Thought Exercise
You are the head of a powerful nation with a weak economy. You have established an authoritarian strong-man government with you at the top. Most of your power comes from client-patron relationships with various oligarchs who control the majority of the economic activity in your nation. You have a much more economically formidable rival whom you cannot defeat militarily. In order for your nation to gain world dominance you plot to gradually and subtly destabilize your rival (Thank you to Diaitadoc for his/her informative diary).
Your nation used social media to successfully interfere in the 2016 elections. New plans are developed to capitalize on racial faultlines in the rival nation’s 2020 elections. You have closely allied with special interest groups in your rival nation, hoping to use them to accelerate destabilization.
What else could you conceivably do to destabilize your rival?
Well, you could start killing them en masse. But that really does not seem practical in light of their military supremacy. But — hear me out, this is nuts — what if you could help them to kill each other for you? I mean, if that could be done, that would be, from your viewpoint, awesome.
What could be better?
What if you and your oligarch supporters could not only help them kill each other, what if you could make money off of them doing so? But how?
Sell Your Rival Nation Ammunition.
Specifically, extremely cheap, high-power ammunition. Lots and lots of it.
How much?
Between 2012 and 2017 Russia supplied Americans with more than 4.7 billion rounds of ammunition. That’s almost 14 bullets for every man, woman and child in the United States. Russia is the top exporter of ammunition to the United States.
Sell Ammunition Cheaply So Anyone Can Afford It.
A quick search on Ammo Seek — a popular search engine to find the cheapest ammunition prices - shows the following:
.223 (used by standard AR-15 platform weapons)
Of the 100 least expensive sources of .223 ammunition, ALL of them are Russian manufactured brands (Tula, Wolf, Barnaul, Century, Red Army Standard [note: Red Army Standard also imports from other Eastern European countries besides Russia]). Two of the manufacturers are incorrectly listed as Remington — both are actually Wolf Military Classic — Russian Ammunition.
7.62x39mm Ammunition (used in standard AK-47 platforms and many AK knockoffs)
Of the 100 least expensive 5.56x39mm cartridges, again ALL of them are Russian manufactured brands. Not much of a surprise here given where the weapons originated, and that Russia had all the tooling and so forth to do this.
7.62x51mm Ammunition (used in the FN FAL platform and other weapons)
FAL is a fave of white supremacists because white Rhodesians used this weapon platform to fight the black anti-colonial forces, which eventually overthrew them and established Zimbabwe.
97 of the top 100 results are manufactured in Russia.
5.56x45mm NATO (used by standard AR-15 platform weapons)
Results for the NATO 5.56x45mm are very different. Russian ammunition does not even show up on the top 100; perhaps unsurprisingly given than western factories had the tooling for this and NATO was, well, NATO.
9mm Luger (used in 9mm pistols such as — but by no means limited to — Glock G17, Sig Sauer P226, Smith & Wesson M&P 9, Baretta 92FS)
Over 50 of the top 100 results are manufactured in Russia.
Focus on exporting “high lethality” ammunition to your rival.
This is very hard to quantify/qualify ...what makes a “high lethality” ammunition? All ammunition can be lethal, even a BB. But I was curious, and went looking. I used the following criteria: what ammunition would a mass shooter looking to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible AVOID PURCHASING. Again, my searches were done on Ammo Seek and here is what I found:
.22 long rimfire
No Russian manufacturers listed among the first 100 results
.32 ACP
No Russian manufacturers listed among the first 100 results. Many other countries such as Italy, Mexico and Serbia are on the list.
6mm rifle for target shooting
No Russian manufacturers listed among the first 100 results.
7mm-08 Remington rifle
No Russian manufacturers listed among the first 100 results.
.410 shotgun
No Russian manufacturers listed among the first 100 results.
12 gauge shotgun
No Russian manufacturers listed among the first 100 results.
note: this does not mean russian manufacturers do not export the above ammunition. But it does mean the pricing of Russian Ammunition in the above calibers is priced higher than domestic manufacturers or other exporting nations.
