TSA ruffles gun makers' feathers.....

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Bobarino

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might be of interest to pilots and others.....


www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0703/071603cdam1.htm

July 16, 2003
TSA handgun contract draws ire of firearms makers

By Richard H.P. Sia, CongressDaily


Through a series of missteps, the Transportation Security Administration has run afoul of the world's leading gun manufacturers in an attempt to award a three-year, $5 million contract for the semiautomatic handguns it plans to give commercial airline pilots to defend their cockpits.

The agency drew the heaviest fire after it appeared to bow to pressure from the office of Rep. J. D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., to drop a possible deal with the Austrian gunmaker Glock and focus instead on buying guns from venerable Smith & Wesson, an American-owned firm based in Hayworth's district.

Only after vigorous protests last month by Beretta, an Italian handgun supplier to the U.S. military, and other firms did TSA drop narrowly drawn contract specifications favorable to Smith & Wesson and open up the competition industry-wide.

The troubles over the handgun contract have renewed questions in Congress over the agency's contracting practices, particularly its apparent tendency to avoid competitive bidding for its contracts. House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Martin Olav Sabo, D-Minn., already has asked GAO to look into more than 90 sole-source contracts valued at over $50 million that have been awarded by TSA since its inception a little over a year ago.

These contracts "could easily and should have been competed to safeguard federal tax dollars," Sabo said last month. He declined comment Tuesday on TSA's attempt to buy handguns, except to say through his spokesman that he remains "concerned about sole-source contracts and mismanagement" at the agency.

TSA spokesman Robert Johnson defended the agency's actions Tuesday, saying, "Everything we've done has been done by the book."

"When warranted, we'll make adjustments in a manner that is fair to all," he said when asked about complaints from potential bidders. "We have our top people ... managing it so taxpayers will get the best deal."

The agency has been under intense pressure from Congress to accelerate the training and arming of commercial pilots under the Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act enacted last November. The so-called Federal Flight Deck Officers program, which allows pilots to volunteer for firearms training and become certified law enforcement officers, took off in April when TSA put the first 44 pilots through a six-day training course in Georgia and gave them .40 caliber semiautomatic pistols made by Glock.

The next classes were to have started earlier this month, but gun industry sources said the procurement troubles contributed to a delay. TSA recently announced weekly classes would resume this weekend in Georgia, but came under attack in Congress last week for failing to consult key lawmakers in deciding to move all training to a single remote site in the New Mexico desert after Labor Day.

According to several industry sources who spoke with CongressDaily on the condition they or their firms would not be named because of the still-pending contract award, TSA bought Glocks for the first training class through an open-ended contract between the Austrian firm and the Secret Service.

TSA officials then began looking for another federal contract with Glock on which they could piggyback for larger, extended purchases, these sources said. Although TSA officials initially favored buying revolvers—which trainers recommended as being easier to maintain and use in the confined space of a cockpit, sources said—they decided late last year that a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun should be the pilots' standard firearm—in particular, a law enforcement model capable of firing a magazine of 12 or more hollow-point bullets.

The decision caught Smith & Wesson by surprise, which was preparing to offer TSA its line of revolvers. Company executives met with TSA officials in January and, according to one well-informed source, "waved the flag a bit" to argue that Smith & Wesson, which reverted from British to American ownership two years ago, should have a fair shot at supplying the guns-in-cockpits program.

Then Glocks were handed out to the first class of pilots in April, so Smith & Wesson executives visited Hayworth's office to complain that TSA might not seek open competition for a long-term handgun contract, shutting out the only U.S.-owned manufacturer of .40-caliber pistols.

A Hayworth spokesman confirmed the meeting took place, adding that the issue was handled "at the staff level."

"We called over [to TSA] to express our concern about the initial [procurement] process," Hayworth spokesman Larry Van Hoose said.

Soon afterward, TSA announced it was soliciting bids for handguns "under full and open competition." Van Hoose observed, "That's all Smith & Wesson wanted."

