounds roughly.

More than 63,000,000 rounds. More than 75,000,000 million rounds.

Furthermore the 75,000,000 round limit was added as an amendment after the media (including the mainstream media) voiced concern.

So they in fact surpassed that amount. It may be there are other contracts that have not been made public? But that is just speculation of course. Just trying to figure out why the number of a 75,000,000 cap is not agreeing with the amount of money expended.

This is also speculation but if we consider ammunition purchases during FY2013 to continue at the same rate we have a figure of roughly 300 million rounds by end of FY2013.


----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/...6-1745c21519c2

Now according to this DHS document we demonstrate some of the figures in questions.

My main correction would be that the 37,000,000 will be spent for the entire year 2013. However the total amount of ammo will surpass 75,000,000 quoted as a cap. It will at least be over 110,000,000. If DHS ammo expenditure continues to mirror previous years we can expect another surplus increase. This would potentially at least bring total inventory by years end to over 300,000,000 million rounds (this is speculative)

[Gaerek]

Like I've said. The figures don't matter. Your claim was that the government is buying ammo to affect the market. If that's not the case, tell me. Your proof of that was those numbers. But that is an illogical conclusion because it discredits ALL other possibilities. I don't need to debunk the numbers you've posted because they are correct. The problem is what you're concluding those numbers mean.

As for outrageous spending? Yep, the government does it. That much doesn't surprise me. Trust me, I worked for the Feds for almost 10 years. I've watched million dollar pieces of equipment sit idle for 3 years (never used) to be removed and stuck in a surplus warehouse. If you're arguing that the government is overspending, I'm with you. But you haven't made that claim.

Your claim was that the gov't is buying ammo to affect the ammo market. Please prove that, unless that's not your claim.

[Evan Thomas]

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

Why don't we let this one just slide for a bit until we have evidence that the Gummit is selling 264 trillion rounds to the Martians?

I don't see any more useful info and attempts to justify the tin foil hat.

Originally Posted by Tom Servo

We're really drifting here. Let's see what evidence comes in before commenting further.

Since these requests are being ignored.... closed.