Is the shutdown of the last US smelter part of a multi-pronged attack on ammunition?

David Knight

Infowars.com

October 31, 2013

Most gun control advocates still cloak their true intentions behind opposition to “assault rifles”. But some are coming out of the closet, explicitly or tacitly admitting that their goal is a full ban on private arms. Gen McChrystal said in Jan 2013, “I think serious action is necessary. Sometimes we talk about very limited actions on the edges and I just don’t think that’s enough,” he said. Translation: we’ve been infringing on the Second Amendment, now we need to get serious and ban arms.

And as McChrystal worked the talk show circuit, he didn’t just talk about vaguely defined “assault rifles” but focused repeatedly on how the dangerous full metal bullets used by the military shouldn’t be in private hands. The reality is that while full metal jacket bullets may have better penetration of bulletproof jackets, hollow point bullets are designed to do far more damage to the human body. So much more damaging that hollow points are banned by Geneva Convention from use by the military against enemy combatants. Yet, hollow points are what governments use against their own citizens and what Homeland Security is hoarding by the billions.

REGULATORY RESTRICTIONS ON AMMUNITION

Gun control organizations are turning their attention to ammunition instead of specific guns. When we encountered the 4 or 5 protestors from “Moms Demand Action” in San Antonio, their organization’s national flyer called for

– tracking the sale of large quantities of ammunition and banning online sales

– background checks for all gun and ammunition purchases

– establish product safety oversight of guns and ammunition

– banning of assault weapons and ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION OF AMMUNITION

EPA efforts to remove lead pollution in paint have turned into a campaign to eradicate all traces of lead in everything. Fishing tackle, small tire weights for balancing, zippers in children’s clothes and, of course, lead bullets are in the crosshairs.

The Center for Biological Diversity has lobbied the EPA to regulate ammunition by including it in the Toxic Substances Control Act. While they failed in that effort, California has become the first state in the nation to outlaw lead in bullets for hunting. Gov Brown signed the law over the objections of California state game wardens.

And this week, Doe Run, the last and only ore to lead producer in the US closed rather than try to comply with EPA regulations. Over 20 years the company had been researching a wet chemical process and investing $30Million to replace smelting. The new process would have eliminated 99 percent of all current land, air and water pollution releases. But EPA’s regulatory uncertainty and estimated expense of $100 million to convert, caused the company to throw in the towel.

FED CREATED MARKET SHORTAGES AND PRICE INCREASES

Its not just ammunition that being regulated out of existence. American industry is being regulated out of existence and jobs are being exported. Lead will still be manufactured, but it will be manufactured in China and other countries with virtually no environmental oversight and the products will be scarce and expensive with fragile supply lines.

But lead is not the first component of ammunition that has been attacked in the Obama administration. Back in March of 2009, immediately after Obama took office, the DoD stopped selling spent brass to ammo manufacturers, a policy that would cause shortages and price increases of ammo. Both of Montana’s Senators, Max Baucus (D) and Jon Tester (D) wrote a letter to the Defense Logistics Agency reminding them that according to law, “demilitarizing or disposing of small arms ammunition is prohibited, unless the small arms ammunition is certified by the Secretary of the Army or designee as unserviceable or unsafe for further use. The intent of this law is to ensure once-fired small arms cartridge cases are made available intact in the open market.” Tester’s office said it was told by DoD that the brass destruction policy was reversed.

Yet we learned in Dec 2012, three years later, that according to their Solid Waste Management Plan, at least one Army Garrison, Fort Drum, NY was crushing spent brass into scrap, going to extra expense to reduce its value, sell it cheaply to China and keep it from being made available to the open market to create private ammo.

And while its uncertain whether other military installation besides Fort Drum are violating the law by keeping brass shells off the open market, InfoWars has covered numerous, massive purchases of ammunition by Homeland Security on the open market. Purchase orders for over 2 billion hollow point bullets have created market shortages and stoked demand from a public concerned about the implications of DHS’ actions.

There’s a multi-pronged attack on ammunition:

– Creating market shortages by massive purchases

– Drying up the market by making ammunition components like lead and spent brass

scarce and expensive

– Using environmental regulation to ban the use and manufacture of lead

And after the domestic sources of ammunition dry up, the UN Arms Trade Treaty (UN-ATT) can be used to stop the importation of ammunition.

The gun control movement’s public agenda against “assault rifles” hasn’t been effective. But their war on ammunition by limiting access via regulation, manipulating the market and shutting down manufacturing, has been very effective. And if they succeed, it would be the same as a comprehensive ban on guns.

This article was posted: Thursday, October 31, 2013 at 6:21 pm

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