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Title: The FDA is stockpiling military weapons — and it’s not alone
Source:
From The Trenches/The Boston Globe
URL Source: http://www.fromthetrenchesworldrepo ... apons-and-its-not-alone/163255
Published: Jun 27, 2016
Author: Jeff Jacoby
Post Date: 2016-06-27 09:18:33 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 289
Comments: 4
AMERICA’S GUN CULTURE has been a subject of intense interest and controversy for years, with concerns frequently raised about shadowy militias, paramilitary extremists, and unstable zealots in possession of alarming quantities of explosives and firearms. Amid the current din over assault weapons and body armor, consider one domestic organization’s fearsome arsenal of military-style equipment. In the space of eight years, the group amassed a stockpile of pistols, shotguns, and semiautomatic rifles, along with ample supplies of ammunition, liquid explosives, gun scopes, and suppressors. In its cache as well are night-vision goggles, gas cannons, plus armored vests, drones, and surveillance equipment. Between 2006 and 2014, this organization spent nearly $4.8 million to arm itself. Yet its aggressive weapons buildup has drawn almost no public attention. Does all this firepower belong to a jihadist terror cell? A right-wing hate group? A vicious urban gang? None of the above. It is the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, that has built up such a formidable collection of munitions. And far from being an outlier, it is one of dozens of federal agencies that spends lavishly on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment. A report issued this month by American Transparency, anonpartisan watchdog that compiles data on public expenditures, chronicles the explosive — and expensive — trend toward militarizing federal agencies, most of which have no military responsibilities. Between 2006 and 2014, the report shows, 67 federal bureaus, departments, offices, and services spent at least $1.48 billion on ammunition and materiel one might expect to find in the hands of SWAT teams, Special Forces soldiers — or terrorists. The largest share of that spending has gone to traditional law enforcement agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the US Secret Service. But the arms race has metastasized to federal agencies with strictly regulatory or administrative functions. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, now spends more than $1 million annually on firearms, ammunition, and military gear, double what it was spending a decade ago. Since 2006, the Department of Veterans Affairs — which has been sharply criticized for episodes of fatal incompetence in patient care — has poured nearly $11.7 million into guns and ammo. Even the Smithsonian Institution and the Social Security Administration have each devoted hundreds of thousands of dollars to weaponry. Incredibly, there are now fewer US Marines than there are officers at federal administrative agencies with the authority to carry weapons and make arrests. The soaring growth of this federal arsenalalarms Adam Andrzejewski, the head of American Transparency’s OpenTheBooks.com, which researched and assembled the new report. “Just who,” he asks, “are the feds planning to battle?” Arguments long and loud about all the deadly firepower in the hands of private US citizens regularly engage liberals and conservatives. Far less notice has been paid to all the deadly firepower in the hands of federal bureaucrats. “The government itself has become a gun show that never adjourns,” remarks former US senator Tom Coburn. Dozens of federal agencies — entities that will never be called on to fight foreign enemies — now pack heat at unprecedented levels. Perhaps that, too, is something Americans should be arguing about. 
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
Ridiculous !! I don't know which one is the most absurd, The Smithsonian, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, Railroad Retirement Board, Bureau of the Public Debt, National Institute of Standards & Technology, Department of Education, or. Hell. All of the ones listed are absurd. And sadly, there are most likely some that are equally absurd, that were not on the list. I can not think of one single rational justification for this ! If any one has one, I would love to hear it. Any bureaucrat that requested any of this, and any politician that voted for it, should all be FIRED !!! Si vis pacem, para bellum Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us. President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood "I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
Oh c'mon, you are pulling our legs.
Q: “Just who,” he asks, “are the feds planning to battle?” Answer:
Answer: Us! " Yeah. Robert, I bet you are just as worried as I am about those tuff guys at the Dept of Education, or the elite troops at Bureau of the Public Debt, LOL. These idiots do not think beyond their nose. I bet most the employees at those departments would not even know how to load those weapons. If they try to engage Americans, most of those weapons will be laying on the ground, unfired. Then be acquired by Americans. Battlefield pick ups. Si vis pacem, para bellum Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. if you look around, we have gone so far down the the rat hole, the almighty is going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah, if we don't have a judgement come down on us. President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. --Clint Eastwood "I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within." -- General Douglas MacArthur
#2. To: Stoner (#1)
I can not think of one single rational justification for this !
#3. To: Deckard (#0)
Us!
#4. To: rlk (#3)
" Q: “Just who,” he asks, “are the feds planning to battle?”
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