The Great Bullet Scare

(from the BC thread "Buy one take ten")

Mongoose and Tamquam,
(who were concerned about a story about DHS buying ammunition)
I do not see any reason to act like this is part of some Black Helicopter conspiracy. There are around 50,000 armed Law Enforcement Officers in the various units of ICE and CBP. The contract calls for delivering 80 million rounds a year for 5 years. That works out to 320 rounds per officer per year. Officers have to shoot qualification rounds every quarter, they can miss a quarter occasionally, and they receive free ammunition to go practice on their own time. Proficiency is important and I think most readers of the BC want them, and all LEOs, getting their practice done.

Federal Law Enforcement, like members of the Armed Forces, are not the enemies of the American people. Their bosses are another matter.

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My thanks to Mad Fiddler for the correction where I double divided. All this gives the officers is less than one clip every 2 weeks for training.

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Mongoose,
(who was surprised there are more LEOs in DHS than in the FBI)
The FBI are the elite, there should be fewer of them then of the regular units. Most marines are not Force Recon and most soldiers are not Airborne Rangers. The Bureau is in the Dep't of Justice. For DHS the elite are the USSS Special Agents (non-uniformed,) For CBP numbers (2008) see: http://tinyurl.com/ygb4weq

• CBP officers: 19,726
• CBP Border Patrol agents: 17,499
• CBP Agriculture specialists: 2,277
• CBP Air and Marine agents: 1090
Agriculture Specialists are unarmed. The basic CBP officers are the ones at the border crossings and airports who ask to see your passport and if you have over $10,000 on you, any meat, fruit or seeds and if you visited a farm recently. Given the size of the border and the country these numbers do not seem excessive to me.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a separate agency with over 10,000 agents. They are the ones responsible for finding and deporting the millions of illegal aliens. The Obama administration has shut down recruitment for ICE .