The Department of Homeland Security is using 1,000 rounds of ammunition more per person than the U.S. Army, and Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz is wondering why. With the average soldier going through about 350 rounds, and the DHS using between 1,300 and 1,600 rounds, it seems bizarre they are purchasing so much.
“It is entirely … inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition,” said Chaffetz, R-Utah, at a hearing.
Democrats, for their part, are firing back that to even question such an exorbitant purchase of bullets is just tin-foil hat talk. Democrat Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass ridiculed the questions as “conspiracy theories,” that have “no place” in the committee room, as was reported by Fox News.
Nevertheless, this Thursday’s questions at the hearing are interesting. The department bought more than 103 million rounds in 2012 for roughly 70,000 agents, as he said “roughly 1,000 rounds more per person” than the 350 used per soldier. “Their officers use what seems to be an exorbitant amount of ammunition,” a claim that Nick Nayak, chief procurement officer for the Department of Homeland Security, is not denying, though he says that in the last five years, they weren’t trying to buy up 1.6 billion rounds, but a much more conservative number of 750 million rounds – about 100 million rounds per year.
Nayak also denies that it is stockpiling ammo or that it is trying to artificially create ammunition shortages in the U.S. They are just being smart, buying in bulk, he explains, for agents in training and on duty.
Democrats framed Republican concerns as conspiracy theories, but Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio responded saying “this is not about conspiracy theories, this is about good government.”
Likewise, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, said he suspects the rounds are being stockpiled and then “disposed of,” passed to non-federal agencies, or shot “indiscriminately.” If that is true, he said “then shame on you.”