Sunday, July 29, 2012

Body Armor for the Election

In a way, this is not surprising.

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered masses of riot gear equipment to prepare for potential significant domestic riots at the Republican National Convention, Democratic National Convention and next year’s presidential inauguration.

The DHS submitted a rushed solicitation to the Federal Business Opportunities site on Wednesday, which is a portal for Federal government procurement requisitions over $25,000. The request gave the potential suppliers only one day to submit their proposals and a 15-day delivery requirement to Alexandria, Virginia.

The term "masses" is stupid.  DHS specified 147 body-armor kits.  That's not "masses."

But THIS is:

Another recent DHS move to gear up was back in March of this year, when it gave the defense contractor ATK a deal to provide the DHS with 450 million .40 caliber hollow-point ammunition over a five year period

That's 90 million rounds/year.  THAT is "masses."

Hmmmm.

8 comments:

Jim said...

About buying more ammo.

Dad29 said...

Yadayadayadayada.

The part which betrays the author's vacuum-cranium syndrome is the term "assault rifle."

EVERY rifle is an "assault rifle." That's why they are made.

Dumbshit.

Jim said...

Hunting is "assault"?

Asshat.

Anonymous said...

West Coast BankerBreath:

Any time you push 100 grains of lead into a target--chipmunk, deer, wolf, or human--at 2,000++ feet/second, it's an "assault.

I can fire my semi-auto Remington .240Win 10 times in 20 seconds (or less) just like anybody else can fire their AR or AK 10 times in 20 seconds or less.


So what's the difference, asshat?

Grim said...

The figure looks alarming on its face -- enough bullets to kill every man, woman and child in America and have plenty left over -- but it's really not. Let's do some back of the envelope calculations.

DHS has 200,000 employees. If each of them fires 100 rounds a month in training, that's 1,200 rounds a year per employee; which is 240,000,000 rounds per year for training. The 90,000,000 rounds they're actually ordering is less than half of that.

Of course, they aren't all gun-toting positions. Still, a hundred rounds a month at the range is a little light for keeping in shape if you carry a gun in the line of duty; it's basically a couple of boxes a month. Especially for folks like the Secret Service, you'd want them to be burning through a bit more than that. So, even though all 200,000 employees aren't gunfighters, you want the ones who are to be going through more rounds per person than our estimate considers.

That means that 90 million rounds a year is probably a reasonable figure just for practice. If you are going to carry a gun, you ought to be in good and regular practice with it. A box a week wouldn't be out of line for the Secret Service or Border Patrol, I wouldn't think, and that comes to 200 rounds a month or more (for months with more than four weeks).

Jim said...

You shoot chipmunks with a semi-auto Remington .240Win? So 10 shots in 20 seconds. Is that for when you are being attacked by a whole herd of chipmunks?

Dad29 said...

So, Jim, Anony is waiting for your erudite and well-reasoned (and documented) response to his question.

Got one?

Jim said...

You mean "What's the difference?"?

No I don't. Why? I don't really care about his shooting skills. I question why he would need to shoot 10 rounds in 20 seconds unless he was being overrun by a herd of wildebeast or chipmunks. I asked if hunting was "assault". I never thought of it that way, but I guess it is if you say so. I always thought "assault" was something persons did to other persons.

So...what?