www.shootingwire.com\/archives\/2009-03-16<\/a> reported \u201cThe Department of Defense has issued a directive that bans the sale of military brass to ammunition re-manufacturers. Without that brass, a very large dent is put into civilian ammunition supplies.<\/p>\n\u201cNew Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS) requirements call for the \u2018mutilation of shell casings.\u2019 Mutilation, incidentally, is the destruction of the property \u2018to the extent that prevents its reuse or reconstruction,\u2019\u00ca\u201d Mr. Shepherd noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first word of this latest decision came over the weekend when Georgia Arms\u2019 Larry Haynie released a letter notifying him of the new requirement. … Georgia Arms was remanufacturing more than one million rounds of .223 ammunition monthly; selling that ammo on the civilian market to resellers and to government agencies all over the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow, Georgia Arms will start sending cancellation notices for .223 ammunition to law enforcement agencies across the United States,\u201d Mr. Shepherd reported on March 16. \u201cHaynie says he may have to lay off half of his sixty-person workforce. The message is simple. The implication is chilling. …\u201d<\/p>\n
Much squawking ensued. And for now, at least, it appears those who believe \u201cOnly federal agents should have ammo\u201d have backed down.<\/p>\n
\u201cResponding to two Democratic senators representing outraged private gun owners, the Department of Defense announced last night it has scrapped a new policy that would deplete the supply of ammunition by requiring destruction of fired military cartridge brass,\u201d World Net Daily reported on March 31.<\/p>\n
What did the two actions have in common — scrapping the wonderful 1911 Colt .45s, and the (apparently reversed, for now) decision to crush, shred, and\/or melt all that once-used military brass, mostly in .223 and .308, to keep civilians from buying and reloading it?<\/p>\n
First, since crushed or shredded brass is worth only 20 percent the value of reloadable spent cases, both moves violate the federal government\u2019s fiduciary duty as a steward of the nation\u2019s resources, the duty to get as good a return as possible on surplus stuff already paid for with hard-earned taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n
But in addition to that, in each of these two examples those in power in Washington proved willing and eager to abandon that fiduciary responsibility because of what they see as a more important goal.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tempting to identify that goal as \u201cgetting rid of all the guns.\u201d But that would not be accurate. Just ask one of our big-government friends whether they believe DEA agents, BATF agents, even your local cop on the beat should be disarmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?!\u201d they\u2019ll shriek. \u201cThe bad guys have them outgunned already!\u201d<\/p>\n
Only because of unconstitutional, unenforceable prohibitions, of course. Those who distribute Budweiser and Miller Lite don\u2019t have to wield assault rifles, because their trade was re-legalized in 1933. Re-legalizing the trades in all firearms and in all plant extracts would have the same violence-reducing impact, though that\u2019s a topic for another day.<\/p>\n
What the Washington weasels actually favor — and are willing to throw away millions in potential new government revenue to achieve — is a government monopoly on armed might. They hate the idea of \u201ccommon citizens\u201d having access to effective firearms — even spent military brass and 60-year-old collector pistols that are far too valuable ever to be re-sold to street gangs or stickup artists.<\/p>\n
Meantime, as evidence that this campaign proceeds on several parallel tracks, Mr. Shepherd reports the administration recently proposed a ban on rifle-caliber ammo exports to Canada, and that \u201cLast Friday, anglers and hunters were notified that the National Park Service planned to make all lands under their control totally lead-free by 2010. No lead in ammo or fishing tackle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Predictably, given this full-court press, my sources report ammo demand at U.S. gun shows has not flagged. Rings of customers surround the ammo dealers from the opening bell, buying up and hauling off truckloads of .223, especially.<\/p>\n
The consensus, it would appear, is \u201cThey may have gotten caught red-handed this time, but the sneaky Petes will surely try again.\u201d<\/p>\n
I heartily approve — except that I still believe .30 caliber does a better job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Browning\u2019s Model 1911 pistol, an engineering wonder for its day, still serves as a design platform for much modern pistolsmithing. Old examples, especially with military markings, are now highly prized on the collector market, where they can bring hundreds or even thousands of dollars each. Yet 16 years ago, early in the Clinton administration, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2nd-amendment"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-2Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}