Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee is making quite a career out of picking up the telephone these days. To wit, an AP story published Friday made the following claim — sure to bring about the same kind of “concern” among the anti-war types (and their media enablers) as did NBC’s (inadvertant) infomercial for Dragon Skin body armor:
Troops training for and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are firing more than 1 billion bullets a year, contributing to ammunition shortages hitting police departments nationwide and preventing some officers from training with the weapons they carry on patrol.
An Associated Press review of dozens of police and sheriff’s departments found that many are struggling with delays of as long as a year for both handgun and rifle ammunition.
Can it be? Are Bush’s wars really putting us in peril here on the home front by denying, however unintentionally, local law enforcement the very means to protect and serve?
Because if so, I’m OUTRAGED!
Not so fast, though, warns Owens:
To understand the ammunition shortage being experienced by some police agencies today, we shouldn’t look at September 11, 2001, but instead, begin with February 28, 1997.
It was on that day in North Hollywood, California that Larry Phillips, Jr. and Emil Matasareanu, two-heavily armed and armored bank robbers, engaged in a 44-minute shootout with an out-gunned Los Angeles Police Department. The two suspects fired more than 1,300 rounds of ammunition, and each was shot multiple times with police handguns. The 9mm police pistol bullets bounced off their homemade body armor. Phillips eventually died after being shot 11 times; Matasareanu died after being hit 29 times.
In the aftermath of the shootout, the LAPD, followed by police departments large and small nationwide, began to feel that rank-and-file patrol officers should be armed with semi-automatic or fully-automatic assault rifles or submachine guns in addition to their traditional sidearms, anticipating an up-tick of heavily armed and armored subjects. The trend has failed to materialize more than a decade later.
As with most trends in law enforcement, the trend towards the militarization of police patrol officers to a level once reserved for SWAT/ERT teams was slow, though one that gathered momentum rapidly after September 11, 2001.
Today, it is this increased and on-going militarization of police forces and the associated training requirements that have caused the ammunition shortages experienced by some police departments, and the lack of ammunition is not related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in any meaningful way.
The Associated Press report is not supported beyond anecdotal evidence by real, objective facts.
ATK’s Ammunition Systems Group is the largest ammunition manufacturing body in the world. ATK runs the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant under contract, where it has the capacity to manufacture 1.5 billion rounds of ammunition a year, or put another way, a half billion rounds per year more than is being used by our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is also a major supplier of law enforcement ammunition under Federal Premium, Speer Gold Dot, Lawman, and CCI Blazer brands. The law enforcement ammunition is made in plants in Idaho and Minnesota that are completely separate for their military operations at Lake City. These production lines do not, as the AP falsely states, use the same equipment used to manufacture military ammunition.
Those who stayed with the entire Associated Press article might note that ATK spokesman Bryce Hallowell did not buy the AP’s conclusion that the war in Iraq was having a direct effect on police ammunition supplies.
[…]
I contacted Brian Grace of ATK Corporate Communications for further information, and he also doubted the Associated Press claim that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were responsible for a police ammunition shortage.
Since 9/11 we’ve seen a huge jump in demand from law enforcement. In the last fiscal year alone we saw demand from law enforcement jump 40%. By running our civil plants 24/7, hiring hundreds of new employees and streamlining our manufacturing processes we were able to increase our deliveries to law enforcement by 30% in that same period. In addition, we’ve just announced we’ll be investing another $5 million in new production lines at our civil ammunition facilities.
I pressed Mr. Grace to clarify, asking:
Based upon this 40% increase in demand by law enforcement, is it more fair to categorize the difficulty of some departments in obtaining ammunition as a fact of increased police demand outstripping current manufacturing capabilities, and not as the result of the military needing more ammunition and drawing down civilian supply? Is their any shortage of lead, copper, or brass, or it is just a matter of not enough manufacturing equipment?
He responded:
Manufacturing capacity is the main issue. As you might imagine, for a precision manufacturing business that faced many years of steady demand, it can be quite a challenge to suddenly meet double-digit growth in demand. But we're very proud of the successes we've had with increasing our output while maintaining the quality and reliability of our products.
And we're committed to doing everything in our power to accelerate the growth in output, which is what precipitated the recently announced investment in additional equipment.
Let me make that crystal clear.
According to two spokesmen for the world’s largest ammunition manufacturer, which runs the military’s ammunition manufacturing plant and separately, is a major supplier of law enforcement ammunition, it is a massive and unexpected increase in law enforcement ammunition demand that is causing delays in law enforcement ammunition delays, not the war.
It is, of course, perfectly reasonable to conclude that if the government is buying up large amounts of ammunition for the war, and the producers of that ammunition have not stepped up production, then shortages can be “blamed” on the war, rather than on production shortfalls.
But what the AP doesn’t take into account — aside from local market questions — is the impact that countries such as China have (indirectly) on ammunition production. Increased demand for building supplies (and raw materials for other production demands) creates a shortage in, eg., copper and lead and brass, according to Michael Shovel, National Sales Manager for COR-BON/Glaser.
— Which really is beside the point. Because as Owens correctly (and rhetorically) asks, “I’m forced to wonder why the Associated Press […] chose to interview police officers about ammunition, instead of the companies that manufacture it and would have far more direct knowledge of the cause of any shortages.
Perhaps Bob can get a job with the careful fact checkers of the establishment media, or at the very least, pick up some bread doing consulting work — you know, teaching our betters how to use email, Google, and maybe even Yellow Book, if they’re willing to put in the extra effort…
The MSM almost has a willingness to be bitch slapped these days. They seem a bit masochistic these days.
No, it’s the war. It has to be the war. Everything that’s going wrong today is because of the war. Why are you questioning the narrative?
