In preparation for next week’s move to The Lone Star State, my FFL and I carefully re-inventoried my firearms. Description, pictures, serial numbers. Paper and flash drive copies. Given the civilian disarmament movement’s willingness to blame legal gun owners for crimes committed with stolen guns, not to mention insurance considerations, it’s a no-brainer. All of which means the U.S. Park Service is utterly brain dead when it comes to guns. Click here to read a scathing report on the Agency’s firearms storage and accounting system—or lack thereof—by the inspector general’s office of the Department of Interior. You gotta love some of those chapter titles . . .
– No Effective Inventory Program
– Limited Supervision by Management
– Failure to Fully Reconcile Unaccounted-for or Missing Weapons
Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I’m thinking huh, I wonder how many of those weapons gone walkies were “assault rifles”? You know, full-auto rifles. First a survey . . .
Section 9.1 of National Park Service (NPS) Handbook 44 limits firearm acquisition to the minimum necessary for an effective law enforcement program. During our reviews of USPP field office armories, however, we discovered more than 1,400 extra weapons. These included 477 military-style automatic and semiautomatic rifles. The USPP has a force of approximately 640 sworn officers. We also discovered a number of weapons that, according to USPP officials, fulfill no operational need.
Next time someone asks you why Americans should be “allowed” to own “military-style weapons of war” tell them “there is no requirement to show operational need.”
Sadly, the IG’s report doesn’t provide a full inventory of the un-inventoried and MIA firearms. But the report makes mention of at least two full-auto rifles and clear evidence of the aforementioned weapons’ inapplicability.
During our review, we were told of numerous weapons that had limited or no USPP operational use. These weapons included 20 M1 Garand rifles and 4 Thompson submachine guns (informally known as Tommy guns).
Our review revealed that USPP had no proper accounting for hundreds of weapons. For example, as recently as April 2013, the Force Firearms Custodian reported two automatic rifles discovered during a firearms search at the USPP Aviation Unit, part of the Anacostia Operations Facility . . .
For those of you keeping score, the IG found more than 1,400 “extra” and “unassigned” weapons that were supposed to be destroyed. In addition, they discovered 198 handguns transferred from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (and Really Big Fires) into an “operations facility firearms room”—without being recorded in an inventory system. Here’s the money shot on that one:
The custodian took no steps to record the handguns transferred from ATF on any inventory system because he had decided to destroy the weapons. Deputy Chief Chapman said that he knew the custodian had obtained the guns but did not know that he had decided to destroy them. Describing weapons obtained from other agencies, the custodian observed: “If somebody’s giving us something for free, we’ll take it. And if I don’t need it, I’ll destroy it,” contrary to section 9.1 of NPS Handbook 44.
And there you have it, save the fact that several members of the U.S. Park Police were “storing” guns at home. And former Chief Robert Langston somehow ended-up with a Park Service firearm in his possession post-retirement.
Oh, and remember: civilians are not responsible enough to own semi-automatic modern sporting rifles or, God forbid, fully-automatic modern sporting rifles. But the government is. Except that it isn’t.
The rules apply to us but not to them……. nothing but the same old. So what else is new?
did they report the lost or stolen firearms within 48 hours??? i say they should get slapped with a felony if the didn’t. fast and furious part 2 anyone?
Destroy handguns that can be disposed of thru licensed dealers to help defray the cost of operations. That’s one custodian that should be fired immediately. All government equipment, with the exception of wmd’s, should be sold at surplus outlets. The taxpayers funded this gear and they should have a reasonable expectation of getting some return on their money.
Amen brudder!
I have a feeling “destroy” means “walk of with” in this case.
I have a feeling it means “assign them to Park Police for standard kayak-based patrol operations.” The Parks Service has a lot of rivers, and we all know how hazardous kayak trips are to firearms. May as well just call ’em “destroyed” already.
If the fascists ever manage to implement UBCs and a federal registry, I hope they do it half as well as they do keeping track of their own guns.
Aren’t the park police responsible for the White House (that’s still racist, btw), Congress and the various monuments and museums in Washington?
-Cranky
Secret Service, Capitol Police, DC Police, FBI, every other goddamn agency with police powers…
I would not want to sort out juris-my-richard-tion in DC. Sounds like a headache.
was this one big armory or was this throughout the nation? why in the world did the have tommy guns? i just don’t understand how they can “loose” all of these weapons. this just seems so fishy.
Exactly. Tommy guns. In a government arsenal in 2013. A collector would pay good money for those.
i think some corrupt cops found their early retirement.
You’re right jwm; I’d love to have an M1 Thompson.
Nice……..I gotta worry about dotting every “i” and crossing every “t” on 4473’s yet these people pretty much aren’t keeping any records. Makes perfect sense.
Yes, don’t you like this? These sorts of lapses will (not might, but will) cause a FFL to lose his license. The way the ATF works in cases where they find these sorts of errors by a FFL goes like this:
– no crimes committed (yet) with the guns? OK, here’s the deal: You “voluntarily” surrender your FFL right now, and the ATF won’t bring criminal prosecution… at this time.
