Congress Writes Letter to Biden Opposing Restrictions on Lake City 5.56

READ OR DOWNLOAD THE FULL LETTER HERE

"Dear President Biden,

It has come to our attention that the United States Army is considering an unusual decision to ban the commercial production of certain types of 5.56mm caliber ammunition produced by the Government-Owned, Contractor Operated facility known as the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant.

Lake City currently produces a significant portion of this type of 5.56mm ammunition for the commercial market.

Having the ability to produce this product for commercial sale allows the operating contractor to maintain capacity and keep the facility at a high state of readiness, at no cost to the government.

This ensures the Army is ready to ramp up production in the event of a national emergency.

Not only will this decision have significant negative consequences for the workforce at the facility, but it will compromise Army readiness by further delaying the deployment of the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW).

 Specifically, this decision will result in the immediate termination of up to 500 highly skilled employees and undermine the facility’s ability to hire and retain the skilled workforce needed to carry out the contract with the Department of Defense.

Additionally, the decision will exacerbate an already serious shortage of ammunition in the commercial market currently facing law-abiding gun owners.

Severely limiting the commercially available 5.56mm ammunition, which is most popularly used in modern sporting rifles (MSRs), is effectively a politically sanctioned semi-automatic rifle ban.

This blatantly infringes on the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution by limiting law-abiding gun owners’ ability to legally purchase or use lawful semi-automatic rifles.

Finally, production of commercial ammunition returns dollars back to the government for infrastructure projects at the facility.

Prohibiting the contractor’s ability to produce commercial ammunition would have a negative impact on both Lake City and the Army’s ammunition industrial base budget.

This will ultimately result in increased costs for taxpayers at a time when inflation has hit every part of the economy, including the cost and availability of ammunition.

We urge you to immediately end consideration of this action, which we view as a backdoor attempt to bypass Congress and ban legal and highly popular commercial ammunition and certain semi-automatic rifles used by law-abiding Americans across the country."