Make Your Ammo Appealing To Mass Shooters
The El Paso mass shooter was specifically hunting for Russian 8M3 to use in his AK-47 variant. He believed it was “a bullet unlike any other.” This particular ammunition was developed by Russia to use in the First Chechen War — which was considered counterterrorism operations and did not fall under the Hague conventions. Thus, Russia used this hollow point round designed to fragment on impact. The intention is “brutal terminal performance” and is “absolute murder on tissue while being affordable enough to purchase in quantity.” It has not been confirmed that the shooter obtained this specific ammo before his shooting spree.
Ensure Sanctions Don’t Slow The Flow Of Ammo.
According to Everytown.org TulAmmo USA was able to show up at the NRA’s 2018 Annual Convention in Dallas despite links to sanctioned oligarchs:
TulAmmo USA, named after the Russian city, Tula, from which its munitions are exported, has multiple ties to Russia and entities sanctioned by the U.S., European Union and Canada.
- TulAmmo USA exports ammunition from the Tula Arms Plant in Tula, Russia, which supplies ammunition for the Russian military.
- The Tula Arms Plant was directly sanctioned by the European Union. in 2014 and Canada in 2015.
- The parent company that owns the Tula Arms Plant, through another subsidiary company, was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2014.
- The subsidiary company that owns the Tula Arms Plant owns another arms manufacturer that was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2015.
- The 46 percent owner of the Tula Arms Plant, Igor Rotenberg, was sanctioned by the Trump administration in 2018. After being sanctioned, Rotenberg reduced his ownership share to 20.23 percent. Rotenberg’s uncle and father were sanctioned by the Obama administration in 2014. Rotenberg’s father was also Vladimir Putin’s childhood judo partner.
- TulAmmo USA has been at every NRA convention since 2011.Everytown.org
Today, Tula manufactured ammunition is available as TulAmmo and Wolf brands in the United States. According to some firearms chat boards, the Rotenbergs sold their interest in Tula.
How Much Impact Does The Russian Ammunition Have?
I don’t know. I could not find dollar amounts or quantities for how much is imported from Russia year after year. Apparently Small Arms Analytics does perform this research and has the data, but I don’t have the money or credentials to access it. Google, DuckDuckGo and other search engines were not helpful in finding data like this in the open. Although, I am always learning new sources of information from others …maybe some enterprising Kossack out there has a better way to get access to this type of information?
In a 2018 editorial in the Los Angeles Times calling for the regulation of ammunition, Robert Muggah noted the lack of information about ammunition sales:
Nearly two-thirds of Americans are in favor of universal checks for ammunition buyers. At least 60% support bans on high-capacity magazines and strict limits on the amount of ammunition that can be purchased. Yet bullets are not subject to the same federal controls as firearms.
They should be.
Another avenue I tried to gain insight into this was looking at the final report from the Las Vegas Police on the mass shooter there and searches for ammunition used in other mass shootings. It appears what while police routinely list the manufacturer, type and caliber of the weapons used no such care is taken to document the ammunition.
Conclusion
None of the the information above is proof of ANYTHING. Really, all of the above are a bunch of data points which circumstantially suggest the following things:
- Russian arms manufacturers are trying to sell Americans as much cheap and deadly ammo as humanly possible.
- That there MAY (not is — nothing is proven) be a pervasive link between these arms manufacturers and the oligarchs who work closely to implement Russian government policy and enact Russian government goals
- This closely coincides with the long term goal of destabilizing the United States from within.
I think this is something that needs to be looked into by someone. I hope the inferences I am drawing are incorrect. But I have a sad suspicion they are not.
It’s also possible that in my very incomplete knowledge of firearms that I have made gross mistakes in this diary. Feel free to call me out and I will correct things in updates. I am NOT a firearms expert.
