On June 15, 2022, The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) announced that the federal government is considering a total ban on the sale of M855 and SS109 ammunition produced at the Lake City Ammunition Plant.
This is a move clearly meant to enact gun control under the table, circumventing congress, law, and the will of the people.
What You Need to Know Right Now: As of today (6/16/22), this is being “considered”, and not in effect. However, there are rumors that the plant is already halting sales to the civilian market in preparation for the “rule” to be enacted.
Lake City Supplies 30% Of the Civilian Market for 5.56/.223
Established in 1941 by Remington Arms, the Lake City Ammunition Plant, now run by Winchester, produces around 30% of the 5.56 and .223 ammo for the civilian market.
As of 2020, the plant was producing 1.6 billion rounds every year just for the military. Total US civilian markets for ammunition are around 1 billion per year.
I wasn’t able to find out exactly how much this 30% number works out to be, but given that M855 is one of the most popular rounds, it’s a large chunk of the market.
An event like this is sure to cause waves, price increases, and shortages in the guns and ammo markets, almost like that’s what it’s supposed to do! If you’ve been paying attention, this is exactly what they want to happen.
Banning Civilian Sale May Hurt “Bipartisan” Gun Control Support
As recently as last week, the creatures in the US senate announced that they have come to a bipartisan deal on gun control measures.
While it would surprise me if enough senators had the gall to do something about this, a move like this from the executive branch of the government may be enough to get senators to back off.
Obama Failed This in 2015, and Why It Might Work This Time
Way back in 2015, just as I was starting to pay attention to all of this, Obama tried to use the ATF to ban green tip ammo, which is the same as the M855 they’re going after now.
However, because of the way that they went about it, congress objected, and because the round was so popular, they were unable to ban it essentially because of “common use”.
This time, it’s different. What they’re trying now isn’t an all-out ban on the ammunition, just banning the civilian sale of the ammo from a particular plant.
Currently, the plant has contracts with the military to produce a certain amount of ammo every year. What the plant can make in excess of this, is sold to civilians.
This is just my suspicion, but it’s my guess that the contracts the Lake City Ammo Plant has with the US Military allow the military to stop the plant from selling the excess to civilians and buy it themselves.
Again, this wouldn’t be an all-out ban on 5.56, but the Lake City Ammo Plant is the largest producer of ammo for the DOD, and 30% of the market is no small number.
Feds Planning on Using the Ammo for Something Else?
This may just be me being a schizo, but essentially what is happening is that the federal government is telling one of their contractors they can’t sell ammo to civilians because they need it themselves.
If not an attempt for backdoor gun control, what might the government be planning? Why would they need all of this extra ammo? 30% of the civilian market is likely hundreds of millions if not billions of rounds and dollars.
War with Russia? War with China? War at home? I don’t mean to fearmonger, but if the feds suddenly need this much extra ammo, it might be wise to at least think about what the future holds behind the scenes.
Check out this great video on the situation by John Crump.