Why does the IRS need so many guns as advocates try to take ours?
BY BOB ANDERSON
Obama’s Brown Shirts
I knew that the article I wrote on gun control would generate some controversy.
I put a lot of faith in first impressions and my sense of intuition like most folks, but I always try to gather the facts before taking a final position on any issue.
Earlier, I said: "If the left can ban AR-15 and AK-47 type weapons, they will have succeeded in taking a major step forward in their quest to control the citizens of our country with little opposition."
The following facts from federal statistics are what I found to do my test of reasonableness in regard to my feeling of distrust for our federal government:
Dr. Tom Coburn, physician, former U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, and honorary chairman of OpenTheBooks.com had a recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled, "Why Does the IRS Need Guns?" which is a summary of a report that can be found at OpenTheBooks.com, titled "The Militarization Of America."
Because of word counts constraints I will only list a few startling facts stated in the WSJ article, but you can go online and read the entire report.
A few excerpts:
- "Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles? Health and Human Services "Special Office of Inspector General Agents" being trained by the Army’s Special Forces contractors? The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700"
"The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history. Over the last 20 years, the number of these federal officers with arrest-and-firearm authority has nearly tripled to over 200,000 today, from 74,500 in 1996."
- "What exactly is the Obama administration up to?"
- "On Friday, June 17, our organization, American Transparency, is releasing its OpenTheBooks.com oversight report on the militarization of America. The report catalogs federal purchases of guns, ammunition and military-style equipment by seemingly bureaucratic federal agencies. During a nine-year period through 2014, we found, 67 agencies unaffiliated with the Department of Defense spent $1.48 billion on guns and ammo. Of that total, $335.1 million was spent by agencies traditionally viewed as regulatory or administrative, such as the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Mint."
Those facts raise the question: who are they for you skeptics out there, and the rest of us, I hope that I am wrong and you are right.
Hopefully, things will start to happen soon that will change the course of my perception and someone will supply us with some new facts about operations within the executive branch that will allow me to gain back confidence in our government and allow us all to focus our attention on what our government is doing to protect us from external threats.
The writer lives in Pawleys Island.