House Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Ban IRS From Buying Ammunition

In this photo illustration, a Rock River Arms AR-15 rifle is seen with ammunition in Miami, Fla., on Dec. 18, 2012. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Friday introduced a bill in the House to bar the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from acquiring ammunition.

The bill (pdf), known as the “Disarm the IRS Act,” stipulates that the IRS is “prohibited from acquiring ammunition” and “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), and Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) are co-sponsors of the measure, according to his office.

It came after Gaetz, in interviews with Fox News and other outlets, expressed concern after he discovered that the IRS purchased more than $700,000 in ammunition in recent days. The congressman suggested that it’s part of a broader White House plan to disarm Americans.

“Here’s the Biden plan: Disarm Americans, open the border, empty the prisons–but rest assured, they'll still collect your taxes, and they need $725,000 worth of ammunition, apparently, to get the job done,” he told Fox News last week.

The bill, he said, would put a “total moratorium on the IRS buying ammo. When we used to talk about the IRS being weaponized, we were talking about political discrimination, not actual weapons for the IRS.”

“Undeniably, part of the strategy is that with one hand, the Biden regime is doing everything they can to suppress access to ammunition for regular Americans, while with the other hand, they are scooping up all the ammo that they can possibly find,” Gaetz alleged.

5 Million Rounds

According to a report released by the Government Accountability Office in 2018, the IRS has been stockpiling ammunition and weapons for years. As of 2018, the agency had 4,487 firearms and 5,062,006 rounds of ammunition in its inventory, the report said.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) walks in a courtroom in Atlanta, Ga., on April 22, 2022. John Bazemore/Pool/Getty Images

A 2018 report from Forbes noted that the IRS buys guns and ammunition for its Criminal Investigation Division. Agents in that division are the only employees in the IRS that carry firearms, according to its website.

But in an interview last month with Breitbart, Gaetz said he’s heard concerns that it’s part of a larger trend to “have any entity in the federal government buy up ammo to reduce the amount of ammunition that is in supply, while at the same time, making it harder to produce ammo.”

“You cannot fully exercise the complement of your Second Amendment rights if you are unable to acquire ammunition in your own country because your government has reduced the production of that ammunition, and then on the other hand, tried to soak up the supply,” the congressman added.

Republicans in June expressed concerns over a report suggesting the Biden administration would block private ammunition companies from using the federally owned ammo factory in Missouri, potentially creating a “backdoor” ban on AR-15-style rifles. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of the GOP leadership, later confirmed that the White House will keep the Lake City factory running.

The IRS and Treasury Department have not responded to requests for comment.