Connecticut Attorney General William Tong signed onto a letter with 19 other attorneys general sent to Stefanie Feldman, director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention asking that the administration stop public sale of surplus “military grade” ammunition manufactured by the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Missouri.

The plant is operated by ammunition manufacturer Winchester, which began in Connecticut, and is now owned by the Olin Corporation. The company is reportedly allowed to sell excess ammunition commercially to offset costs. Winchester received the contract in 2019, but the plant historically has been operated by a variety of manufacturers, beginning with Remington.

“I am deeply disturbed by recent reports that taxpayer dollars may have subsidized access to military-grade ammunition by the perpetrators of recent mass shootings,” Tong said in a press release. “I join my colleagues across the nation in urging the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to use its authority to keep weapons of war out of our communities.” 

The letter, authored by New York Attorney General Letitia James, says she and the other AGs are concerned “about recent reports that billions of rounds of military-grade ammunition manufactured at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant have been sold on the commercial market, leading to their use in many of the most tragic mass shootings in recent history.”

“According to recent reports, the ammunition made at Lake City for our military has been sold to civilians in mass quantities, leading to these bullets being used in mass shootings, including a shooting in which three law enforcement officers were killed and multiple school shootings,” James wrote. “Lake City rounds have become the ammunition of choice for use in mass shootings.”

Lake City Ammunition manufactures the popular 5.56 millimeter round used in AR-15s and its military counterpart the M-16. According to the Army’s website, Lake City manufactures small arms cartridges and small caliber ammunition.

The letter references a November 2023 article by the New York Times (NYT) which traced ammunition used in a dozen mass shootings to the Lake City Ammunition plant, including the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde. According to the NYT, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, joined several other U.S. senators and representatives in introducing a bill to put more restrictions on ammunition sales.

“Compounding the horror, the bullets used in this violence were subsidized by American taxpayers, as the federal government has apparently invested more than $860 million to improve production,” James wrote.

James, Tong, and the other AGs are asking that, in the short-term, the White House the manufacturing and contracting issues that allow for the ammunition to be sold to the public and, in the longer term, enter contracts that prohibit such sales of weapons and ammunition.

“The States recognize the critical importance of military readiness in an uncertain world, and of making sure that the military has adequate supplies and reserve production capacity in order to meet its needs in the event of a crisis,” the letter states. “Nonetheless, the federal government can and must do more to ensure that weapons made for our military do not take the lives of innocent civilians at home, and that our tax dollars do not subsidize crime and violence or otherwise perpetuate the epidemic of gun violence in America.” 

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