“The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000),” former Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn and OpenTheBooks founder and CEO Adam Andrzejewski said.

Well that escalated quickly.

“The recent spikes in IRS purchasing could be related to the increase in recent ‘Identity Theft’ crimes and the prosecution of those crimes into sophisticated gang activity,” the OpenTheBooks report said.

Titled “The Militarization of America”, the report also confirms the IRS spent nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition and “military-style equipment” between 2006 and 2014, but they’re not alone. It seems other non-law enforcement related agencies are following suit, buying up heavy firearms, ammunition and tactical equipment in a pattern of militarization repeated throughout the executive branch of the government.

The other primarily administrative federal agencies militarizing their departments include the Environmental Protection Agency, The Department of Veterans Affairs, The Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Inspection Service.

So what are they up to?

It’s hard to say. From 2006 to 2014, IRS’ spending on this equipment has gone from around $500,000 to $1,070,456, while the number of employed agents went down from 3,000 to 2,000.

One thing is for sure, the Internal Revenue Service, with its 2,316 special agents and nearly $11 million on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment, is yet another reason we need our guns more than ever.