To the editor:

I read with interest your Sept. 18 article “Residents Say Too Many Police Checkpoints.”

One quote caught my attention by Debbie Arceneaux saying, “Homeland Security has purchased more than 9 billion rounds of ammunition.”

That seemed like an extraordinary number and I remembered reading about this in a recent article in the American Rifleman (Sept. 10, 2013 by Jon Draper), which happens to be the official publication of the National Rifle Association.

In it, Mr. Draper wrote:

“But that’s only a drop in the bucket compared to the solicitation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for 450 million rounds of .40 caliber jacketed hollow-points over the next five years. At least one politician thought such an open-ended contract stunk enough to look a bit further. After receiving numerous questions from his constituents regarding the contract, pro-Second Amendment U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) got some answers. He issued them in a press release, explaining that the DHS contract covers the DHS police force as well as Customs and Border Protection, Federal Emergency Management Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, Citizenship and Immigration Service and more — roughly 65,000 law enforcement personnel combined. Crunch the numbers: 1,384 rounds per officer, per year.”

For more information on this interesting subject, visit Americanrifleman.org, search Mark Keefe and click on “Where’s The Ammo.”

– John Flynn, Tryon