The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, located in Washington, DC, pursuant to the authority of FAR Part 13, has a requirement for the commerical acquisition of submachine guns, .40 Cal. S&W, ambidextrous safety, semi-automatic or 2 shot burts trigger group, Tritium night sights for front and rear, rails for attachment of flashlight (front under fore grip) and scope (top rear), stock-collapsilbe or folding, magazine - 30 rd. capacity, sling, light weight, and oversized trigger guard for gloved operation.
From the USDA- OIG website:
“Pursuant to the Inspector General Act of 1978 and Section 1337 of the Agriculture and Food Act of 1981 (P.L. 97-98), OIG Investigations is the law enforcement arm of the Department, with Department-wide investigative jurisdiction. OIG Special Agents conduct investigations of significant criminal activities involving USDA programs, operations, and personnel, and are authorized to make arrests, execute warrants, and carry firearms. The types of investigations conducted by OIG Special Agents involve criminal activities such as frauds in subsidy, price support, benefits, and insurance programs; significant thefts of Government property or funds; bribery; extortion; smuggling; and assaults on employees. Investigations involving criminal activity that affects the health and safety of the public, such as meat packers who knowingly sell hazardous food products and individuals who tamper with food regulated by USDA, are also high-profile investigative priorities. In addition, OIG Special Agents are poised to provide emergency law enforcement response to USDA declared emergencies and suspected incidents of terrorism affecting USDA regulated industries, as well as USDA programs, operations, personnel, and installations, in coordination with Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies, as appropriate.”
/end
While it’s a small department with a fairly narrowly defined mission (investigating fraud and waste WRT government agricultural interests), a lot of unsavory types fall into the investigations above. A lot of money involved in some of these, too. Also keep in mind that a visit to a large farm or facility for an investigation can turn into all sorts of other weirdness. They also deal with internal issues within USDA, which, as with any other large organization, could have a propensity for workplace violence or security issues with their buildings.
Not saying I support it or not, just trying to rationalize it from their side. Also, as was mentioned on another forum, anyone else notice how their proposal makes the Sig MPX or the UMP almost a shoe-in?
USDA includes the Forest Service, an agency with wide responsibility and terrain to police.
(And a pre-emptive note of caution: After the locks on other threads about federal enforcement actions, their gun and ammo buying, militarization of police, etc, the hammer will fall swiftly on hijinx in this thread. Post accordingly.)
The major issue is ‘group think’ in an organization that all of a sudden has this hammer and starts to see nails all over the place. These guys cannot be proficient enough in gear, procedures and tactics to be much more than targets or a danger to the general populace.
If you think you need a sub-gun or a rifle on an inspection, DON’T GO. Only go with local, state or fed actual law enforcement officers. Just like TSA can’t arrest you, the local cop does.
Maybe if we controlled our borders, we wouldn’t have to worry about armed foreign gangs hundereds of miles from the border.
Side-arms, OK. You start talking sub guns and rifles, let alone sniper rifles- and they are out of their lanes. Instead of armed little fiefdoms in all the alphabet agencies, centralize and control the use of all these special units- and make it more professional and competent.
It’s only a matter of time before these SWAT-a-bees either go full Miami cops on someone unarmed, run into people that actually know what they are doing and get their asses handed to them, or they concentrate so much on this stuff they loose focus on their intended mission.
I thought the FBI and Marshall’s were the federal gubment’s go-to when arrests/raids were to be made. It would seem to me that your post is spot-on; too many low-speed high-drag types armed to the teeth in the alphabet soup. Centralize it and be done with it (actually I think at one time it WAS centralized for those two agencies I mentioned, but time and budgets have morphed into mission-creep for the other agencies).
That’s not entirely accurate. TSA has two types of law enforcement officers. Federal Air Marshals and former FAMS who operate at the larger airports and are titled Assistant Federal Security Director - Law Enforcement. They are required to maintain firearms proficiency just like duty status FAMS are.
While neither of them routinely make arrests, they have that authority and can do so. AFSD-LE’s often work jointly with the FBI and JTTF for local arrests on violations of federal aviation law. I realize this doesn’t translate nationally, but the guys in my AOR are pretty circumspect on the UoF.
I see what you’re getting at, but the converse is to have 1, or a few, federal agencies with a huge amount of reach. Having multiple agencies actually has some advantages, not least of which is that it acts as a check against 1 agency having too much power.
These are not submachine guns.
In the possession of a federal agency the are personal defense weapons.
And the only thing that comes out of the barrels, are baby foxes.
If you can answer that you can answer why postal inspectors have MP5’s with suppressors and subsonic ammo. Now if they are involved in search warrants at some less than nice areas I say go for it.
Hard to believe that Hoover’s FBI agents weren’t authorized to carry weapons until about 1934 or so, and it took even longer for them to get the hang of how to use them (Little Bohemia). They had to go hire themselves some real gunfighters from other agencies to get up to speed. In my INS office I had a helluva time getting a couple of 870s in the mid-80s. Bought my own CAR-15 in the meantime. Border Patrol was always pretty gun-savvy, but other parts of INS had their share of Barney and Bertha Fifes. Running qualifications was “interesting”. Now–everyone has an M4. I’m not at all sure that’s a good thing…
Too many people can’t even drive for beans. Handing out weaponry wholesale is a scary, scary idea for lots of reasons, IMHO.