{"id":99665,"date":"2024-01-30T01:37:31","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T07:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=99665"},"modified":"2024-01-30T01:37:31","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T07:37:31","slug":"99665","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=99665","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

If Anyone Needs to Explain Why They Need Guns, It’s the EPA<\/a><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t talk a lot about the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, all that much. For the most part, they don\u2019t get into guns or gun politics. There\u2019s no reason for us to talk about them here, even if they are managing to do a lot of stupid stuff in general.<\/p>\n

But, it seems, that the EPA isn\u2019t completely out of the discussion on guns.<\/p>\n

You see, while there are many who lament the Bruen decision because we no longer have to justify why we want to carry, some rather bizarre federal agencies, including the EPA, have been\u00a0spending a lot of money on guns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Topline:<\/strong>\u00a0The Environmental Protection Agency isn\u2019t traditionally associated with ranged weaponry, but the federal government has spent almost $620,000 since 2018 to buy guns, ammunition, and more for EPA employees.<\/span><\/p>\n

Key facts:<\/strong>\u00a0Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com\u00a0found that<\/a>\u00a0between 2018 and 2022, the EPA spent close to $400,000 of federal funds just on ammunition. That came after the EPA\u00a0purchased<\/a>\u00a0500,000 rounds of ammo and 600 guns from 2010-2017.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over $100,000 went to buying armor for EPA employees. Funds were also used for \u201coptical sighting and ranging equipment,\u201d for \u201cnight vision equipment\u201d and \u201csecurity vehicles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Background<\/strong>: The EPA has a Criminal Enforcement Program, which had a\u00a0budget<\/a>\u00a0of more than $70 million in 2023. Its goals include \u201cprotecting communities with environmental justice concerns\u201d and curbing illegal sales of pesticides.<\/span><\/p>\n

The EPA also has its own Office of Homeland Security, which provides \u201csystemic preparation\u201d for climate and environment related threats. Its budget was nearly $90 million last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those divisions include 259 employees with job titles of \u201cCriminal Investigation\u201d or some similar variation. Those employees collectively earned almost $32 million in salary last year, with 217 of them making six figures.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I don\u2019t have an issue with a federal regulatory agency having investigators in and of itself. Whether I like regulations or not, the current status quo is violating those regulations constitutes a crime, so it makes sense for the regulators to have investigators.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re talking $620,000 spent in firearms and ammo for 259 employees. That\u2019s nearly $2,400 spent per investigator, and to be frank, I\u2019m not sure any of them actually need to be armed.<\/p>\n

See, the EPA is a regulatory agency, not a law enforcement agency. If they find an arrest is needed, they should be able to call the local FBI field office and get them to go in. The FBI, of course, has plenty of guns already.<\/p>\n

What bothers me is that people want folks like you and me to have to justify why we \u201cneed\u201d guns, but thinks nothing of federal agencies buying firearms left and right.<\/p>\n

As the above-linked post notes, other agencies are also stocking up on guns including the Social Security Administration and the Department of Labor. This isn\u2019t new, though, since we\u2019ve known for more than a decade about the Department of Education\u00a0having had a SWAT Team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The truth of the matter is that I want justification why every agency in the federal government seems to have guns purchased with our tax dollars. It\u2019s not because I disbelieve in guns, but because every penny the federal government spends comes out of our pockets. They need to justify every dime, in my book, especially as so many federal agencies try to infringe on our right to have firearms.<\/p>\n

Remember that the ATF started as a tax collection agency and morphed over time into federal law enforcement. If we don\u2019t start demanding answers for this waste, we\u2019re likely to see it happen elsewhere.<\/p>\n

And the EPA is just one example.<\/p>\n

After all, I\u2019m not sure I want to trust guns to an agency that thought a mud puddle counted as \u201cnavigable waters<\/a>\u201d in any way, shape, or form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Anyone Needs to Explain Why They Need Guns, It’s the EPA We don\u2019t talk a lot about the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, all that much. For the most part, they don\u2019t get into guns or gun politics. There\u2019s no reason for us to talk about them here, even if they are managing to … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucraps","category-goobermint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99666,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99665\/revisions\/99666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}