Rep. Lucas suspects Obama gun control 'conspiracy' to buy all the ammunition

Oklahoma Rep. Frank Lucas (R) recently told a conservative radio show that President Barack Obama's administration may be engaged in a "conspiracy" to purchase all available ammunition as a form of gun control.

Last week, Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s National Security Subcommittee caved to conspiracies theories in the conservative media and held a hearing about whether the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was buying a billion rounds of ammunition to use against the American people.

In an interview with NewsMax host Steve Malzberg on Monday, Lucas explained that he had joined with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to introduce a bill that would limit the amount of ammunition the federal government can buy.

"What do you think that they think they need this for?" Malzberg wondered.

"You know, it's hard to see into the mind of an Obama-appointed official," Lucas opined. "But this is the administration that's super gun control, that really, really, really doesn't trust people with firearms and obviously they don't trust people with ammunition."

"Is this a conspiracy to buy up all the bullets so they're not available to us? I don't know," he added. "But I suspect, Steve, it's a combination of these big purchases by the non-Defense Department government agencies like Homeland Security and a near-panic buying among my constituents, who are afraid that in some gun control bill there were be a limitation on on their ability to buy ammunition. Or the president will do something by executive order."

Although conspiracies theories about government ammunition purchases have been thoroughly debunked, Republican lawmakers have continued to let conservative sites like Alex Jones' Infowars, Glenn Beck's The Blaze and The Drudge Report drive their agenda.

“To the extent that we’re responding to conspiracy theories or whatever, I think we’re really wasting everybody’s time on that,” Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) said during a House hearing last week. “It might have been predictable that Sarah Palin would have taken opportunity to feed these conspiracy theories with statements that the government was preparing for civil unrest, but it was a little more disturbing that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) would seize the opportunity to accuse the government cornering the market on ammunition to drive up prices.”

“Unsubstantiated false conspiracy theories have no place in this committee room — hopefully,” he continued. “Federal ammunition purchases are a fraction of the total ammunition market and they’ve been decreasing in recent years. Even the National Rifle Association distances itself from these conspiracy theories.”

Watch this video from Newsmax, broadcast April 29, 2013.

[Photo: Flickr/Rep. Frank Lucas]

(h/t: Right Wing Watch)