Calls for gun control will no doubt proliferate in the wake of the recent tragic shooting in Santa Barbara. In all likelihood those calls won’t include scrutinizing the federal government’s growing stockpile of guns and ammo.
For the first time in years an official tally is being taken of just how many guns the federal government has. According to The Hill:
The Justice Department is updating a report on how many guns the federal government has.
It will be the first time Justice has addressed the topic in six years, and it comes as conservative and libertarian complaints about an excessively gun-happy government have intensified. …
It is not clear when the data will be finalized, though the final release could take until early 2015.
Six years ago, the Justice Department found that 73 government agencies employed about 120,000 armed agents.
The 2008 report found that four out of five armed federal agents belonged to branches of the Justice Department or the Department of Homeland Security, but the other 20 percent were spread out among dozens of agencies that are not as well known for their law enforcement activities.
Not only is the FBI armed. So too are members of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Postal Service (USPS), Railroad Retirement Board, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), according to the report.
Until recently, even the Library of Congress employed an armed unit.
From 2004 to 2008, the government added about 15,000 armed agents, the earlier Justice report found. During that time period, an additional eight agencies began employing armed units. …
Earlier this month, the office of inspector general for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would be acquiring submachine guns.
Other federal agencies are armed to the teeth, too, including the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Department of Education (here, here, and here).
Before we heed calls to disarm law-abiding citizens, it’s worth getting some answers as to why so many of our federal agencies now “have their own personal SWAT department,” as WorldNetDaily has reported—including the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and Department of Education’s ‘special forces” team.