The right to keep and bear . . . paperweights?

Yesterday, my attention was brought to this alarming development, as reported by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the government agency charged with assuring the safety and health of America's workers, is proposing a regulatory rule affecting the manufacturing, transportation and storage of small arms ammunition, primers and smokeless propellants.

As written, the proposed rule would force the closure of nearly all ammunition manufacturers and force the cost of small arms ammunition to skyrocket beyond what the market could bear—essentially collapsing our industry. This is not an exaggeration. The cost to comply with the proposed rule for the ammunition industry, including manufacturer, wholesale distributors and retailers, will be massive and easily exceed $100 million. For example, ammunition and smokeless propellant manufacturers would have to shut down and evacuate a factory when a thunderstorm approached and customers would not be allowed within 50 feet of any ammunition (displayed or otherwise stored) without first being searched for matches or lighters.

This would, of course render the American people disarmed in short order. Reloading, by the way, would not be a solution to this situation, since the manufacture/transportation/storage of primers and propellant powders would face the same degree of regulatory insanity as would whole rounds of ammunition.

In a guest editorial for War on Guns, Mike Vanderboegh provides a superb analysis of the dangers of allowing the government to choke off the ammunition supply to the civilian market, and explains how such an approach could be used as a back door to largely invalidating the Second Amendment.

If we allow that to happen, we deserve the tyranny that will inevitably follow.