20 states demand White House stop sale of AR-15 ammo from Army plant

Military-grade ammunition manufactured at a Missouri facility has been used in at least a dozen mass shootings from AR-15-wielding assailants across the US within the last decade, with its shell casings recovered at the scene of some of America’s deadliest massacres.

Ammunition from the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, which has manufactured nearly every rifle cartridge used by the US military within the last 50 years, is also one of the largest manufacturers of commercial rounds for AR-15-style rifles, the most popular firearm in the US.

The facility operates with US Army oversight, with support from more than $860m from the federal government to improve production over the last two decades.

Twenty states are now asking the White House to block the sale of those rounds and the weapons that fire them to civilians.

A letter from New York Attorney General Letitia James and 19 other state attorneys general to the newly created White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention demands that the office investigate the “contracting and manufacturing practices that led to so many billions of military-grade rounds being sold into our communities” and to issue a report on its findings.

“In the long term, we ask the White House to ensure that future production contracts prohibit the sale of military weapons and ammunition to civilians,” they wrote.

While recognising the issue of US military readiness, “the federal government can and must do more to ensure that weapons made for our military do not take the lives of innocent civilians at home, and that our tax dollars do not subsidize crime and violence or otherwise perpetuate the epidemic of gun violence in America,” according to the letter.

Last year, President Biden launched the first-ever federal agency dedicated to combatting gun violence, as the violent American epidemic of mass shootings routinely eclipsed the number of days in a year.

The first-of-its-kind office under Vice President Kamala Harris is tasked with expanding efforts to combat the proliferation of high-powered weapons and to stem the tide of gun violence ripping the nation apart, including offering support for mass shooting survivors and communities acutely impacted by gun violence.

There were at least 656 mass shootings in the US in 2023, in which four or more people were killed or injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive. At least 42,987 people in the US were killed by guns last year.

Lake City rounds were used in the mass shootings in Parkland, Florida, where a gunman killed 17 children and adults; the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers; and at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where a gunman killed 11 people during a Shabbat service.

They are among at least a dozen mass shootings within the last decade tied to Lake City’s ammunition.

An investigation from The New York Times last year discovered that the Second World War-era Missouri plant, which operates under a private contractor with Army oversight, has produced hundreds of millions of rounds for the commercial market every year since at least 2011.

Production for retail sales as well as law enforcement agencies and foreign governments more than doubled that for US military production by 2021, according to the report.

Over the last two decades, the federal government has invested $860m into the facility for improvements, an Army spokesperson told The Times.

“Military-style weapons – and the ammunition specifically manufactured for them – should be limited to military use,” attorneys general wrote to the White House. “Even if military-grade ammunition were appropriate for the civilian market, its sale to private parties should not be subsidized by taxpayer dollars.”

The Independent has requested comment from the White House and US Army.