House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy: The IRS Has ‘4,600 Guns, 5 Million Rounds of Ammunition’

(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R.-Calif.) said in a speech on the House floor on Friday that the Internal Revenue Service has ‘4,600 guns and 5 million rounds of ammunition.”

He made the remarks as the House was debating the 730-page “Inflation Reduction Act,” which provide significant new funding to the IRS.

The bill passed the House on Friday by a vote of 220-207 and is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden today.

No Republican voted for the bill in either the House or the Senate.

“Passing this bill today means more expensive bills for Americans tomorrow, and everyone who says otherwise isn’t telling the truth,” McCarthy said on the House floor.

“But of all the bad parts of this 700-page bill, the massive expansion of the IRS is the most chilling,” he said.

McCarthy said Americans will ask the question: “Is America better off with 87,000 more IRS agents?”

“Currently,” he said, “the IRS has almost 80,000 employees.”

“You are going to double the size of the IRS,” McCarthy said—addressing his remarks to “Madam Speaker,” who is Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.)

 “They have 80,000 employees,” McCarthy said. “You know what the IRS also had? 4,600 guns, 5 million rounds of ammunition. Why?

“Democrats want to double its already massive size,” he said. “You are going to spend $80 billion of hard-earned American taxpayer money to hire an army of 87,000 new IRS agents.

“Why would you even propose that?” McCarthy said. “Because you say, oh, it pays for the bill.”

In December 2018, the Government Accountability Office published a report entitled: “Federal Law Enforcement: Purchases and Inventory Controls of Firearms, Ammunition and Tactical Equipment.”

The report noted that the IRS includes two groups of federal law enforcement officers, including its Criminal Investigation division and its IRS Police Officer Section.

“IRS’ Criminal Investigation,” said GAO, “serves the American public by investigating potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes in compliance with the law.” This section of the IRS had 2,159 law enforcement officers at the time the report was published.

“IRS’ Police Officer Section provides protection for the people, property and processes of its Enterprise Computing Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, which houses 10 of IRS’ 19 critical tax processing functions,” said GAO. This section has 9 federal law enforcement officers.

A table on page 30 of the GAO report listed five different types of guns that the IRS possessed and how many of each. It also listed four different types of ammunition the IRS possessed and how many of each.

According to this table, the IRS had a total of 4,487 guns.

These included 3,282 pistols for its Criminal Investigation section and 20 for its Police Office section; 621 shotguns for its Criminal Investigation section and 2 for its Police Office section; 539 rifles for its Criminal Investigation section and 4 for its Police Office section.  It also included 15 “fully automatic firearms” for its Criminal Investigation section and 4 revolvers.

The table also indicated that the IRS had 5,062,006 rounds of ammunition.

These included 3,151,500 pistol and revolvers rounds for its Criminal Investigation section and 4,546 pistol rounds for its Police Officer section; 1,472,040 rifle rounds for its Criminal Investigation section and 9,318 rifle rounds for its Police Officer section; 367,750 shotgun rounds for its Criminal Investigation section and 842 shotgun rounds for its Police Officer section; and 56,000 “fully automatic firearm rounds” for it Criminal Investigation section.

The table also said the IRS had 107 “aiming devices,” 178 “specialized image enhancement devices; and 10 “tactical lighting.”

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