In November 2023, a New York Times investigation found that AR-15 ammunition produced at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant — a government-owned, contractor-operated facility in Independence, Missouri — had been used in at least a dozen mass shootings, including the attacks in Aurora, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Parkland, Buffalo, and Uvalde. Now, new reporting has revealed that Lake City ammunition has been tied to twice as many criminal investigations across the U.S. as any other manufacturer of AR-15 ammunition.
According to The New York Times and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), nearly 30 percent of the 5.56mm and .223-caliber spent cartridge casings recovered by police between 2017 and 2024 bore Lake City’s distinctive markings. The data is drawn from the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), a crime-solving tool administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The news comes after a recent Smoking Gun report revealed that the Department of Defense had awarded at least $3.5 billion to gun makers who sell “battle-tested” copies of their military weapons to civilians.
following the nibin data
NIBIN is a ballistics-matching system that can link spent casings recovered from two or more crime scenes to a specific firearm and help generate investigative leads for police. Technicians will scan spent casings and upload the digital images to NIBIN, which will automatically search previous entries for matches.
The New York Times investigation found that Lake City spent casings accounted for 29 percent of the more than 79,500 casings in .223 Remington and 5.56mm NATO — the calibers most commonly associated with AR-15s — entered into NIBIN from 2017 to 2024 for “crimes ranging from burglary to homicide.” The number of Lake City casings recovered far surpassed those made by other manufacturers, including the Poongsan Corporation, a South Korean company that produces ammunition under the “PMC” brand name, and Federal.
The number of Lake City rounds fired in violent crimes is likely much higher, however, as The New York Times noted: “examiners typically only submit one spent casing to the system for each gun connected to a crime. In 2024, for example, law enforcement agencies submitted nearly 5,500 Lake City casings to the ATF. But for every casing submitted, investigators may have collected tens or even hundreds more.” Additionally, only 67 percent of law enforcement agencies use NIBIN.
Lake City’s Civilian Market Share
The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant was built in 1941 to supply ammunition for World War II. Today, it is owned by the Army and operated by Olin Winchester under a multi-billion-dollar contract. Since 2009, the Army has required the plant to maintain the capacity to produce 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition each year, but it also allows the plant’s contractor to sell any excess ammunition commercially.
According to The New York Times, “the Army has rarely come close to using Lake City’s full capacity. In 2021, it purchased about 434.3 million rounds, while total production topped one billion.”
This means millions of rounds made to military specifications — predominantly .223 Remington and 5.56mm NATO rounds for AR-15s as well as larger 7.62mm NATO and .50 BMG rounds — flow directly into the civilian market every year. But no exact figures have been provided. As The New York Times noted, “relatively little is known about the role that Lake City’s production plays in the broader market for AR-15 ammunition…and the Pentagon has declined to release comprehensive information about production, even in the face of Congressional inquiries.”
Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade association, once estimated that Lake City produces over 30 percent of the AR-15 ammunition used by civilians.
For its part, Winchester’s profits rose by 130 percent in its first full year running Lake City. The federal government has also invested more than $860 million to upgrade and maintain the Lake City facility since 2000, effectively underwriting its civilian output.
no ammunition vetting
In a January 2025 letter to Congress, senior Army officials reportedly “acknowledged that they did not ‘vet or approve commercial sales of ammunition’ made at Lake City and had not conducted any investigation or analysis of its use in violent crime”— even after The New York Times’ prior investigation, which sparked an outcry from 20 attorneys general, members of Congress, and others concerned that taxpayers were effectively subsidizing gun violence.
The new NIBIN data reveals that, in addition to arming mass shooters, the federal government’s own ammunition plant has become the leading supplier of AR-15 rounds used in crimes across the country.