Chaffetz: Latest Lack of Firearms Security by DHS is "Troubling"

If liberals are truly concerned about how law-abiding citizens handle their guns, they should be calling for blood on this one.

A new report of destroyed, damaged, and lost items within various departments throughout the Department of Homeland Security shows various agencies reported over 1,300 badges (and credentials) lost or stolen, and no fewer than 165 firearms lost or stolen in just in 31 month’s time.

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Complete Colorado exclusively obtained the inventory under the Freedom of Information Act. In part, the DHS spreadsheet sent in response reads:

Almost 900 of the 1,300 lost or stolen badges or credentials were from the sub-agency Customs and Border Protection (CBP); about 300 were under the responsibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and approximately 200 were responsible to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Michael Brown, former Undersecretary of Homeland Security and Director of FEMA, sees the bungling worthy of an investigation by the DHS inspector general.

“Law enforcement credentials, badges or ID cards can be used to access areas closed to the public, restricted access areas, and allow a person to pose as a law enforcement official where lax inspection of the credential to match it with the person carrying it allows that person entry to restricted areas,” Brown stated via email. “Possession of these kinds of credentials gives terrorists or criminals the basic information needed to counterfeit other credentials.”

Think that’s disturbing? There’s more.

“For example,” Brown continued, “a terrorist cell could use these credentials or counterfeited credentials to access public events posing as law enforcement officials, bypassing security measures designed to detect explosives or other contraband.”

The report prompted a letter from House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman and Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Subcommittee on National Security Chairman and Florida Republican Rep. Ron DeSanti to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Friday, requesting all DHS inventory records and policies by March 4, 2016.

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DHS’s blatant lack of firearms security “shows that the department is consistently unable to safeguard sensitive property,” the congressmen wrote.

“The fact that hundreds of badges and cell phones are missing gives rise to a variety of different security threat possibilities,” the letter said. “It is particularly troubling, however, that the department cannot account for its entire inventory of firearms.”

Also reported missing were roughly 360 computers, but that’s an improvement. It was previously reported that DHS lost over 1,000 computers in fiscal year 2008 alone.

I wonder if liberals will go after DHS and it’s underlings for mishandling guns the same they try to come after law-abiding gun owners for criminal’s violent actions with their illegal guns.

You can download the spreadsheet DHS provided here to see their incompetence for yourself.

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