STOP QUESTIONING THE NARRATIVE!!!
/sarcasm off
The media can do their part by not giving bullets to Iraqi civilians for photo ops.
Those annoying things called facts keep getting in the way of their good stories.
And on the civilian side of things:
Current .223/5.56 prices
Ammo price history
If Law Enforcement needs more ammo they should stop by GI Joes or Walmart… I’ve never had a problem picking up a case of 9mm or .40 Cal… and if they watch the sales they can save the taxpayer a few bucks at the same time.
copper and led and brass
Zeppelin is back together again? Who replaced Bonnin?
I reload my own ammunition and the price of lead is going up. Not the availability, the cost which, in it’s own natural and beautiful way, will curb my appetite for sending small chunks of death towards a peaceful paper target at 1200 feet per second.
Gotta love capitalism. It’s the best way to save the planet.
Bonham will be replaced by one of the drummers from .38 Special. Flip a coin as to which.
“…you know, teaching our betters how to use email, Google, and maybe even Yellow Book, if they’re willing to put in the extra effort…”
I wonder what these AP folks doing. If they are not researching, fact-checking and putting in any kind of leg work at all…what are they doing?!
Major, I assume they’re still scanning the microfiche archives or something. It’s all I can come up with.
Why, they’re making a difference!
What they’re doing is speaking truth to power!
After all, what else is someone who has little expertise in any given subject, but has a global forum, going to do?
As for learning something about icky guns, well, that’s just what a bunch of hypermasculine racists would think, isn’t it?
When, in reality, they’re thinking beauteous thoughts about beauteous things—and trying to show how such beauty is sullied and darkened by those right-wing nutters.
All of you are missing the key fact here:
The Square Backed Rounds!!!
It’s all about the square backed rounds, their proliferation, the contribution they make to Absolute Moral Authority™ and what they say about ourselves and our own self loathing.
Now I haven’t worked out exactly what that has to do with the AP, police ammunition and fact checking but its there, right in front of me, if I can just grasp troothiness!!!
I’ll get back to you…
As soon as that AP story mentions .40 caliber ammo shortages you know it’s poorly researched crap and that the truth lies elsewhere.
The U.S. military does not use any .40 caliber rounds. Service pistols are primarily 9mm with a small number of .45 ACPs in the hands of certain combat specialists.
I blame Bush.
Heck, just the other day a gun buyback netted a 32mm and a 22mm handgun. Which shocked Smith & Wesson as they had mistakenly assumed their 500 Magnum, with its .5″ projectile, was the largest production handgun available.
Even the Cobra Attack Helicopters only use a 20mm cannon.
It’s almost as if the reporter meant .32 and .22 caliber but didn’t know enough about what he was writing about to discern the difference.
Toss the ball high in the air and then…
SERVE IT! BWAAAA HAHAHAHA
To be fair, what are the odds that the average newsroom would know anything about guns or ammo. I don’t own a gun nor have I fired one in many years but even I knew something was wrong before the punchline.
Nice work!
Most likely they’re re-writing press releases they got from special interest groups. Keep an eye out, and you’ll find most “X will kill you” and “restaurant Y is bad for you” stories come from a group called “Center for Science in the Public Interest”, which consists of half a dozen left-wing cranks and a fax machine. They send out their latest screed, targeting something that people enjoy, and the “journalists” rewrite it, call up the numbers helpfully included in the press release for some “fresh” quotes, then leave a message with someone in the targeted industry — which makes it into the story as “so-and-so could not be reached for comment”.
If they can get a NYT reporter to report their press release, they’re almost guaranteed the radio, TV, and cable networks will pick it up. They’ll definitely make it into local dailies.
It’s a cheap, effective way to work the political scene. At least, it’s effective so long as you’re playing to the reporters’ biases.
Three words: Fungible, fungible, fungible.
A shortage of X can always be blamed upon Y on the principle of fungibility. It’s logically incoherent, but critical thinking isn’t exactly a core competency of the Associated Press staff.
Bob Owens should really get an award. What would that be anyway? Who is it that says, hey you, blogger person, good work. I really don’t know, but as long as that cheesey guy from the Media Research Council isn’t involved, I’d definitely click something or send an email or whatever if it would help.
He can have my “Most Likely to Be Personally Attacked by a Shrieking Lefty Harridan (of any ‘gender’)” Award.
But only if he promises not to let it go to his head.
Bob is absolutely killing them with a phone and a handful of reasonable questions asked in the right places. Magnificent in its simplicity, and thoroughly discouraging if you’re in the habit of believing everything you see on TV. Journalism was nice back when they did the jobs journalists just won’t do today.
Pajama people unite! ¡SÃÂ, Se Puede!
He going to find himself Public Enemy #1 if he doesn’t start taking the liars’ feelings into account.
Feeleengs? We don’ need to respeck no steekeeng feeleengs!
It is odd, isn’t it? That prior, multi-year contracts are addressed first, and newer expansion contracts will go to the back of the line and be addressed last?
Of course, to be very serious now, we do need to expand our munitions plants. The draw-down of the 1990’s went to far; we have only one production tank plant now and that needs to be corrected. As we need to stop BRAC; we may need these military bases that are seen as exxpendable in a post-cold war world. We can find the funds for those bases to hold them in reserve, say stop supporting the ‘perverted arts’ (Simpson’s reference). Or other non-useful earmarks. It is high time we put our military plants on a 1982 capacity – just in case. I would rather do that and not need them, than do not and want later. ‘Cause wishing won’t make it so, and the Republic has to physically survive the next thirty years to win this war.
My younger brother works for ATK designing and building missiles with the IDF, and I asked him about this. The idea that the war created some shortage of bullets, to him, was laughable.