Conspiracy theorists questioned why the government would ever need so much ammo. Were the feds simply wasting taxpayer funds? Or, perhaps, amassing a secret army? Alex Jones’ InfoWars led the charge on this front, running articles with headlines like the not-so-subtle “Homeland Security Buys Enough Ammo for a 7-Year War Against the American People.”

“This ammunition is purchased for the sole purpose of being used in active fighting. At the same time, it is a violation of the Geneva Convention to use hollow point ammunition on the battle field,” that post read. “This is crucial to understand. It means the occupying federal government is acquiring this ammunition to be used against the American people.”

Yet what began as a fringe conspiracy theory has gained momentum over the past two months, finally making it all the way to Congress.

The conspiracies popped up on more mainstream Republican-leaning outlets like Fox News and the Daily Caller, albeit typically in a less alarmist vein. Then last week, two Republican lawmakers, Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Jason Chaffetz (Utah), lent the conspiracies more credibility, holding a joint hearing to demand answers. And though he stopped short of fully embracing the “secret army” theory, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said in a separate hearing that the rampant theorizing had reached a point where “the numbers cease to become Internet rumors and they start having some credibility.”

Other lawmakers posited a slightly different theory: The government, uncertain whether new gun laws would prevail in Congress, had authorized the purchases to remove ammo from shelves. If the government couldn’t take away guns, it would just take away ammo instead, the theory went.

In response, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) introduced legislation in both chambers of Congress last week that would place limits on DHS’ ammo-buying capacity.

“President Obama has been adamant about curbing law-abiding Americans’ access and opportunities to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” said Inhofe. “One way the Obama administration is able to do this is by limiting what’s available in the market with federal agencies purchasing unnecessary stockpiles of ammunition.”

Called the Ammunition Management for More Obtainability Act of 2013 (AMMO), the legislation would require the government to report on its ammo reserves, and prevent it from making additional purchases past a certain threshold.

On Monday, Inhofe reiterated his concern in a radio interview with Laura Ingraham.

“We just denied everything that this president and the vice president are trying to do,” he said. “So what are they going to do if they want to, if they want to violate our Second Amendment rights? Do it with ammo.”

Homeland Security has more or less laughed off the suggestions. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said the department “found it so inherently unbelievable that those statements would be made it was hard to ascribe credibility to them.”

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Click below for the full article.

http://theweek.com/article/index/243436/is-the-government-stockpiling-ammo-to-thwart-gun-owners#

The West Virginia eighth-grader who was suspended and, astonishingly,  arrested last week after he refused to remove a t-shirt supporting the National  Rifle Association returned to school on Monday.

In a move The Daily Caller can only characterize as courageous, 14-year-old  Jared Marcum returned to Logan Middle School in Logan County, West Va., wearing  exactly the same shirt, which depicts a hunting rifle with the statement “protect your right.”

According to Fox News, other students across the rural county showed their  support for Marcum by wearing similar shirts to school.

“There’s a lot of people wearing this same exact shirt, showing great, great  support and I really appreciate it,” Marcum said in the morning outside the  schoolhouse door, according to local NCB affiliate WBOY-TV.

Marcum’s attorney, Ben White, said that school officials are sticking by the  eighth-grader’s one-day suspension because, they say, he caused a  disruption.

“Their version is that the suspension was for disrupting the educational  process, not the shirt,” White told Fox News.

White has called the school’s position into question. He asserts that his  client was exercising his free speech rights. As ABC News reports, Marcum’s version of events is that  he had worn the shirt for several hours without incident.

At lunchtime, Marcum maintains, a teacher confronted him about the shirt.  When Marcum said he would not take off the shirt or turn it inside out, the  teacher began yelling, which caused a cafeteria scene.

“I believe the teacher was acting beyond the scope of his employment,” White  told ABC. “What the video shows is that students did step up on the benches to  the tables in the lunchroom when they were escorting Jared out of building. Kids  jumped up, clapping.”

The police chief in Logan City (pop. 1,779) said that Marcum was arrested for  the disruption he caused at school.

“His conduct in school almost incited a riot,” Chief E.K. Harper told  ABC.

White added that Marcum wore the shirt to express his support for the Second  Amendment. He said the school’s dress code does not forbid such shirts. A  straightforward reading of the dress code would seem to bear that interpretation  out. The dress code, which is posted online, forbids certain kinds of clothing — for example, messages that support violence, discrimination and alcohol use — but nowhere are constitutional rights mentioned.

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Click below for the rest of the story of true courage and standing up for your constitutional rights.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/23/eighth-grader-arrested-over-nra-shirt-returns-to-school-in-same-shirt/#ixzz2RLAQESSA

Background checks have overwhelming support from the American public: A Washington Post-ABC News poll last week found that 86 percent of people support a law “requiring background checks on people buying guns at gun shows or online.”

The Senate, ostensibly, represents those same people. Yet the Toomey-Manchin bill regulating that exact issue failed in the Senate on Wednesday by a vote of 54-46. (It needed 60 votes to pass.) What’s wrong with this picture?

The main problem is that small states are vastly overrepresented in the Senate. If you judge the vote by population, the Toomey-Manchin bill actually got a majority of the votes. Alec MacGillis of The New Republic breaks down the numbers and finds that “senators voting for the bill represented about 194 million people, while the senators voting against the bill represented about 118 million people,” which is “getting close to a two-thirds majority in favor of the measure.”

While the Constitution has always protected the interests of small states, the disparity has never been this big. Ezra Klein of The Washington Post points out just how much things have changed:

During the first Congress, Virginia, the largest state, was roughly 12 times the size of Delaware, which was, at the time, the smallest state. Today, California is 66 times the size of Wyoming. That makes the Senate five times less proportionate today than it was at the founding. [Washington Post]

Of course, the effects of the Great Compromise wouldn’t be so, well, great, if it weren’t so easy to filibuster bills. “Everything needs 60 votes today. This is supposed to be a majority body,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein complained after the bill failed, according to The Huffington Post.

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Click below for the full article.

http://theweek.com/article/index/242989/does-the-gun-bills-failure-mean-the-senate-is-broken