FEMA and DHS purchases from 2011 to date tell a story

I’m not prone to conspiracy theories. With my background I tend to stick to facts. That being said, I do have a more than a few questions of what DHS and FEMA have been planning for. Let me explain.  

Currently, approximately 1 in 7 American law enforcement officers work for a federal agency of some sort. Not all of them work for an agency under the DHS umbrella, however. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, however, does fall under the umbrella of the United States Department of Homeland Security. This re-organization occurred after the Department of Homeland Security was formed in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks

A short journey down the DHS procurement time line.

During the time period 2011-2012, the Federal Emergency Management Agency bought over 1 billion dollars in packaged meals and canned, freeze dried foods. Apparently, according to sources, FEMA was really busy during this time period. They also bought blankets, body bags, and plastic coffins in large amounts. DHS has also bought body armor, personal protective equipment, bullet proof checkpoint booths, and riot gear.

From 2012-2013, the Department of Homeland Security has been extremely busy buying and stockpiling large quantities of ammunition. I am not the only person who has noticed this fact.  As a long time law enforcement veteran, and a guy who has been on tactical teams, a cursory look at the types of ammunition they have bought shows me a lot of detail on what the purposes the ammunition is to be used for.

Overall, the ammunition that has been bought seems to be mainly 9mm ball, 9mm hollow point, 40 caliber hollow point, and 5.56 x 45. Some of the ammunition is also classified as “mixed calibers” that are not specified. The majority of the ammunition seems to be what law enforcement calls “dual use ammunition calibers,” or ammunition calibers that can be used interchangeably in pistols and submachine guns of that caliber. This also tells me DHS has standardized their ammunition calibers around certain set firearms packages.

First off is the standard 9mm hollow point and 9mm ball ammunition found in the DHS order. These are pistol caliber ammunition, but they can also be used interchangeably on submachine guns such as the Heckler and Koch MP- 5. The DHS owns quite a few MP-5’s, as well as other types of submachine guns in 9mm caliber. They also own quite a few 9mm pistols of various types.

Similarly, 40 caliber ball and .40 hollow point ammunition can be multi-use ammunition, and is most probably are being used for standard issue .40 caliber pistols of various makes, and SMG’s such as the  HK UMP-40, which is a fully automatic, select fire submachine gun not available to the general public.

The 5.56 x45 ammunition found in the DHS order is also a standard law enforcement procurement round, and is usually used for law enforcement AR-15 platforms.  This corresponds neatly with the recent DHS bid solicitation for 7,000 5.56 x 45 Personal Defense Weapons (PDW). These 7,000 carbines are not the only weapons DHS owns, however. There are many 5.56 x 45 AR-15 platforms owned by the DHS. When these 7,000 carbines are combined with the numbers of already existing DHS AR-15 platforms, the fact emerges that most of the .223 and 5.56 ammunition purposes seem to be for fully automatic, select fire, AR-15 platforms that are already owned by DHS, or that the DHS plans to procure in the future.  And it’s obviously for a lot of them.

 Also found in the DHS ammunition orders is a large amount of 162 grain .308 caliber ammunition, which equates to the most commonly used ammunition round favored by seasoned, experienced, law enforcement snipers. The number of rounds they ordered tells me that there are a lot of .308 sniper rifle platforms that are being supported by this ammunition purchase.

Now we get to Mine Resistant Personnel carriers, or MRAPS. The DHS apparently ordered 2,717 of them, according to some sources, from the military. They have a top speed of about 55 MPH, and are heavily armored. They can survive .50 caliber fire, roadside bombs, and are equipped with firing slits and a turret ring which is capable of mounting a machine gun, grenade launcher, or similar weapons.

The MRAPS will eventually join a fleet which was also contains 2,500 GLS Armored Fighting vehicles which were purchased by DHS in 2012. These vehicles have many of the same characteristics of the MRAP’s we described above.

2,500 GLS Armored Fighting vehicles added to 2,717 MRAPs equals 5,217 military grade armored vehicles that will eventually be in the DHS inventory. That equals a dispersion of 104 armored vehicles per state, if they were equally dispersed throughout the United States.

What does this information suggest?

This information suggests that at some point in our future, something unpleasant is planned, and the government fears the people of our country will rise up in protest. They may also be preparing for a possible domestic insurrection. Whatever it is, it will not be popular with the public.

The FEMA purchases of food, body bags, blankets, and pre-packaged meals hints that some type of mass population displacement that seems to be anticipated, and large amounts of people who are deceased, in need of housing, food, water, and comfort.

We do know that the combined purchases of 1 billion dollars of food, blankets, body bags, and pre-packaged meals by FEMA, coupled with the purchases of 5,217 armored vehicles and large amounts of ammunition DHS itself, tells us that someone within the DHS management structure believes  something terrible is going to happen and they are actively planning for it, procuring for it, and receiving assets that are designated for whatever it is. That tells me something is going to happen down the road, and people know it.

When this event will happen, I have no idea. But the government seems to believe it’s imminent, or they wouldn’t be engaged in such large scale purchases at such a frantic pace.

An embryonic  DHS bastion system?

Based on the overall information we compiled above, we can begin to see a part of the plan, but  not the whole picture. There is no telling what has been in DHS inventory before the purchases began, or what has been purchased off the record using national security classification to cloak the purchase.  I know from personal experience that the DHS also has command post vehicles, special purpose explosive response vehicles, and transport assets. However, I do see the beginning of a trend towards a bastion system in the DHS planning.

A bastion system is a ringed defense system in which a fortified base of operations is established that  allows troops who operate within a certain geographical region a basic level of safety and security. Once the fortified base of operations has been established, individual units can leave the base and enter into hostile regions to conduct operations, and return to the safety of the base.   

If we examine the information we have, we can begin to see the beginnings of something which resembles a “bastion” type system being constructed by the DHS. A system that can potentially deliver squads of heavily armed tactical officers in protected armored fighting vehicles to any point in the country within minutes, and return them to the safety of a secure base when the operation is complete.

When the AFV’s are combined with other assets like command posts, remotely piloted vehicles, real time video surveillance, biometrics, data collection, and other items the DHS has on hand we don’t know about, we can see the embryonic outline of a real time surveillance and response system that resembles what the military is currently using in Afghanistan. One disclaimer though; we don’t have any way of knowing if they possess all of the components.

We should support our representatives as they ask DHS what it is preparing for. Obviously they know something we dont, and they aren’t telling.