1.6 Billion Rounds - Hypocritical?

[PaulS1950]

While 1.6 billion may be a lot of bullets, I don't really see where the hypocrisy comes in. What does violence on the streets have to do with bulk purchases by government agencies? If you want to look for a connection on that score, it would seem to be anti-hypocritical. A round in a government warehouse is a round that isn't on the street. Also, scarcity which drives up prices may keep some killers out of the market. All in all, the question of why so many rounds were bought seems to have very little to do with the gun control debate, so the answer to the question posed in your subject line would be a resounding NO, IMO.

What is hypocratic about not wanting the citizens armed and making a new national police force that is armed like the military?
They have no war to fight! They can only operate within the borders of the US and there is no enemy here. That is dangerously hypocritical.

 

[konradv]

While 1.6 billion may be a lot of bullets, I don't really see where the hypocrisy comes in. What does violence on the streets have to do with bulk purchases by government agencies? If you want to look for a connection on that score, it would seem to be anti-hypocritical. A round in a government warehouse is a round that isn't on the street. Also, scarcity which drives up prices may keep some killers out of the market. All in all, the question of why so many rounds were bought seems to have very little to do with the gun control debate, so the answer to the question posed in your subject line would be a resounding NO, IMO.

What is hypocratic about not wanting the citizens armed and making a new national police force that is armed like the military?
They have no war to fight! They can only operate within the borders of the US and there is no enemy here. That is dangerously hypocritical.

That's just your conspiratorial take on the matter. Bulk purchases make more sense. I don't see them being used against the U.S. population in general. They may be if some armed insurrection took place, but I would consider that protecting the rest of us. Just because someone says they're fighting for liberty, doesn't mean I have to trust them. The Marxists and Nazis said the same thing.

 

[KevinWestern]

While 1.6 billion may be a lot of bullets, I don't really see where the hypocrisy comes in. What does violence on the streets have to do with bulk purchases by government agencies? If you want to look for a connection on that score, it would seem to be anti-hypocritical. A round in a government warehouse is a round that isn't on the street. Also, scarcity which drives up prices may keep some killers out of the market. All in all, the question of why so many rounds were bought seems to have very little to do with the gun control debate, so the answer to the question posed in your subject line would be a resounding NO, IMO.

I think the hypocrisy lies in the fact that some elements of our government is on a campaign to get guns out of the hands of normal people, and repeatedly state over and over again that guns are bad and don't have a place in a civil society. And that's fine, I get the point they're making despite disagreeing with a lot what they say.

However, if you're going to go on a campaign to reduce gun violence, it's a tad hypocritical (in my view) to on the flip side arm your non-military domestic spy team with enough bullets to fight an all out war for the next 20 years. The government should be leading by example, right? I mean, if the Department of Homeland security needs this many bullets, shouldn't I too?

If the number was smaller - like say the order was for 50 million bullets, I wouldn't really be bringing this up. 50 million bullets is a lot for a domestic agency, but I guess you could explain it as a bulk purchase. But 1.6 billion (30 times that number)? It's such a staggering number that it deserves a bit of scrutiny.