Social Security Guns Up

I get the concern. But, a couple of points:

1. You qualify with what you carry on duty, that's pretty much SOP in all law-enforcement.

2. Every SSA office in America now has an armed guard on duty at the door. They also quiz you as to any "weapons" you might be carrying.

3. That quantity of ammo is not that alarming. I have a friend who trains the SWAT team for a mid-sized city (membership of 25 officers). He just recently bought 25,000 rounds just for training/qualifying for that SWAT team.

I don't see the use of hollowpoint ammo as significant--no responsible cop or armed citizen carries anything else on the street, due to the problems of over-penetration and ricochet. Nor is the use of .357 SIG autos particularly significant--cops and citizens both found that in rare circumstances, 6 is not enough. But any big government program needs lots of armed employees, because they piss people off. Any S&W collector knows about the Postal Service's order of a special training revolver (the Model 45 after 1957)in th '50s and 60's. Even the Post Office needs goons--that's what government is about.

The various states' National Guards' (part of "the military") have always been used to suppress public uprisings.

This is no different today. As has been proven many, many times in the last 10-15 years. Politicans, and the majority that elect them have absolutely no qualms about deploying the National Guard to supress the minority that disagrees with them.

I find the purchase of hollowpoint ammunition very interesting (and disturbing). My understanding is that the current rules of war demand less lethal full metal jacket ammunition. Is our own government really prepared to use more lethal ammunition on its own citizens than it is on an invading army?

Let me say this (and there's little chance I would have been understood had I said it 20 sum-odd years ago,when I first made note of the issue). Probably no one will agree with me even today, but here goes.

A red flag went up for me a long time ago when police officers switched from their 6-shooters to the fancy semi-autos. My explanation of my concern is that the switch indicated to me that the police was moving from mere law enforcement to fighting some kind of war- the drug war, etc. I didn't like what I saw and I think it's connected in some way to what we see now.

Call me crazy, but that's how I felt.

I'm just say'in.

Another article (with the caveat that it's Fox-sourced: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/17/agencies-tamp-down-speculation-over-hollow-point-ammo-purchases/), records the agency response that this is for "standard training."

Though since this is standard training apparently for Social Security cops with "full law enforcement authority, including executing search warrants and making arrests," a whole bunch more questions are raised along the way. One assumes these investigators would be busting benefit frauds or check stealers; if so, do they really need to be armed? And moreover, armed with hollow-point-loaded semi-automatics? Disturbing.

The SSA claims that the purchase is routine and that it has almost 300 armed employees who must qualify on the range four times per year. SSA estimates 150 bullets expended per employee per appearance on the range. 300 x 600 equals (roughly) the amount of bullets SSA is buying.

I never knew that SSA employees carried arms. I would've guessed that they use Homeland Security or the marshal service for protection. Don't know that I like the idea of sitting across from an SSA employee who could be "heavy."

The announcement of these ammo purchases has spawned some odd conspiracy theories which so far lack supporting evidence. But I wouldn't be surprised if the federales are indeed stockpiling ammo in preparation for civil unrest. The very last thing they want to do is call on the Army to suppress dissent or shoot down citizens. The tie between the citizenry and the armed forces is just about the last one that still binds the people and the government that supposedly represents them. Washington, D.C. seems more like a foreign capital with each passing year.

The Department of Homeland Security has already mushroomed into a small empire that costs a ton of money and endangers rather than protects our liberty. Would someone please write a piece exposing this potential wolf in sheep's clothing?