Army ammunition factory linked to mass shootings is under renewed scrutiny
A deal between the military and one of the nation’s largest ammunition manufacturers is gaining new attention over a little-known provision that allows a government facility to produce hundreds of millions of rounds for the retail market.
For more than a decade, contracts between the Pentagon and a series of private companies have allowed an Army site, the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, to become one of the world’s largest commercial suppliers of cartridges for AR-15-style weapons.
The plant, built near Kansas City, Missouri, during World War II to supply the U.S. military, has in recent years focused most of its production on the commercial market, including sales to retailers, law enforcement agencies and foreign governments.
A New York Times investigation published this month traced rounds from Lake City to a dozen mass shootings and many other crimes across the country since 2012.
After the Times article, several members of Congress questioned the merits of the Army’s agreement with Olin Winchester, the current contractor, and demanded more information from the Army.
In a letter to the Army secretary, Representative Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, said that “federal subsidies can artificially increase the availability of ammunition in the civilian market and contribute to serious violence by private citizens.”
The letter continued: “This raises serious questions about the role the Department of the Army has played in subsidizing the firearms industry and the level of oversight the Department has exercised in supporting the plant’s operations.”
Mr. Garcia cited reporting from The Times, as well as a Bloomberg report published later article about Lake City.
Another Democratic member of the House of Representatives, Betty McCollum of Minnesota, also raised concerns about “the disturbing use” of Lake City ammunition in mass shootings.
“More questions need to be asked and answered about how this ammunition is marketed to the American public,” she said in a statement. “I will ask the military for a briefing on how the contracts are issued at this factory.”
While the Army has been public about Lake City’s commercial ammunition production, it has glossed over its extent, arguing that the information is confidential and can only be released by the contractor. That secrecy has prevented substantial public scrutiny of the contract.
The Army says the arrangement, which requires contractors to maintain the capacity to produce about 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition per year, is vital to national security and has saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The Pentagon has invested more than $860 million in improving and maintaining the plant over the past twenty years, The Times previously reported.
The Times investigation found that Lake City bullets, which typically bear the factory initials “LC,” were used in massacres, including at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado; a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas; a high school in Parkland, Florida; and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. They have also turned up in a variety of other criminal investigations, from robberies to the murders of police officers. Authorities have seized the rounds of drug dealers, motorcycle gangs, violent criminals and rioters at the U.S. Capitol.
Earlier this month, Mr. Garcia, along with Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, introduced a bill that aims to put more control over ammunition sales — which are largely unregulated – by requiring sellers to be federally licensed and to conduct background checks on buyers. It would also limit bulk sales of ammunition and prevent so-called straw purchases, in which a buyer with a clean record turns around and sells to someone else.
In a statement, Ms. Warren criticized the Lake City contract and called for “meaningful oversight” by Congress.
“It is unconscionable that the U.S. government is engaged in making military-grade ammunition to sell to civilians,” she said.
The revelations have also sparked outrage among gun control advocates and families of shooting victims.
Fred Guttenberg, the father of a high school student who was murdered in Parkland, Florida, wrote on social media: “It is difficult to find out that Lake City Rounds like this may have been used to kill my daughter and that the sale is possible subsidized by the US government. to understand.”