A majority of state attorneys general recently signed a letter to President Joe Biden (D) and his recently created “Office of Gun Violence Prevention.” The letter is in response to an attack from anti-Second Amendment elected officials who sent their own letter contending that the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Mo., is in the wrong for selling surplus ammunition to civilians.
“Their tactic is an overt attempt to punish Americans’ exercise of their Second Amendment rights,” reads the pro-freedom letter. “The Democrats’ letter contains a litany of errors. These errors demonstrate our colleagues’ outright ignorance of firearms and ammunition.”
The letter went on to state how ending commercial sales of ammunition from Lake City would only punish law-abiding gun owners by decreasing the supply of ammunition and, conversely, driving up its price.
“The United States Supreme Court stated definitively that the Second Amendment guarantees a personal right to each law-abiding citizen to ‘keep and bear arms.’ But Americans cannot exercise this constitutionally protected right to use their firearms without access to ammunition. If your office does what the Democrat attorneys general ask, then ammunition prices will increase, and ammunition availability will decrease. And those restrictions on ammunition will not resolve any of the ills discussed by our colleagues,” read the letter.
The group of attorneys general that support the Second Amendment also pushed back on the claim that the commercially purchased ammunition should be manufactured for the military alone.
“[T]hey allege that ammunition manufactured for ‘military use’ does not belong in our communities. First, the ammunition manufactured at Lake City and sold into the commercial market is not the primary rifle cartridge used by the United States military. The primary cartridge is proprietary to the Army and may not be sold commercially. Second, while the United States military purchases and uses a particular type of ammunition, that is not determinative as to whether it is ‘military ammunition’ that should be banned for public use. If the United States military using ammunition precluded that ammunition’s use by civilians, then other widely and commonly available ammunition, including 9 mm and 12-gauge shotshells, would also be prohibited for public use. Indeed, Heller does not support such an openly artificial distinction,” wrote the attorneys general.
“If this course continues, we intend to take any and every action necessary to defend our citizens’ Second Amendment rights,” finished the letter.
The group of 28 attorneys general was led by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R), Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird (R), Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R).
The previous letter, which falsely implied Lake City did something wrong, included 20 state attorneys general and was led by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).
In it, the politicians demanded that Biden and those in his newly created office “investigate the contracting and manufacturing practices that led to so many billions of military-grade rounds being sold into our communities, and to issue a public report with recommendations about how to end the diversion of military ammunition into civilian hands.” It added: “In the long term, we ask the White House to ensure that future production contracts prohibit the sale of military weapons and ammunition to civilians.”
What their letter fails to mention is that Lake City abides by all federal regulations, and by serving both military and civilian markets, the plant maintains machinery, infrastructure, staffing and more to consistently produce high-quality ammunition at affordable prices.
Reports indicate that Lake City accounts for nearly a third of all 5.56x45 mm rounds in the country. “Restricting the sale of Lake City ammunition to the general public would severely curtail the availability of rounds for America’s most-popular rifle, the AR-15, and drive up prices,” wrote NRA-ILA. “Banning access to those rounds would not stop determined criminals who were willing to die or go to jail to perpetuate a heinous, high-profile crime. But it would make it much more difficult for law-abiding Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights and to maintain competency with their legally owned guns.”
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