An article on Fox News talks about a majority of the agencies service M4s recalled for maintenance issues . Apparently a good 40 percent or 2,000 of their weapons are being taken back for rear echelon maintenance and some officers are weary of not having their service rifles while on the job. The weapons taken away had the potential for malfunction.

The rate of nearly 40 percent was “more than we are comfortable with,” said CBP Deputy Chief Ron Bitiello.

“Our top priority is to make sure our agents are safe,” said Bitiello, adding that the agency intends to eventually cycle through all of the rifles to ensure that those in need of repair are fixed. “They will be like new when they are refurbished.

In organizations such as the military or Law Enforcement, service weapons are always being taken back to armorers for maintenance due to required service life timelines or issues that may occur but it usually isn’t almost half of the entire armory and especially when they are the primary weapon systems of the intended users. The article did not state what the agents would be armed with in the interim period as a primary service rifle.

We’d like to know why the rifles were recalled and when they will be returned,” Shawn Moran, spokesman for National Border Patrol Council, the union which represents agents, told FoxNews.com. “Our agency is trying to figure out why they were pulled.

It is interesting to note that unlike many mainstream news articles, the author is very firearms literate and informed about small arms.