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August
10, 2007
Goffstown
Police facing ammunition shortage |
By STEPHEN BEALE and GRETA CUYLET
Union Leader
Correspondents
GOFFSTOWN - New Hampshire police are facing a record shortage in gun rounds, causing months-long delays in ammunition orders and forcing some departments to postpone annual mandatory tests at local shooting ranges.
Ammunition demands linked to the war in Iraq, increased security after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and rising worldwide demand for raw materials have taken their toll on the supply of ammunition for police departments, according to officials familiar with the firearms industry.
Goffstown Police Chief Michael French recently told selectmen half the officers in his department could not pass the first of two annual shooting tests because there were not enough rounds for them to fire. The test was originally scheduled this spring, but ammunition ordered in February still had not arrived. Goffstown is still waiting and a make-up date has not been set.
"The question still remains... where is our ammunition?" French told the New Hampshire Union Leader.
The problem is not unique to Goffstown. In Bedford, the police department is considered postponing its once-a-year test from August to September to ensure six new officers have enough ammunition at the state police academy, according to Lt. Dan Douidi.
Not only has the ammunition supply become scarce, prices are soaring, according to police officials.
In Allenstown, the police department paid $2,700 for ammunition last year. The same amount this year costs $4,700, Chief Shaun Mulholland said. "It's a problem, it's a big problem," he said.
If the local ammunition supply becomes too depleted, officers could fail to qualify on their yearly weapons exams, said Mulholland.
The state requires police officers to pass weapons exams each year.
Goffstown Capt. Michael Sullivan said if officers couldn't take the annual shooting exams mandated by the state, the state wouldn't want them carrying firearms.
"That would never happen," said Sullivan, who is confident ammunition sources would be located.
Allenstown's Mulholland buys most of his ammunition from Riley's Sport Shop in Hooksett, as do his counterparts in Goffstown and Bedford.
Mulholland had to look elsewhere for .223 caliber rounds recently, after Riley's said it would take eight months to get them in stock.
Riley's supplies rounds to more than 70 law enforcement agencies in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. And the store is seeing its lowest supplies of ammunition for its law enforcement customers in more than 30 years, according to Ralph Demicco, the owner.
"There's a raw materials shortage as well as a high demand in the military arena and then, of course, when this all begins to happen, there's hoarding," Demicco said.
The demand for military ammunition has risen sharply since Sept. 11th, according to Brian Grace, a spokesman for Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, a leading manufacturer of police, military and sports firearms.
Before September 11th, ATK was making 400 million rounds for the military at the Lake City Ammunition Plant in Missouri. Now the plant is at 1.4 billion rounds a year.
But police agencies also have been demanding more ammunition since Sept. 11th.
"One of the big issues after 9/11 was everybody was scrambling for supplies and all that," said Hooksett Police Chief Steve Agrafiotis. "We realized if there was a disruption in commerce, bullets, for example, aren't something we can just buy local."
In the last fiscal year, the requests from police for ammunition were up 40 percent at ATK. The company, whose brands are used by many New Hampshire police agencies, was able to increase its capacity by 30 percent.
"There are so many issues," Grace said. "There is supply and demand on the military side, supply and demand on the law enforcement side. At the market level, sure there has been a connection, but let's just say that it has been overplayed."
Military and police agencies have both been affected by a growing worldwide demand for raw materials, which has not cut into the supply of bullets at ATK, but has made it more expensive to buy them.
The cost of a pound of copper, a key ingredient in a gun cartridge, has shot up from $1 to $3, according to Grace.
Meanwhile, many New Hampshire police officials remain convinced that the military is competing with them for rounds - and other supplies.
In New Boston, Police Chief Chris Krajenka said his department has run into delays in orders for new bullet-proof vests, because most of the ones being made are now for the military.
"The military is using a lot of the same technology and equipment we use," Krajenka said. "The military takes a lot of priority on these things."
Reproduced by the Goffstown
Residents Association.
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