AMERICA IS Under Siege

[srm4u]

"The government -- not the armed forces -- is stockpiling hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition for domestic use."
June 27, 2014
The claim:

James Buchal, an Oregon Republican challenging Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., clearly has concerns. His campaign website includes a photograph of an ominous-looking armored vehicle below copy in which Buchal says part of his campaign will "focus on raising awareness of the threat to America’s future posed by an out-of-control total surveillance state."

He adds, "The government -- and not the armed forces -- is stockpiling hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition for domestic use."

Is the government stockpiling that much ammunition? PolitiFact Oregon checked.

The analysis:

We emailed Buchal, who pointed to a Government Accountability Office report released Feb. 12, 2014.

The report, "Ammunition Purchases Have Declined Since 2009," was produced in response to questions from U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

In a letter dated Nov. 13, 2012, Coburn wrote to Janet Napolitano, then the head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: "It has been reported that DHS has recently purchased large amounts of ammunition, as much or more than 1 billion rounds according to some estimates."

Some claims put the figure at 1.6 billion rounds. Another set had it at 2.7 billion. Still others fretted about the alleged retrofitting of more than 2,700 heavily armored military vehicles that were going to be turned over to domestic police forces.

The GAO report found that as of October 2013, DHS had about 159 million rounds -- enough to meet the training and operational needs of its firearm-carrying personnel for about 22 months, it said. The agency has more than 70,000 armed personnel, the most of any federal agency, according to the report.

The Department of Justice is second with 69,000 armed personnel. The DOJ reported its ammunition inventory as enough to last from 13 to 20 months. The report did not translate that to specific figures but provided other information that enabled it to calculate a range of about 90 million to about 138 million rounds.

Together, those two agencies represent 80 percent of federal armed personnel, and together they have roughly 250 million to 300 million rounds of ammunition on hand.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/jun/27/james-buchal/government-stockpiling-hundreds-millions-rounds-am/

2008–2016 United States ammunition shortage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932016_United_States_ammunition_shortage

2020–present United States ammunition shortage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%93present_United_States_ammunition_shortage