DHS Set To Buy 62 Million More Rounds Of AR-15 Ammo

“The extraordinary level of ammunition purchases made by Homeland Security seems to have, in states such as my own, created an extreme shortage of ammunition to the point where many gun owners are unable to purchase any,” LaMalfa wrote in the letter.

The bulk purchase follows attempts by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to ban M855 ammo, another popular round for AR-15’s used by hunters. The ATF justified the ban by claiming that the bullets were “armor piercing” and a threat to law enforcement officers.

After being on the receiving end of a huge backlash, the feds were forced to back down and ATF director B. Todd Jones subsequently tendered his resignation. Democratic Congressman Steve Israel called the ATF backdown “cowardly” and vowed to revive the ban.

The ATF’s threat to ban the ammo temporarily caused prices of the bullet to surge more than double in price.

Although federal agencies are increasingly hiding their purchases by limiting public information on fbo.gov, it can still be conservatively estimated from available data that the feds have purchased at least 2.11 billion rounds of ammunition since April 2012:

Date Reported            Agency                 Amount                  Caliber       
April ’12 – Feb ’13           Various             2,000,000,000              Various
03/25/13                             DHS                      360,000                    .40 S&W
07/26/13                            NOAA                      72,000                     .40 S&W
07/26/13                            Army                     2,550,000                7.62x39mm
07/26/13                            Army                       425,000                 9x18mm Makarov
08/19/13                             TSA                       3,454,000                 .357 SIG
02/11/14                             DHS                        141,000                  .308 Remington
04/22/14                            DHS                     25,000,000                12 Gauge
05/22/14                            TSA                      24,000,000                .357 SIG
04/15/15                            DHS                     62,000,000                .223 Remington

TOTAL                                                      2,118,002,000

That’s enough ammo to kill around 30% of the world’s population.

Furthermore, U.S. soldiers were shooting around 5.5 million rounds of ammunition per month during the war in Iraq, or 66 million rounds annually. Using that figure, the feds have stockpiled enough ammo over the past two years to fight a 32-year war.