John

Law abiding citizens don’t need armor-piercing bullets. We just don’t.

So why are civilians purchasing leftover military-grade ammunition the U.S. military doesn’t need?

The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Missouri contracts with the military to produce AR-15 ammunition, and other small arms ammo designed for military use. What’s left over is available for civilians to purchase, even though we don’t need it.

Unfortunately, in our gun-infatuated culture, these high-grade bullets all too often end up in the hands of unstable individuals, who have used them against fellow citizens in at least a dozen of our most publicized and horrifying mass shootings.

An Aurora, Colorado movie theater; an outdoor concert in Las Vegas; Parkland High School in Florida; Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas; the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; a Buffalo, New York supermarket...

A list of the crime scenes where the Pentagon’s spare bullets have been used reads like a litany of tragic headlines, where young children, high school kids, Black men, Jewish congregants, movie-goers, concert-goers -- just ordinary folks -- were going about their daily lives when tragedy struck.

Tragedy in the form of hundreds or even more than a thousand rounds of ammunition that were used in a single shooting event. Yet the Pentagon is still allowing Lake City to sell billions of rounds of extra military ammunition to private citizens.

Tell Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: Stop allowing leftover military-grade ammunition to be used against our people! Stop contracting with companies that sell leftover military ammunition to civilians.

The Pentagon contracts with Winchester to operate the Lake City plant, one of the biggest manufacturers of AR-15 rounds in the U.S. Anything the military doesn’t purchase can be sold directly to the public. In recent years, civilian sales have ballooned to the point they are now double military sales. These aren’t leftovers anymore, this is a business model.

The racist shooter at the Buffalo supermarket was quite satisfied with his purchases, even raving about them in the manifesto he wrote, where he named Lake City as “the best barrier penetration ammo I can get.” No wonder: it’s made on military equipment, to military specifications, and subsidized by military contracts.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Alex Padilla, as well as Reps. Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia, are seeking more information on the Lake City ammunition sales, but to date there has been no change in policy regarding the Pentagon contracting with the facility that provides mass shooters with their favorite rounds.

Let’s round up these loose bullets by going directly to the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin. Add your name to tell the Pentagon to stop contracting with companies that sell military-grade ammunition to civilians.

Thank you for helping to make our streets and cities a bit safer.

- DFA AF Team