But the kind of gun TSA described in its solicitation on May 22 was so specific—it must have, for example, a "completely concealed hammer" without a "spur," a minimum 12-round magazine of a certain size with the "spring tension" of 10 coils, and an ability to fire 10,000 rounds without breaking down—that many potential bidders cried foul. Among them were Beretta, SigArms and other handgun suppliers to U.S. military services and law enforcement agencies. Some pointed out that federal air marshals who work for TSA aboard commercial airliners carry SigArms pistols with visible hammers.

The agency also invoked an arcane "Buy American" executive order that made guns from Italian (Beretta), Austrian (Glock) or other foreign firms ineligible, but exempted Russian- and Chinese-made weapons. Adding to the firestorm was TSA's insistence that the first 200 guns from an initial order of up to 2,400 be delivered by July 1, a date that has slipped several times.

"There is no gun company in the world that can deliver 200 guns by [the latest deadline of] July 9th, with only a few weeks notice, unless they had prior knowledge of the contract award," protested an unidentified company in an exchange of questions and answers that TSA posted on the the FedBizOpps Web site for potential bidders. "It normally takes 45 to 90 days to make and deliver guns once an order is received. This is the industry standard," the protester wrote.

TSA wants to buy as many as 9,600 guns over the life of the contract, which would expire Sept. 30, 2006. With .40 caliber pistols costing about $500 each in the commercial market, the contract may be worth $4.8 million to the winner, although industry sources said the bragging rights may prove more valuable to a company's business than the revenues.

On June 12, Beretta filed a motion with a federal mediator to suspend the contracting process, citing "a range of restrictive and ... strange and inexplicable requirements" for the handguns.

The specifications may have been written "to thwart congressional intent" that TSA train and arm airline pilots, or were "so narrowly tailored" so that only one firearm could qualify, Jeffrey Reh, general counsel at Beretta's U.S. headquarters in Accokeek, Md., charged in the motion.

Reh sent copies of the motion to House Transportation and Infrastructure Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John Mica, R-Fla., whose panel oversees TSA, and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., in whose district Beretta is based, but aides to the lawmakers said neither of them intervened in the dispute.

Later that afternoon, TSA abruptly announced it was dropping all of its controversial requirements, deleting those for the concealed hammer and magazine coils, cutting the initial delivery to 50 guns and waiving the "Buy American" provision.

"When we filed our protest, the TSA was very prompt in meeting with us," Reh said in an interview this week. "At this point, we're satisfied."



Bobby
 
Judging by how many "trained law enforcement officers" have NDs with Glocks every year, I think that Smith and Wesson pistols would be a better idea anyway. Sure, Glock makes a fine weapon, but it takes a good deal of trigger discipline to stay safe. A good, smooth, and long DA pull is a better bet for pilots, IMO.
 
Gotta love the requirment "with the "spring tension" of 10 coils" :scrutiny:

This why I love it when people argue that they're handgun is "best" because agency "x" uses it. ;)
 
Ok, 5 mil for 9600 eventual handguns. From Ruger, Glock or S&W they are getting ripped, that's about 520 a unit, AKA more than retail. With an order of that quanity unit price better be no more than 200.

9,600??? WTH? Last I heard TSA was making it as hard as possible for the 50 or so first qualified pilots to carry. I don't think we'll see 960 armed pilots, much less 9,600.
 
Which firearms to use should be an airline and/or pilot decision. Of course, to do other than federalize the “program,†the G. W. Bush administration would have to actually operate under the Second Amendment instead of just paying it lip service.

~G. Fink
 
The price for these contracts usually includes armorers training, extra magazines, tools, spare parts and other sundry items. The $520 a gun isn't that bad.

owen
 
"There is no gun company in the world that can deliver 200 guns by [the latest deadline of] July 9th, with only a few weeks notice, unless they had prior knowledge of the contract award," protested an unidentified company in an exchange of questions and answers that TSA posted on the the FedBizOpps Web site for potential bidders. "It normally takes 45 to 90 days to make and deliver guns once an order is received. This is the industry standard," the protester wrote.


You can't get 200 glocks on a month's notice? What? :scrutiny:
Call Davidsons, or any other BIG distributor. Have departmental credit card in hand
 
shutting out the only U.S.-owned manufacturer of .40-caliber pistols.

