Dark side of the Sun: Hmmm, government buying more bullets

Mike Corrigan

Mike Corrigan

By Mike Corrigan

BN Columnist

While I’m glad the post office won’t run out of ammo anytime soon (to eliminate rabid dogs; nonrabid dogs; big slobbery dogs; small yappy dogs), it mystifies me what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to do with all 46,000 of the 46,000 hollow-point rounds it ordered. A NOAA spokesman muttered something about “unsettled weather” and “global warming,” and left it at that.

Your government is prepared, people. Homeland Security has built up a stockpile of 1.6 billion rounds, mostly of small-caliber, civilian-type ammo. (Good old Homeland Security, always looking out for the little guy.) Maybe Homeland contemplates shooting 1.6 billion civilians, since they have enough ammo to take out the entire population of China and the United States, too, with rounds left over for weekly target practice, well into the next century. Who knows, maybe they’ll even take down a terrorist or two.

And that’s not all. The FBI went looking for 100 million hollow point rounds, which at least makes more sense than the post office purchase. Clearly, the FBI considers one out of every three Americans to be a criminal, or at least somebody in training for the job. A few million well-placed rounds could “thin the herd,” as it were.

Speaking of herds, the Department of Agriculture requested 320,000 rounds, which ought to be enough to take care of at least some of the gypsy moths next spring. You’d think Agriculture might need more ammo than that, but entomologists predict it will be a light year.

Gun dealers hope so, because the government, as usual, is cutting in on private industry’s game. The demand from all these paranoid federal agencies for small-arms ammo is taking bullets right out of the mouths of babies, or whomever it is that needs training for self-protection and hasn’t yet gotten it — protection from postmen and Cooperative Extension agents, from the looks of things. In the past few years there has been a run on small-arms ammo at private dealers, driving up the per-unit cost; these peaks of demand have coincided with our great government, the greatest government in the world, land of the free, home of the brave, the bombs bursting in air — that government — buying up a good deal of the supply better used by the populace for shooting the rest of the populace. Just like the government to insert a level of bureaucracy between the business community and its targets, so to speak.

The way things are going, the Red Cross will be soliciting for ammo next.

Since gun owners need to practice, in case they ever get into a firefight with the FBI — it could happen to you, and probably will — I don’t see how they can be denied their rations of bullets, hollow-tipped or not. So I propose a tax, to hold down demand artificially, at least until the revolution breaks out.

My plan will tax only the bad guys with guns. How do we know who the bad guys are, in advance? We don’t. So that’s why I’m forwarding the idea of a kind of value-added tax.

Those who use the ammo safely, and kill no one, will face no extra charge, no matter how many rounds they purchase.

Those who kill just one person will face a tax of $1,000, and receive a reprimand.

Two people, $2,000 and a stern reprimand.

Three or more, $5,000, and a Sharpshooter medal (until supplies run out).

Mass murderers will be taxed $100,000, and will lose gun privileges until they successfully complete a Human Hunter Safety course and pledge to be good guys with guns again.

But as far as the government and its rabid consumption of civilian ammo goes, I don’t know what to say. Maybe postal carriers will start shooting their way into our rougher neighborhoods, and it will all be worth it. After all, the mail must go through, and neither rain, nor sleet, nor hail of bullets…

Mike Corrigan is an unarmed man in Lewiston, but he wears bullet-proof underwear, just in case.