– were these lapses discovered as a result of a forward trace? Well then, you’re losing your FFL… and you’d better have a good lawyer.
But hey, when you’re a law enforcement agency, no harm, no foul. After all, some animals are better than others, with the porkers being at the top of the hierarchy.
your comment “porkers being at the top of the hierarchy” & these politicians in America kinda reminds me of the book Animal Farm.
That was the intention.
Cam Edwards has the solution gun grabber fascist want a report lost or stolen gun law lets put one on the federal government and hold the chiefs and President accountable for the stolen weapons.
So each officer has all the weapons they need, could be given 2 more guns and they would still have leftovers? And that does not include “the boating accidents”?
I keep hearing about all these boating accidents and their tragic loses. MAIG must be sabotaging watercraft or something.
separate rules for “special people”.
Added benefit for club members who are so inclined; but don’t get caught up in an exposure purge; you’ll be hung out to dry by all the big wigs even if they knew what was going on:
“Oh we don’t condone that kind of conduct at our agency. These officers were acting on their own against agency rules.”
Anyone who’s been in law enforcement for any period of time has seen, or knows of that scenario. Unless personally caught with their pants down, the chiefs know nothing about the misconduct or lack of following protocol, except they usually do and by lack of action allowed it to go on.
Tradition, don’t ya know.
http://www.armslist.com/posts/1746940/gulfport-mississippi-rifles-for-sale–thompson-1927-m1-commando-semi-auto
Would really like the real thing.
But I’m stuck in the anti gun state of CA – for now.
I’ve had more unpleasant experiences with the USPP than I could ever recount. All were during the Vietnam Protest Demonstration era.
Shocking to learn.
Wonder if some went to Mexico.
Not Mexico. Chicago.
if this is what the USPP has, just imagine the hoard other TLAs have on hand. I bet they have everything from derringers to m134 mini guns.
All for official use of course.
now get back to work and pay taxes for all this, will ya?
My guess is that the M1s and Tommy guns have been sitting forgotten about for quite a long time.
Objectively, this really shouldn’t be such a big deal. Guns are tools, and it’s a bit ridiculous to keep an obsessive record with serial numbers and (no doubt) bar codes of every screwdriver or hammer in government use. Tools get treated like tools -old ones might be forgotten in the back of some storage room, when new ones are bought or donated from another department they don’t always get logged into a database, and nobody even sweats it too much if you take a screwdriver home with you.
But, being that these are “guns,” and we all know that guns are scary anti-social death rays which spontaneously cause mayhem and heartbreak unless wielded by always-responsible government agents, we expect meticulous accounting. Of course, we expect that meticulous accounting because the government has told us that WE non-government-employees must do this, because of how “dangerous” guns are. Sounds like they’re being held, just a little bit anyway, to their own standards.
Is there anybody, cashing a government paycheck, who is accountable?
You know, someone who works at their job as though they could lose it?
Or does the Fedgov only hire those who can’t cut it in the private sector?
There are millions of jobless people in America that can’t get away with
this level on gross incompetence and expect that they’ll still have a job.
Eh, as someone who’s worked in both the public and private sector, I can say it’s not a huge difference. Large organizations equal bureaucracy, bureaucracy equals idiocy. Works that way in government; works that way in corporate America.
That M4? Yeah, I destroyed it. I destroyed the hell out of it at the range last weekend.
My response (won’t get posted either, but felt the need to try):
To the author: That’s a horrible thing to do to yourself. If you have an irrational fear of something, slow, systematic desensitization is the preferred way to go. It would be like someone who suffers from acrophobia going to walk the edge of a tall building. Not only did you cause yourself discomfort, you may have placed others are risk. You created an emotional state in yourself that might prevent you from making rational decisions, which isn’t a good state of mind if you decide to carry a weapon. Even if you don’t misuse the weapon, visibly being an emotional wreck while openly carrying a weapon could invite criminals to steal your weapon and make even rational people around you uncomfortable. What you did was irresponsible.
So, with all of these firearms disappearing from highly-capable gummint hands, and being left in restrooms by the police – how come I never manage to find one? You would think there would be at least ONE left in the stall on an interstate rest stop somewhere, while I am traveling.
Of course, I would immediately call 911 to report it, so a responsible police officer could take the scary, evil thing into custody.
I know Bob Langston personally. I’ve been shooting with him several times and he lives on my street.
He’s got more integrity than anyone I’ve ever met.
I asked him about the pistol when it was published in the Washington Post. He said, “If they’d have called me before they ran that article I’d have given them a copy of the receipt I got when I turned that gun in.”
He doesn’t throw away things like that because he knows better.
They didn’t even bother to contact him.
They aren’t all gun-stealing/gun-grabbing a-holes.
BTW, the Post did publish a retraction after he contacted them.
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