I'm sure the title probably has raised some eyebrows and it should. Because it's a valid and sincere question. One that I am certain would never be answered.
For years, Congress has hounded the BATFE about how many machineguns are in the registry and they have been reluctant to answer. They have stonewalled and I have even watched them question former ATF directors this exact question but with no direct answers.
OK, there is a reason why I brought this up.
According to the BATF, they basically don't know. Or, don't want to say. I'm thinking more of the former. Here's why.
Some claim that it is because of poor recordkeeping over the last (almost) a century and I can dismiss a lot of it to that. But not all. Mainly because manufacturers have to keep a list of machineguns they produce and sell to the government, even though the government is exempt, manufacturers and contractors providing the government are not exempt.
I am aware that the Government exempts itself from the same laws that it pushes down our necks. Yep, government can have machineguns and they are also tax exempt, unlike us.
But when the ATF does give the numbers to Congress, how can this obvious error be allowed to stand without question?
OK, you're probably wondering what I'm talking about, so I'll just get straight to the point.
The number of machineguns that the BATFE says exist is complete BS.
I am going to include this directly, but I wanted to give a link to the original source where I found it, but I wanted to add the FOIA text directly to the website in case something ever happened to the source. Emphasis mine.
https://www.nfatca.org/pubs/MG_Count_FOIA_2016.pdf
OK, so by THEIR counts, there are 175,977 transferable machineguns that civilians are able to own and can buy and sell among each other.
There are 17,020 sales samples that varying manufacturers can loan various exempt government and police agencies and for testing.
And there are 297,667 firearms that are owned by the government and all the police agencies in the USA.
So, there are less than 500,000 machineguns in the registry total.
While that may sound like a lot, that number cannot be correct. There are more soldiers in active service than that. There are more police officers than that. There are more federal agents in varying agencies than that.
While I know that not every policeman has a machinegun, there are still a lot of them that do. And it's not just swat either.
What about postal inspectors? Railroad inpectors (Dept of Transportation)? State national Guards? BLM, DOE, FDA, etc. And while many people do not know this, each branch is exempt and some are issued machineguns. I could go on and type just about every federal agency branch that has machineguns, but to make it easier, let's just say that each branch does.
So, the BATFE would like to say that only a percentage of the government has machineguns?
FWIW, just a year later after this FOIA was released, there were over 1 million active duty service members alone, not counting any other Fed or state agencies.
So, only 1/3 of them have access to a gun at any given time?
I know there are a lot of office and clerical and other non-front line personnel in the military. But the point that I am saying is this FOIA numbers cannot show anywhere near the correct number of machineguns this country has, or has made in the last 100 years since congress has demanded it.
So, my question is, why is no one questioning the ATF? Why does Congress seem intent to turn a blind eye to one of the largest agencies in government? And my most pressing question, is why does no one outside of government seem to give a crap?
For years, Congress has hounded the BATFE about how many machineguns are in the registry and they have been reluctant to answer. They have stonewalled and I have even watched them question former ATF directors this exact question but with no direct answers.
OK, there is a reason why I brought this up.
According to the BATF, they basically don't know. Or, don't want to say. I'm thinking more of the former. Here's why.
Some claim that it is because of poor recordkeeping over the last (almost) a century and I can dismiss a lot of it to that. But not all. Mainly because manufacturers have to keep a list of machineguns they produce and sell to the government, even though the government is exempt, manufacturers and contractors providing the government are not exempt.
I am aware that the Government exempts itself from the same laws that it pushes down our necks. Yep, government can have machineguns and they are also tax exempt, unlike us.
But when the ATF does give the numbers to Congress, how can this obvious error be allowed to stand without question?
OK, you're probably wondering what I'm talking about, so I'll just get straight to the point.
The number of machineguns that the BATFE says exist is complete BS.
I am going to include this directly, but I wanted to give a link to the original source where I found it, but I wanted to add the FOIA text directly to the website in case something ever happened to the source. Emphasis mine.
https://www.nfatca.org/pubs/MG_Count_FOIA_2016.pdf
OK, so by THEIR counts, there are 175,977 transferable machineguns that civilians are able to own and can buy and sell among each other.
There are 17,020 sales samples that varying manufacturers can loan various exempt government and police agencies and for testing.
And there are 297,667 firearms that are owned by the government and all the police agencies in the USA.
So, there are less than 500,000 machineguns in the registry total.
While that may sound like a lot, that number cannot be correct. There are more soldiers in active service than that. There are more police officers than that. There are more federal agents in varying agencies than that.
While I know that not every policeman has a machinegun, there are still a lot of them that do. And it's not just swat either.
What about postal inspectors? Railroad inpectors (Dept of Transportation)? State national Guards? BLM, DOE, FDA, etc. And while many people do not know this, each branch is exempt and some are issued machineguns. I could go on and type just about every federal agency branch that has machineguns, but to make it easier, let's just say that each branch does.
So, the BATFE would like to say that only a percentage of the government has machineguns?
FWIW, just a year later after this FOIA was released, there were over 1 million active duty service members alone, not counting any other Fed or state agencies.
So, only 1/3 of them have access to a gun at any given time?
I know there are a lot of office and clerical and other non-front line personnel in the military. But the point that I am saying is this FOIA numbers cannot show anywhere near the correct number of machineguns this country has, or has made in the last 100 years since congress has demanded it.
So, my question is, why is no one questioning the ATF? Why does Congress seem intent to turn a blind eye to one of the largest agencies in government? And my most pressing question, is why does no one outside of government seem to give a crap?
