More evidence surfaced today indicating that the Obama administration is breaking the law and defying official government policy by ordering the destruction of expended brass at military installations. The brass is often used by civilian gun owners to make their own ammunition.
Gun rights enthusiasts often make their own ammunition in a process known as "reloading," the practice of taking the brass from once-fired used bullets to make homemade ammo.
National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea reports on his blog that not only is the government destroying such used brass at Fort Drum, as reported Friday, but allegedly at Camp LeJeune as well.
When the administration attempted to destroy the expended brass in 2009, two U.S. senators, Jon Tester and Max Baucus, wrote a letter of complaint to the Defense Logistics Agency in 2010, after which they were told by the Department of Defense that the practice had been stopped.
The problem, however, is that what the Defense Department had been doing up until that point was against the law. The law clearly states that once-fired small arms cartridge cases are to be "made available intact on the open market." In other words, expended, used ammunition cartridges are not to be destroyed but sold to citizens.
However, apparently the Defense Department was merely telling the senators what they wanted to hear. The illegal practice of destroying the used cartridges has continued.
This prospect is of enormous concern to gun owners in the current climate in which the Obama administration and top Democrats in the House and Senate seek ways to limit citizen access to guns and ammunition.
With all of the talk of gun bans and ammo restrictions, citizens have vowed to take matters into their own hands and make their own weapons and ammunition in order to make a clear statement to the government that they intend to exercise their right, guaranteed in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, to keep and bear arms, and that such a right is "not to be infringed."
But in order to exercise that right in a climate of tyrannical government, citizens need brass to make their own ammo. If the used brass cartridges are destroyed by the government, however, brass could become very hard to get.
Although it is unknown how widespread the practice of mutilating expended brass cartridges has become, usually when one major military installation, such as Fort Drum, is engaging in a practice as a matter of official policy, such a practice is only the tip of the iceberg.
Thus, three questions arise as a result of this information. What other military camps and installations are engaging in this practice? Do they know that the practice is illegal? Who is giving the order for the military to break the law?
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Replies
Contractors are civilians... so the brass is being sold to civilians.
The link I went to in the article just state the same stuff ASP's (Ammo Supply Points) have been doing since I was in the Army.
They have tons of brass the ASP has to get rid of. How many people actually reload? At basic training they draw pallet fulls of 5.56 each day. They would be buried in brass at the ASP if it was against the law to sell it off for scrap. Major installations have 18 Wheelers delivering ammo and carting off the brass everyday.
http://www.govliquidation.com/auction/search?cmd=results&words=...
Plus there is a lot for sale if you know where to look! They are stealing sprinkler heads in Salinas because they are made of brass so there is a market.
I checked out Tony's link and registered to bid on these auctions. If anyone is interested in going in on buying one of these lots of empty brass perhaps we could work something out. I would be interested in any state that borders Arkansas. I've got a trailer that's good for about 6,000 pounds.
I agree the spent brass needs to be recycled, but if the cartirage casing has been purposfully damage (shredded, punctured, crimped), it is useless to reloaders; several companies that keep shooting revatively cheap rely on being able to purchase the brass in servicable condition. They provide jobs from their facility to shippers bring the brass to point of sale retailers, and if ecycled again, more jobs, or at a minimum scrap brass.
I do Class V (ammo) operations for my unit. The perforation of expended brass has been going on for some time. Actually longer than Obummer has been in office.
Craig,what do you mean by perforation?
Perforation is the process of grinding, shredding and destroying the brass casings from their original form.
What sort of casing are you destroying? I went to the government liquidation website and there are literally tons of empty casing being sold. In one case there was so much that if you weren't going to show up with a semi with a full tarp covering don't even bother bidding.
All I can tell you is when we turn in brass to the ASP, it gets screened for live rounds, unfired primers (ummm, we don't look that closely), and obviously other hazardous materials. The civilian contractor that runs that sitestill has SOPs that suggest that all spent brass are sent out for "processing". Defense Ammunition Center also sends out notices about perforation of spent brass. Whether or not they are actually doing that or not, I can't tell. I do know that a lot of brass is sold. If the brass (depending on the DODIC) falls under a certain category code, it will be destroyed. Age, number of reloads under those affected lot numbers, all apply.
I think you identified the misunderstanding. You turn it into a civilian contractor. I suspect the contractor is buying the brass and once it has been bought the contractor can do anything they want with it.
Right, and as I am sure you already hnow, brass casings can only be reloaded so many times before they must be destroyed.
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