Signs and portents

As broke as it is, the government has been on a spending spree lately... on ammunition... and NOT for the military:

In a puzzling, unexplained development, the Obama administration has been buying and storing vast amounts of ammunition in recent months, with the Department of Homeland Security just placing another order for an additional 21.6 million rounds. According to one estimate, just since last spring DHS has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. That's sufficient firepower to shoot every American about five times. Including illegal immigrants. To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, DHS is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war.

Now, keep in mind we are no longer patrolling Iraq, and the administration has announced a "winding down" of operations in Afghanistan.  So even military ammunition procurement should be returning to a steady-state level.  This begs the question: why so much ammo for the government's OTHER agencies?

I see two likely possibilities.  One would be to buy up ammunition, making it more expensive and difficult to find for the public in general.  This would be the 'gun control by economic targeting' explanation.  The other possibility is even more serious: that DHS is preparing for war... with someone...

We want to believe in the basic trustworthiness of our institutions and our leaders.  A couple of decades of 'reality TV' such as the show COPS has served heaping platefuls of propaganda to reinforce that basic tendency.  History shows, though, how often that faith is misplaced.  Even now, we have ample evidence of the ability of our 'protectors' to become our assailants:

Two women who were shot by Los Angeles police in Torrance early Thursday during a massive manhunt for an ex-LAPD officer were delivering newspapers, sources said.
The women, shot in the 19500 block of Redbeam Avenue, were taken to area hospitals, Torrance police Lt. Devin Chase said. They were not identified. One was shot in the hand and the other in the back, according to Jesse Escochea, who captured video of the victims being treated. It was not immediately known what newspapers the women were delivering. After the shooting, the blue pickup was riddled with bullet holes and what appeared to be newspapers lay in the street alongside...

A second shooting, involving Torrance police officers, occurred about 5:45 a.m. at Flagler Lane and Beryl Street in Torrance. No injuries were reported in that incident.
Chase said that in both instances police came across vehicles they thought were similar to the one Dorner is believed to be driving. Neither vehicle was Dorner's.

The paramount rule of responsible firearms usage, hunting or otherwise, is to positively identify your target.  In not one, but two separate instances, jittery police officers rained a fusillade of bullets on citizens whose only mistake was to own a vehicle similar to one associated with a suspect on the run.  And these were in-person incidents.  The all-consuming "officer safety" reflex is all but guaranteed to lead to similar--or worse--targeting of innocents if domestic drone surveillance becomes as pervasive as our Ruling Class seems to want.  So much for "protect and serve." 

Add to this the current push at the Federal and State levels to further restrict private access to firearms, and grave possibilities become evident.  There is one overriding question Americans need to ask themselves: is there anything about the track record of our government in recent years, at any level, that would support entrusting to them an overwhelming monopoly on the use of force? 

"Good boys, good girls, whatcha gonna do?  Whatcha gonna do when they shoot at you?"