Say Anything Blog

The tactic gun control proponents most like to use to undermine our 2nd amendment rights is one where they don’t challenge our right to keep and bear arms directly, but rather make it so difficult to purchase, posses and use guns through endless regulation and bureaucratic red tape that nobody wants to exercise their second amendment rights anyway.  Call it gun control through regulation.

That tactic is rearing its ugly head again as the federal government looks to prohibit the sale of spent military ammo which is an important source of brass for private ammo manufacturers.

One of the companies that brought attention to the issue is Georgia Arms, which for the last 15 years has been purchasing fired brass casings from the Department of Defense and private government surplus liquidators. The military collects the discarded casings from fired rounds, then sells them through liquidators to companies like Georgia Arms that remanufacture the casings into ammunition for the law enforcement and civilian gun owner communities.

But earlier this month, Georgia Arms received a canceled order, informed by its supplier that the government now requires fired brass casings be mutilated, in other words, destroyed to a scrap metal state.

The policy change, handed down from the Department of Defense through the Defense Logistics Agency, cut a supply leg out from underneath ammunition manufacturers.

The policy compelled Georgia Arms to cancel all sales of .223 and .308 ammunition, rounds used, respectively, in semi-automatic and deer hunting rifles, until further notice. Sharch Manufacturing, Inc. had announced the same cancellation of its .223 and .308 brass reloading components.

This doesn’t make any sense.  Ammo is no doubt a major, but necessary, expense for the defense department.  That expense can be mitigated through the sale of spent casings to the private sector.  Thus, we taxpayers are saved money.  And, heck, it’s recycling too right?  Re-using gun casings means that the private ammo manufacturers don’t have to make their own and that means less energy consumption and and smaller carbon footprint, right?

So what’s the drawback to re-selling military ammo casings to the private sector?  Outside of the fact that it makes ammo cheaper and more accessible to private gun owners?

Which is only a drawback if you’re someone who has no respect for the 2nd amendment.