How else can you rationalize the purchase of 16,000 rounds of .40S&W hollowpoint ammunition by THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE???
They don’t have the money to train storm spotters–they’ve actually scaled back the training–but they have money to buy ammunition.
Armed security to protect some of the more critical NWS equipment perhaps? Radar facilities, communications facilities, etc. (It’s the U.S. official voice for issuing warnings during life-threatening weather situations and also seems to be the way that warnings about things like chemical spills (and by extension probably terrorist activities such as dirty bombs and the like).
16000 rounds spread across the US for an entire year isn’t a whole lot…
Yeah, but if I want to protect those types of assets with armed security, I’d probably want more than a handgun caliber. (DHS just purchased a buttload of those–over a billion rounds combined. You’d think they were beefing up for the impending zombie apocalypse.)
The .223 caliber–used in AR-15s and the military variants–runs for about the same price, and does the job better.
Here‘s the clarification – the order is destined for the NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement .
(I’d guess security would typically mix in multiple layers, including small arms and stuff with larger firepower).
That makes better sense. If these guys were standard law-enforcement–and most federal agencies have a contingent of those***–then that purchase would make sense.
***That is an issue all its own, but–on a practical level–it is justifiable for some agencies.
NOAA is now blaming a “clerical error” for the announcement, claiming that the ammo purchase is actually for the NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/14/national-weather-service-ammo-request-error/
Yep. Dave caught that one.