An interesting email from an ammunition reloading company today. Evidently a change in policy from a DoD surplus supplier now requiring all spent brass casings to be "mutilated" before selling. For those that don't know, brass cartridges can be re-used (green?) and reloaded into "new" ammunition. And in fact there are small companies in the US that exist for that very purpose. They buy surplus brass, much of it from the government, and reload to various specifications. The resulting "reloads" are sold to the public as well as law enforcement agencies all over the country. The requirement to mutilate the cartridges means that in order to recycle the brass it would need to be melted down and recast - and incredible waste of time, money and energy.
THe situation prompted me to write a letter to my congresswoman (Jane Harman, who I've met through my work). And what do you know...as of late this afternoon the decision to change the classification of the brass had been rescinded. While I'd like to think that my advocacy made the difference, instead chalk it up to soft power and the interwebs/email. Evidently there was a rapid and loud protest from a variety of groups. And in fact it turns out that the change was a snafu by some mid-level administrator who didn't realize what he was doing. How many times does *that* happen in this country?
