Defense Authorization Bill Goodies

M1911A1This is probably old news by now, but since I wasn’t following along, it’s new news to me. The short of it is that Obama signing the National Defense Authorization Act means:

  • Concealed carry options for our soldiers.
  • CMP Sales of surplus 1911s.
  • Prohibits EPA from regulating lead ammunition.

I’m pleased with this development, but to me the big prize would be to require the military and all other federal agencies to sell surplus ammunition to the public. The Clinton Administration ended surplus ammunition sales years ago, and we’ve never gotten it back.

Related posts (automatically generated):

  1. Can’t Mail It Home
  2. Obama Administration Sticking it to Us on Ammunition
  3. Defense Authorization Act

3 thoughts on “Defense Authorization Bill Goodies”

  1. “I’m pleased with this development, but to me the big prize would be to require the military and all other federal agencies to sell surplus ammunition to the public.”

    I’ve never complained about access to surplus ammunition (my late uncle who was a top NCO in the National Guard kept my birthdays and Christmas stockings well-stocked with military-sourced ammo) but I would reflect that ideally, there shouldn’t be any surplus ammo. Soldiers should be using it up in practice.

    I don’t know about these days, but fifty years ago, in a Combat Maintenance Battalion, I did the least shooting in my life. After Basic Training, when I reached my duty station, I was issued nine rounds to sight in my M-14 as best I could, under close supervision. After that the next live rounds I fired were at re-qualification roughly a year later. That was it for my entire hitch. There wasn’t even a process for buying your own ammo and practicing, had you wanted to. I can’t imagine things being a whole lot different today.

    I should add that the same uncle mentioned above, had had free access to his Springfield and ammo for it, when he was a young soldier in the Philippines before WWII. Something changed after that.

    1. Big Army and the draft happened. The army pre-WWII was TINY and all-volunteer (for various values of “volunteer.”
      We’re kinda back to the Small All-Volunteer Army, but we still have the regs and bureaucratic culture of a Large Draftee Army.

  2. I think we’ll get surplus ammo eventually. To me 1911s were a bigger hurdle than ammo. If CMP has an FFL and can sell handguns, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to sell surplus ammo to let .gov recoup some of their costs.

    The big prize to me is to revoke the ATF “once a machine gun always a machine gun” so we could get some demiled M-14s/M-16s :D

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