People who need to shut the hell up #5--Ammo freeloaders criticize CMP

That's right. The Civilian Marksmanship Program, which exists to promote the shooting sports, is now being bashed for raising the prices of the ammunition that it's selling and for putting limits of ten cases per year on that ammo.

Now the CMP makes ammunition and rifles available to rifle clubs and competitive shooters, and has done so for nearly a century, either in it's current incarnation or the government program that it was started as under the Department of Civilian Marksmanship.

Instituted in 1903, The intent of the program originally was to train up a cadre of competent shooters who would be available for induction should the military need to mobilize. This program was run under the direct auspice of the US Army until 1996, when gun-hating President Bill Clinton (no doubt acting on instructions from Hillary), ordered the program shut down and the stock of surplus rifles and pistols destroyed, along with millions of rounds of ammunition. The program was saved from total devastation when some pro-gun members of the legislature authorized the creation of a privately-run, non-profit corporation which was to mirror the original program. This corporation, the Civilian Marksmanship Program, was then given all of the old DCM assets, including the remaining guns, ammunition, buildings, etc. They currently continue to run nationwide shooting programs and sponsor the National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio every summer, which attract some of the best military and civilian shooters from around the world. The new CMP no longer receives government funding but relies on the sale of the rifles and ammunition that have been turned over to it, mostly surplus World War Two Garands, Carbines, and even some Springfields, Enfields and Krags. It no longer sells pistols, which is a shame, and thanks to Clinton, hundreds of thousands of historic and very valuable WW2-production Model 1911 .45 Automatics were ground up and melted down.

The CMP has always made guns and ammo available at very reasonable prices to shooters who compete in matches through various clubs or run youth programs designed to teach the next generation to shoot, but unfortunately it's become a victim of it's own success and the guns and ammo too frequently wind up being purchased by unscrupulous speculators who aim to resell them at a profit instead of use them for their intended purpose--competition. Even worse, a growing number of anti-government whack jobs and militia fruits are buying the ammo, along with countless hoarders who just want to amass stockpiles of cheap ammunition which no doubt plays a role in their post-apocalyptic fantasies. The CMP is touted on many nutbar websites as a source of cheap ammo and I suspect that more ammunition these days goes out to non-competitors than it does to the legitimate intended recipients, those of us who have supported the CMP and shot in the sanctioned matches for years.

Now the CMP could do one of two things to stop this sort of thing. They could either institute some restrictions on who could purchase the items, limiting sales to actual shooters who show documented proof of competition or current military/law-enforcement membership, or they can raise their once fabulously-low prices closer to the market rates in order to discourage the profiteers. The first choice is the one that I and many other serious shooters prefer, and it would also require a means by which profiteers who buy the guns and ammo and immediately resell it at gun shows or via the internet be reported and barred from future purchases.

The second thing that the CMP could do--and has done--is raise it's prices to reflect market rates, cutting off the profit to unscrupulous resellers and hopefully discouraging at least some of the whack jobs who are no longer willing to give "the government" a list of how much ammo and how many guns they've bought. This is what's now going on, and incredibly, there's now mass bitching about the latest price increases on gun websites like 1919a4.com, AR15.com, Falfiles, and other sites infested with anti-government losers, fat Walter-Mitty types and other assorted losers with out-of-context quotes from our founding fathers on their sig lines; people who have and will never shoot competitively or serve this country via military or civilian service time. In effect, my cost--and that of the other legitimate competitors--has been driven up by the same people who now sit back and whine that our program which graciously (and I hold mistakenly) sells them guns and ammo is now requiring all of us to pay a higher price.

Sorry losers, but the only ones who have and right to object are those of us who actually participate in the CMP program and shoot the matches or teach the junior courses. If you've never bothered to support the CMP with your time and labor or done anything more than just scoop up bargains that the rest of us have allowed you to obtain via OUR work, you've got no business complaining about anything that you get from it. So all of you crybabies on the gun forums, unless you're an active CMP shooter, you need to shut the hell up and go buy your ammo at Wal-Mart, leaving us legitimate competitors and our finite stock of rifles and ammo alone.