For several months the alternative media outlets have been raising the hue and cry over the massive weapons stockpile that has been happening by the U.S. government. On Monday, Forbes was the first major mainstream press outlet to pick up the story and issue a public call for a "national conversation" to understand exactly why the Feds needed to purchase 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition according to columnist Ralph Benko.
At a time when so much of the mainstream media has been fixating on the concept of having the 2nd Amendment watered down, it's refreshing to know that other voices are now willing to call for attention to what is a truly alarming situation because there are millions of gun owners in the United States that somehow manage to muddle through each and every day without firing off a single shot.
It has been confirmed by numerous sources that the Department of Homeland Security has purchased - or has purchase orders open - for the following trinkets:
- 1.6 billion rounds of of ammunition
- Includes hollow-point rounds which are banned for use by international law (for comparison, at the height of the Iraq War, six million rounds were being used monthly -- so why do the Feds need enough stockpiled for 20+ years worth of war?)
- Heavily armored personnel carriers
- 2,717 "Mine Resitant Protected" MaxxPRO MRAP vehicles for use on the streets of the United States. (Since when has America been inundated with mines?)
At a time when it is hard to avoid hearing the word "sequester", and under an administration run by a President that has a Nobel Peace Prize, the sheer concept that certain government agencies are rabidly spending money to buy these items designed for war makes no logical sense.
On the flip side, the mainstream media continues to pontificate about the need to take away many of the weapons that citizens have had the right to own. They will even turn their cameras on people wailing and wringing their hands about the need for a ban on certain weapons because there is a chance that a weapon might be used in the commission of a crime.
To hear people say that they could never use deadly force and that guns should be banned have obviously never been in a situation in which their lives, or the lives of their loved one, was threatened with violence.
If the mainstream media would stop glamorizing the deranged, chances are these people wouldn't feel the need to go out in a blaze of glory. The mainstream media has got to put on their big girl panties and realize that they, too, are responsible for the recent out lash of mass murders at the hands of people that might have otherwise simply killed themselves in the privacy of their own home and no one outside of their circle of acquaintances would have known anything about it. Let's be honest, how many people can conjure up the name of a killer who was splashed all over the airwaves but cannot recall the name of a single one of the victims? We have the mainstream media to thank for this current situation -- but the media also has the ability, and the duty, to turn that situation around immediately.
The citizens of the United States are in a privileged position because of the 2nd Amendment; it allows us to keep a level playing field in keeping the powers balanced. Too often politicians forget they work for us and not the special interest groups that have infiltrated their offices in D.C.
"The world will not be destroyed by people who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." - Albert Einstein
Over the past few months, I have had a number of people express concern over my willingness to write about topics that go against the homogenized mainstream media. Maybe it's the Texan in me that is willing to take a stand, but I believe that the citizens of this country crave intellectual nourishment. They, too, want to know both sides of the story so that they can self-educate themselves and find the balance that rings true with their beliefs and morals.
I stand with Ralph Benko and his suggestion for a "national conversation" to understand why, at this time of financial belt tightening, the government is wantonly spending so much money on items of war.
I would like to understand why the government appears to be looking at we the people as "the enemy" from which they need protection.
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