Liberal Forum

Congress is asking DHS to explain why they expend 3,500 rounds of ammunition a year vs. 350 for most Soldiers. They're buying ammunition in bulk. Not sure I subscribe to a conspiracy theory, but it does beg the question of why they need so much ammunition. Are they fighting some kind of domestic war we don't know about? Don't read into that, I'm just trying to understand why they need so much training ammunition when the military, whose job is to defeat enemies foreign and domestic, does not.This is their explanation:Federal solicitations to buy the bullets are known as "strategic sourcing contracts," which help the government get a low price for a big purchase, says Peggy Dixon, spokeswoman for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga . The training center and others like it run by the Homeland Security Department use as many as 15 million rounds every year, mostly on shooting ranges and in training exercises.Dixon said one of the contracts would allow Homeland Security to buy up to 750 million rounds of ammunition over the next five years for its training facilities. The rounds are used for basic and advanced law enforcement training for federal law enforcement agencies under the department's umbrella. The facilities also offer firearms training to tens of thousands of federal law enforcement officers. More than 90 federal agencies and 70,000 agents and officers used the department's training center last year.The rest of the 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition would be purchased by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal government's second largest criminal investigative agency.Link