TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): The federal government spending more than $1 million to arm the Environmental Protection Agency with weapons, many of them military grade. Why does the EPA need guns and ammo and body armor to protect the environment? That's an interesting question. Here to tell us is editor-in-chief of RedState, our friend Erick Erickson. Erick, great to see you this morning.

ERICK ERICKSON: Good morning. Those nasty snail darters. They shoot back.

CARLSON: It's unbelievable. I'm going to put up on the screen an outline of what these purchases amount to. Nearly $380,000 for ammo, $210,000 for camouflage and other deceptive equipment, nearly $210,000 for radar and night-vision equipment, and $31,000 for armament training devices. Why in the world, other than those dangerous snail darters, would the EPA need military grade weapons to protect the environment?

ERICKSON: Well, they don't. But you know, to be fair, this is a bipartisan problem.

CARLSON: Yes, it is.

ERICKSON: It goes back to the Clinton administration. The Bush administration continued it, in some cases using 9/11 as an excuse to do it. Both parties have decided that the government should be armed and they don't want to deny any branch of the government or any executive agency the right to not look like Rambo when going out into the field. The main reason that they want to do it, and it has escalated in the last few years, is because the Environmental Protection Agency, the Obama administration, have decided to use environmental regulations to confiscate private land, and some cases because contracts were old and nebulous going back to the 1800s.

CARLSON: Yes.

ERICKSON: There have been several cases in Nevada and in Texas recently where the government has moved people off of their land or away from streams that suddenly when it rains might become navigable waters under the Constitution.

CARLSON: So, why do you arm yourself? You arm yourself because you perceive you have enemies who threaten you, whom you don't trust. When the government arms itself domestically, not to fight foreign wars or ISIS, but here in the U.S., it's sending the message it doesn't trust its citizens.

ERICKSON: Oh, very much so. There is a lack of trust and it's growing. You see this from the situation out in Nevada last year when they were trying to remove the family from a ranch. We've seen this recently in Alaska where they removed a family from land. The government is using environmental regulations among other things. Essentially, they've turned into revenue agents of the state and they're using the environmental policies to say--

CARLSON: Yes.

ERICKSON: “Oh, you've done something wrong. We must fine you. And if we don't, we're going to take you from your land by force.”

CARLSON: I'm sure you've noticed, and it can't be a coincidence that the very moment that the federal government and all agencies, not just the EPA, but all of them are arming up, buying guns and ammunition in bulk, politicians are telling the rest of us, the citizens who pay for the government, we're not allowed to be armed. There's an effort to take our guns, even as government arms up. Do you see a connection?

ERICKSON: Oh, yeah, I do think so. I mean, the federal government has become very, very hostile to the Second Amendment under the Obama administration. And they want to take away our guns but they want to arm the government instead. Part of it is a fear of the citizenry. More and more the government has exceeded its constitutional bounds. And a lot of people, Democrats, Republicans, liberal, and conservative are kind of scratching their heads as to what provision of the Constitution allows the government to do this. Well, an armed citizenry can prevent tyranny and the government doesn't like that.

Previously:

Ridiculous NRA Conspiracy Theory Claims Obama Will Ban All Ammo

NRA Debuts 2016 Conspiracy: Hillary Clinton Is Coming For Your Guns

Gun Extremist Larry Pratt: Obama Is Anti-Gun Because “We Might Just Want To Use Them To Keep People Like Him From Becoming Tyrants”