Just read Jim Shepherd's Shooting Wire, has a number of good points. Available here:
http://www.shootingwire.com/FTA:
"For months, anyone who's proffered the position that the Obama Administration was anti-gun has been dismissed as being a variety of things, from sore loser to rampant paranoid. Nonetheless, since assuming office, members of the Obama administration have steadily- and stealthily- moved against firearms and ammunition.
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All of us need to start contacting our elected representatives -and telling them, quite directly, that we're not going to put up with a move that not only curtails access to ammunition (nearly all .223 and .308 manufacturing capacity is tied up to satisfy the needs of the military) for civilians - but wastes taxpayers' money turning usable surplus into scrap metal.
Reducing the ammo brass to scrap reduces the value of the metal/surplus by nearly eighty percent. It also means that recast brass - in shippable form - may be shipped to China, one of the largest markets for U.S. metals on the world market.
If this is allowed to go unchallenged, anyone who owns a modern or traditional rifle in .223 or .308 calibers will see the impact- probably sooner than later.
"Anyone" in this context means everyone from recreational shooters to law enforcement trainers.
Pulling military brass out of the consumer supply chain means that all the manufacturing capacity being dedicated to meeting the military need will effectively become unavailable to civilians - forever.
Export rulings, lead bans, and brass mutilation orders from separate areas of the federal government look coincidental - on the surface. I'm not big on conspiracy theories - partially because I doubted the new administration would have gotten its collective act together so rapidly.
Seems I've been wrong on that one - and mistakenly using the word "hoard" when talking about the nearly-insatiable demand for ammunition that continues across the country. Today, laying up of ammunition might be better described as prudent preparation for possible problems."