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Senior Correspondent

I get my ideas for posts from a variety of sources. Today it comes from the ever ripe letters to the editor column in our local paper. A doctor was expanding on a former letter about how the United Nations is advocating international gun control and the possible implications for American citizens.

In a list of dire possibilities as to what could happen should we lose our gun bearing rights, he mentions that the Social Security Administration has ordered 174, 000 hollow point bullets for their special agents.

Wow! The picture that comes to mind is overwhelming. First of all I pull from memory my one and only visit to a Social Security office. It was when we signed up for Medicare. The procedure was handled efficiently by a lady young enough to be our grand daughter and obviously bored with the rote chore. There was no sign of security though it may have been lurking as a camera or some such while the agent watched in an undisclosed location.

Actually, had I seen such a person I would have thought him to be building security, not Social Security Administration security! They, however, have some 295 of these people scattered among 66 offices around the country. Their task is to ferret out fraud, among other things of which I am not quite sure and need arms for their safety. But hollow points? Yep. It's apparently a demand of training procedures.

It's perception you know. I think of government agents much like the illustration, unsmiling, grim and packing heat. When I think of Social Security fraud or Medicare fraud I think of scooters being granted to those who don't really need them or doctors padding an office visit with procedures not really necessary or actually completed. I picture Social Security recipients looking much like hub and myself.

I have to laugh about the current battle between our esteemed political parties regarding the threat of Social Security as we know it being ended. What about the Social Security we don't know? The one that requires special agents armed with weapons that shoot the most deadly bullets available to keep agency workers safe from irate investigatees!

I am a firm believer in elder power but I had no idea we have the Social Security Administration quaking in its boots!

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