Why Are the Feds Stockpiling So Many Bullets?

IBD wonders aloud:

According to one estimate, just since last spring DHS has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. That’s sufficient firepower to shoot every American about five times. Including illegal immigrants.

To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, DHS is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war.

The perceived need for so much ammunition in federal custody is especially strange given Obama’s double-barreled emphasis in his inaugural address on the approaching end in Afghanistan “of a decade of war.” And he also noted, “We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.”

The lack of a credible official explanation for such awesome ammunition acquisitions is feeding all sorts of conspiracy theories, mainly centered on federal anticipation of some kind of domestic insurrection. Napolitano has at times alluded to threats from the extreme right-wing.

Other conspiracists harken back to an Obama Colorado campaign speech in July, 2008. That day he deviated from his prepared text to say:

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that 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.”

Spooky indeed. Then factor in Obama’s personal pet activist army, Organizing for Action. The man has a way of looking and sounding sinister.

Here’s an idle thought about all this. Anyone who has tried to buy much beyond shotgun ammo has probably run into shortages and rationing. At the local ammo store of your choice, they’re probably limiting you to one box per customer per caliber per day, when they have any ammo in stock. Most days, they don’t. For range and recreational shooters, that’s not a lot. If you go the online order route, it may take months to get anything. Gun ranges are also limiting the amount any single shooter can buy to fire, because their own supplies are strained.

Maybe the Obama government is stockpiling all this ammo to drive up scarcity and, in their anti-Second Amendment way of thinking, functionally keep guns off the streets. Ammo scarcity is surely one effect of the government’s stockpiling. Who has more buying power than almighty Uncle Sam? No matter how many guns there are on the streets, most Americans don’t know how to manufacture their own ammo. So most guns, absent ammo, could soon turn into nothing more than weak billy clubs.