Photos of the IRS using guns to get accounting students interested in special agent positions went viral Tuesday after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) tweeted them out.
Massie tweeted the photos with the caption, “These are not auditions for the next Police Academy sequel. This is an actual IRS recruiting program.”
At least one of the photos was previously published by New Jersey’s Stockton University, where accounting students were given training guns for an inside look at the position of special agent.
Stockton University noted, “The IRS Criminal Investigation Newark Field Office brought the Adrian Project to Stockton’s Campus Center for a day-long simulation of a mock criminal investigation. The students reviewed bank statements, invoices and tax returns, but also surveilled and interrogated witnesses, and requested arrest and search warrants.”
The students also held carried training guns in holsters, and one of the photos tweeted by Massie shows a student seemingly pointing their gun at another student’s back.
On August 10, Breitbart News reported that a job listing for the position of IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent stresses that applicants must “carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force” in order to carry out their duties.
The job description for special agents’ “major duties” indicates applicants for the position must also “be willing and able to participate in arrests, execution of search warrants, and other dangerous assignments.”
The IRS has also caught the eye of members of Congress due to large ammunition purchases.
Breitbart News pointed in June to Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) concerns over the IRS’s purchase of approximately $700,000 worth of ammunition “between March and June 1” of this year.
Gaetz said, “There is concern that this is part of a broader effort to have any entity in the federal government buy up ammo to reduce the amount of ammunition that is in supply, while at the same time making it harder to produce ammo.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) echoed Gaetz’s concern, while also wondering why IRS agents need firearms.
The New York Post reported on August 10 that the 87,000 new IRS agents “will be hired as part of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.”
The NRA observed that President Joe Biden has added 87,000 new IRS agents but zero new armed school officers, despite the Democrat rhetoric about wanting to keep children safe.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.