What about Ruger and Kimber? The Kimber on my right hip has ".40 S&W" stamped on the barrel.

Granted, my mags only hold 9 rounds, not the specified 12, but that could be easily fixed.

The right answer is this:

LET ME CHOOSE THE TOOL TO DEFEND MYSELF, MY CREW, AND MY CUSTOMERS.
 
Lots of feds walking around with Glocks.

More and more walking around with HKs. (Who have built a factory, or are in the process of building one, to land even more fed contracts, I believe. My HK40c LEM costed the taxpayers $410.00, per the paperwork, by the way. That's with 6 mags and night sights.)

Sigs, check. Plenty of feds with Sigs.

Smiths? The feds apparently don't care for them, judging by the contracts they've landed. (Few and far in between.)
 
Erik, are you with an agency, or did you just get the LEM trigger for grins?

Tell me about the LEM model, is the trigger like the Glock's (DAO in name only with a short reset), or is it like a true DAO (long and smooth w/ full length reset.)

My good friend (a member of this board) is in the Border Patrol Academy right now, he's heard rumors of the issue pistol changing from the Beretta 96D to the HK USP40 LEM. Does anyone know if this is accurate?

Forced weapon selection- what an ugly part of Federal bureaucracies. My department lets me carry anything I want (within reason.) My choice, the HK USP45F, in stainless of course...
 
...S&W executives complained...shutting out the only U.S.-owned manufacturer of .40-caliber pistols...
Last time I checked, Ruger had several models of the .40 for sale, although none with a 12-round magazine..
 
If I'm ever on a hijacked plane I hope the pilot doesn't have to get TSA's permission to shot the bad guy. From the appearance of this article I worry that the plane will run out of fuel before the powers that be within TSA decide:
1. Where to shoot him.
2. How many rounds are authorized.
3. Whether requirement 23B, section 1, sub-paragraph C (hearing protection) is waived for this particular application of force.


:banghead: Bureaucracy!:rolleyes:
 
J.Wise,
I'm a Customs and Border Protection Inspector.

I was issued an HK USP40c LEM not to long ago.

The Border Patrol, if my information is correct, planned on exhausting their Beretta 96Ds then transitioning to what was to be the INS's new sidearm, the HK USP40c LEM. Along came the merger with Customs and Agriculture, and now I believe they are waiting to see what the standard sidearm will be. (Customs favors Glock 17s, INS the HK USP40c LEM, and given the spirit of cooperation/compromise currently emphasized, the G22 or G23 may come out on top. But it is anyone's guess, really...)

---

Note: A mix of H&K's info and mine.

The Law Enforcement Modified (LEM) system uses a rearward movement of the slide to pre-cock an internal seperate cocking piece within the hammer. The hammer returns to forward to the slide after loading or firing, yet the internal cocking piece stays cocked. Once the trigger is pulled, the hammer is driven forward by the cocking piece to fire the pistol. The amount of force is pre-set at 7.5 to 8.0 pounds. There is a 4.5 to 5.0 pound option which is unaquthorized by any agency that I am currently aware of. (Though there's talk that if the high-speed LEO types like it, they may have that option granted....)

The LEM system offers the following advantages over the much debated DA Only systems currently favored by so many departments: (Not that this system would be debated as well....)

A reduction is trigger pull weight from the typical 8-13 pounds to 7.5-8 pounds. (Granted, not much of a reduction if you happened to already have an 8 pound pull.)

The virtual elimination of resistance during take-up. The hammer is alread cocked internally, so basically the first half and inch of travel is a smooth "glide." The take-up is approximately a half an inch, iirc, with the 7.5-8 pound weight found in the last quarter of an inch of travel. It took a bit getting used to, I will admit, but....

The trigger resets to a quarter of an inch after the first shot. That's "all good" as a classmate of mine liked to say. Anyway, a decided advantage over the DAOs I've had experience with.

I'd love to get ahold of a 4.5-5 pound model.
 
They should give me the contract

I'd go out and procure rock solid vintage .38 Specials and .357's for a fraction the price they're going to pay. I good revolver would be just the thing for pilots. I don't like the idea of flyboys trying to go cocked and locked :D
 
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