Department of Defense to stop selling used military ammo casings to American ammo maker because they were going to sell it as scrap metal to China-Truth! But the directive was canceled!
Summary of eRumor:
A forwarded email about the Georgia Arms company which buys spent ammunition casing form military bases, reloads and sells them to ammunition vendors. The eRumor says that the Department of Defense notified the ammunition maker that instead of selling them the used military surplus the government was going to shred all spent cartridges used for training sell it as scrap metal to China. This would have seriously affected the American ammunition company which would result in lay offs of at least 60 workers in the months to come.
The Truth:
The Georgia Arms Company is an ammunition supplier in Atlanta, Georgia and a company representative told Truthorfiction.com that this was true but the directive was rescinded in 5 days due to customer uproar to elected officials.
According to a March 20, 2009 press release issued by the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service, a branch of the Department of Defense (DOD), there was a directive that for the reasons of national security would forbid the selling of military munitions. This is mainly because they were classified as a sensitive Munitions List item. All used casings were held until the DOD could determined a reclassification of the product for resale.
Click for press release.
updated 04/20/09