Mike Rogers: “The Civilian Marksmanship Program is an organization that was established initially by this Congress because we needed…”

“The Civilian Marksmanship Program is an organization that was established initially by this Congress because we needed institutions to help people better understand gun safety and how to handle weapons. It has fulfilled a vital mission. Fortunately, in recent years, we have been able to not have to fund it anymore by being able to self-fund through the refurbishment and sale of surplus weapons. It has been their mission for a century. These 1911s are surplus pistols that were used up until the early nineties by our military. Since that time, statutorily, they were made available to law enforcement and allied countries. As you might imagine, most law enforcement and allied countries would rather have new, modern weapons, rather than surplus. So we have approximately 100,000 of these weapons in storage at the Anniston Army Depot in my district. It costs us in the neighborhood of $50,000 or $60,000 a year in direct cost to store these weapons. What the Armed Services Committee and this Congress in preceding NDAAs has repeatedly done has been to instruct the Department of the Army to start turning those over to the Civilian Marksmanship Program at 10,000 a year until the full 100,000 has been eliminated from our storage. The CMP--the Civilian Marksmanship Program--takes those weapons as they get them, completely refurbishes them, and then sells them to collectors. These are not weapons that wind up on the streets.…”