Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has introduced pending legislation that would strip the Internal Revenue Service — which is tasked with administering the national taxation system and ostensibly has nothing directly to do with SWAT-style police work — of its impressive and terrifying stockpile of “military-style” weaponry.
Via the office of Joni Ernst (emphasis added):
Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) is leading the charge to end the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) waste of taxpayer dollars to arm its agents.
The IRS has spent $35.2 million on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment since 2006, including $10 million in weaponry and gear since 2020. These purchases are used by the IRS’ Criminal Investigation Division that has jurisdiction over federal tax crimes.
“The taxman is fully loaded at the expense of the taxpayer,” Ernst said. “As the Biden administration has worked to expand the size of the IRS, any further weaponization of this federal agency against hardworking Americans and small businesses is a grave concern. I’m working to disarm the IRS and return these dollars to address reckless spending in Washington.”…
The Why Does the IRS Have Guns Act would:
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Prohibit the IRS from buying, receiving, or storing guns and ammo,
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Transfer all guns and ammo currently in the IRS’ possession to the General Services Administration,
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Auction off these guns and ammo to Federal Firearms License owners and devote proceeds to deficit reduction, and
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Relocate the IRS Criminal Investigation Division within the Justice Department.
Ironic, is it not it, that the same Democrat Party hellbent on stripping law-abiding Americans of their “military-style” rifles appears to have no issue with arming government tax bureaucrats with these same weapons — and ballistic shields, body armor, and, reportedly, submachine guns?
Related: Government Services Increasingly Run by Automation
Via the New York Post (emphasis added):
The findings released last week by OpenTheBooks, a watchdog group that tracks government spending, reveal that in 2021 alone the IRS spent more than $5 million shoring up its arsenal for its increasingly militarized agents.
Since 2020, the oversight group found, the IRS has spent $2.3 million on ammunition, $1.2 million on ballistic shields, $474,000 on Smith & Wesson rifles, $463,000 on Beretta 1301 tactical shotguns and $243,000 on body armor vests.
A slew of other line-item expenditures – include a mysterious $1.3 million spent on “various other gear for criminal investigation agents.”
The tax-collecting agency has also loaded up on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tactical lighting, gear bags, holsters, ballistic helmets and optic sights for weapons since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the report.
Here is the Open the Books report.
According to reporting from The Gateway Pundit via Leo Hohmann, the IRS is also outfitting itself with .40-cal submachine guns just in case Mr. John Q Taxpayer gets a little too lippy for a handgun to calm him down.
Several years ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture — another theoretically non-law enforcement governmental entity — similarly purchased submachine guns. Exactly for what, if not for using against American farmers, remains unclear.
Via WTKR, 2014:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s internal audit arm has 85 shiny new submachine guns, locked and loaded.
They’ve long had a small police force, and they’re not alone, thanks to a mostly forgotten provision in the behemoth 2002 Homeland Security Act that allows federal auditing agencies to equip themselves with agents who carry guns.
