Oh, yeah, I feel safer
Rurik sends this article about the competency of the people who are protecting us – apparently they’re arming our criminals, too;
Nearly 180 Department of Homeland Security weapons were lost — some falling into the hands of criminals — after officers left them in restrooms, vehicles and other public places, according to an inspector general report.
The officers, with Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “did not always sufficiently safeguard their firearms and, as a result, lost a significant number of firearms” between fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2008, the report said.
In all, 243 firearms were lost in both agencies during that period, according to the January report from Inspector General Richard Skinner. Of those, 36 were lost because of circumstances beyond officers’ control — for instance, ICE lost a firearm during an assault on an officer. Another 28 were lost even though officers had stored them in lockboxes or safes.
But 74 percent, or 179 guns, were lost “because officers did not properly secure them,” the report said.
What? Did they carry their weapons in their pockets? How do you leave your handgun in the restroom? Did the evil Bush Administration not buy them holsters? What were they doing in the restroom that made them set their weapon down and forget it? A little wide-stance action?
Have you ever been on a military base upon which a weapon was lost? We once lost a .45 pistol on a jump into Alaska. We did a battalion on-line police call in minus 30 degree weather on the drop zone for hours until we finally found the weapon which had fallen from several hundred feet into the 3-feet of snow. And Homeland Security leaves their handguns in public restrooms.
Category: Terror War
Please, please, please. Lose one near me. I lurves me some free weapons. Especially since it’s MY taxpayer dollars that’s paid for it in the first place.
I’ve seen the entire post locked down over one lost weapon. In my years as a firearm owner and as a Soldier I have yet to “lose” a single weapon. It’s one thing to lose a weapon during a struggle or mission, but it is quite another thing to simply leave it lying around, like the POG M4s we’d find in the Portajohn in Iraq on occasion. I guess some of us have better training/common sense than others.
I was at Ft. Lewis when a weapon went missing. We were locked down in the barracks for 3 days. It says “guns”, do we have an idea just what kind od “guns” were lost?
I feel so much safer now.
Jerry,
The article mentions M4s, shotguns (and based on one being in a lunch box) pistols.
Some were recovered while under the control of felons.
It would probably shock you to find out what a lot of these idiots do. When in the bathroom stall they take their side arm out of the holster and put it on the tank top or the paper seat cover holder. Gun discipline is not that big with some people. They view their guns as less useful then their flashlight.
At least they are not stealing agency guns, NVG, Cellphone trackers, listening devices, flashbangs, door breaching charges, and other stuff to the Mexican cartel like that shitbird Vincent Bustamante of my agency. But at least he ended up in the desert with 2 to the back of the head.
A young trooper had forgot to grab his M16 off a bird before it took off and when the pilot was contacted, there was no weapon found on the aircraft. So, a task force was put shoulder to shoulder IN THE DESERT to cover the flight path of the aircraft. The post was locked down and it was mid day, meaning very hot, but miracle of miracles, after 4 hours of walking through the desert, it was found. Granted it was not usable ever again, since it jumped without a chute from about 1000ft. The young trooper got an Article 15 and we got to go back to doing what we were doing.
I’m at a loss to understand how these chuckleheads can give us the stern look as though they are billy badass, when they can’t even keep track of their weapons and think nothing of it when they lose one, let alone 179.
Also, BNG points out that some of the weapons are M4s? Am I to assume that these are of the fully automatic variety??
If you do the math on this, it’s even worse. They said they lost 243 firearms between 2006 and 2008. At best, that is only a 36 month period if they are counting from the very beginning of 2006 to the end of 2008. That’s 7 guns a month! That means that between 2006 and 2008 they were losing at least one gun every week! Sometimes more! Who was the guy in charge of this shit at that time and has he been fired yet?!
Man, you should have seen the shit we went through in my squadrons when someone lost a frikkin’ TOOL!. There would be missions aborted to check for missing sockets or screwdrivers, etc. People were mos’ def’ given Captain’s Mast over that sort of stuff. I simply cannot imagine losing a frikkin’ weapon!.
OldTrooper
You know the kinda weird part about that is, they are required to check in and out their M4 every shift. Its not like a take home thing with the pistols. Yes they are 3 shot burst M4’s As of 5 years ago when I worked in Texas.
At that time they were all mill surplus Colt made guns from the time before FN started making them. Probably have newer stuff now.
DrinkWater
They employ roughly 60,000 sworn officers I think.
Thats twice the size of the NYPD. Wonder how many guns the NYPD losses a year. Bet ya $100 its more then the CBP.
Grover, I understand you defending the agency in response to DrinkWater, I don’t know how many M4s or MP5s the NYPD has in their inventory, but the loss of those weapons by federal agents is un-acceptable, especially if they aren’t recovered. It doesn’t state what happened to those who lost weapons. Were they fired? What is the procedure when a weapon is lost, especially an automatic weapon (3 round burst, or the rock and roll versions)?
I’m not berating the entire agency, just those that either lost the weapons, or the leadership of the agency, who finds time to worry whether we are a security threat, or not, but can’t find time to worry about the loss of specialized weaponry.
In Comm school, they locked us down to the classroom over a missing training CIK with unclassified training keys on it. Turns out it wasn’t really missing, the gear queers just can’t count.
I’ve heard stories of Marines being NJP’ed over a missing helmet. I don’t even want to imagine the hate and discontent comin your way should you lose a weapon and can’t find it.
OldTrooper,
Oh I totally agree, not acceptable to loose a firearm of any kind. However there are true accidents and there is theft.
You wouldn’t loose your job for loosing a gun, unless it was just outright theft on your part. A short suspension most cases.
The CBP runs a bunch of Air and Water ops. Also they are sitting around in rifle racks in trucks while the agent might be on foot miles away. That could explain some of the long guns gone missing. Again not making excuses, just there is some legitimate reasons for not blaming the officers on the long guns.
The CBP has the lowest morale and worst management of any federal law enforcement agency. And that was before Ramos and Campean…..
When I lived above the bars in town one of the kids I mentored found a DEA rig sitting in an unlocked car in the main throughway from bar to bar and beloved hangout for teens of questionable ethics. Sorry to say the kid stole the rig including a walther P99 with 3 mags and the keys to what was assumed to be a govt vehicle. When his 11B big brother found out 2 days later the kid removed the now cleaned weapon from his lockbox and returned it to the field office they had no idea anything was missing but promptly arrested him. When questioned all he said was “who the F$&@” leaves an unlocked loaded weapon in an unlocked car in barcountry during bar hours anyway” I was kind of hopeing the judge was going to let him off for that reason
Ah, it’s reassuring to know that at least one small part of the universe still operates as it should…even if only on a blog. Maybe the Army should be in charge of Homeland Security…heh. Well, stories of missing weapons in the military brings back fond memories of back in the day – I’ve mentioned this before – when the Rangers at Hunter Army Airfield came back from their little Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada about 27 years ago, and there were ( ::drum roll please:: ) — missing weapons. You all understand the significance of this.
I never did hear of the outcome of that matter, if there was one, but it certainly did interrupt the operations of the entire Ft. Stewart District CID office one day, as we interviewed one by one every last Ranger in the unit who had deployed to Grenada. All of the Rangers reported in private interviews that they knew nothing about any missing weapons. So I never heard the rest of that story…though I did catch wind not long ago – something about an admiral. But I don’t know what that was about. Anyway, carry on…
Nothing so far has happened over six missing bullets in a prison. Maybe management is satisfied they left the loader.