Dept of Agriculture Orders Submachine Guns with 30 Round Magazines

They must be expecting an attack by jihadist corn!

A May 7th solicitation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeks "the commercial acquisition of submachine guns [in] .40 Cal. S&W." According to the solicitation, the Dept. of Agriculture wants the guns to have an "ambidextrous safety, semiautomatic or 2 round [bursts] trigger group, Tritium night sights front and rear, rails for attachment of flashlight (front under fore group) and scope (top rear), stock collapsible or folding," and a "30 rd. capacity" magazine.

They also want the submachine guns to have a "sling," be "lightweight," and have an "oversized trigger guard for gloved operation."

The solicitation directs "all responsible and/or interested sources...[to] submit their company name, point of contact, and telephone." Companies that submit information in a "timely" fashion "shall be considered by the agency for contact to determine weapon suitability."

There are a number of federal regulatory agencies with SWAT teams. They are not Law Enforcement Officers. Some others are Dept. of Education*, EPA, FDA, and some others. There is no reason for regulatory agencies to have these weapons. BLM and Forestry do need to have a side arm, due to remote locations they work. Not SWAT teams. In fairness, this started under Bush when DHS was formed. Expanded under Obama. Members of Congress are looking to stop this practice in regulatory agencies that are not law enforcement.

DOE stormed a man's house, arrested him for late fees of a school lunch program, IIRC.

The special investigators at USDA are sworn federal officers and go to the same law enforcement training facility as all other federal officers except the FBI.

In Office of Inspector General (USDAOIG), certainly not the entire agency. I've never seen any OIG serve as a SWAT member.

It would be the IGs office ordering these guns and every agency seems to think they need a SWAT team. The cops in this country are clearly out of control.

Your are absolutely correct about government abuse.

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

"Members of the Mitchell family said they had done nothing wrong when Henderson police broke into their two homes without warrants, according to a federal lawsuit.

The family on July 10, 2011, had refused to let SWAT officers use their homes to perform surveillance in what authorities suspected was an ongoing domestic violence incident involving a neighbor."

Story:

In Federal Court now, pending.

Mitchell et al v. City of Henderson, Nevada et al Case Number: 2:2013cv01154

This is the same department that beat a man at a red light - he had a diabetic medical episode. More than a few stories about them.

Per snipped-for-privacy@aol.com:

That's the photo that, years ago, got me thinking that the USA was drifting towards becoming a police state.

The one saving grace - that I did not get from the copy shown in the newspaper I read - is that the guy does not appear to have his finger on the trigger.... If you can call pointing an fully-automatic weapon at a child any sort of grace at all.

To be sure, we are still far, far from being a police state... but I think the movement is there.....hopefully just part of a pendulum swing...

Our police departments have become paramilitary organizations and the use of SWAT tactics are clearly out of control. We see unarmed suspects shot 41 times and nothing comes out of it.

Our founding fathers would be horrified if they knew the endless list of regulations we now have.