Rep. Robert Garcia, D-California, wrote to Army Secretary Christine E. Wormuth Friday asking for more details about how taxpayer funds are used to subsidize ammunition made for commercial sale at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant near Kansas City, Mo. The plant is operated by Olin Winchester, a unit of Clayton, Mo.-based Olin Corp.
In the letter, Garcia cited investigative reports by the New York Times and Bloomberg which found that ammo used in a dozen mass shootings since 2012 and other violent crimes were traced back to Lake City. The mass shootings include the 2012 Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting, the 2017 Las Vegas Strip shooting and the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
“I think we need to make a decision on whether this is smart to basically subsidize a private company — that we are paying for the bullets and they’re being turned around to kill our own people,” Garcia told The Messenger in a phone interview.
The Department of the Army and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Messenger.
The Lake City plant was built during World War II, but has been operated by various private contractors — with Army oversight — for over a decade. It is now one of the biggest manufacturers of commercial rounds for AR-15s, a magazine-fed semi-automatic rifle, according to the New York Times.
“While public-private partnerships may be appropriate to maintain a robust defense industrial base, direct or indirect federal subsidies may be artificially increasing the availability of ammunition in the civilian marketplace and contributing to serious violence by private citizens,” Garcia wrote in his letter.
— Bruce Gil in Congress Scrutinizing Army Ammunition Plant That Made Bullets Used in Mass Shootings
