Unless you’re in the industry, you probably haven’t heard of OSHA’s proposed 1910.109 standard. The new standard would have effectively made it impossible to operate a gun store or indoor range of any sort.
Here are the essentials:
- The definition of “explosives” would be expanded to include “small arms ammunition, small arms ammunition primers, [and] smokeless propellant,” lumping such things in with dynamite and high explosives
- As such, any facility containing ammunition or components thereof would be subject to the rules governing high explosives
- No person would be allowed to carry ammunition or firearms in such facilities. This would also affect police departments and military installations
- No person would be allowed to smoke within 50ft of the facility
- Facilities containing “exlosives” would have to be evacuated during any “electrical storm.”
Basically, we’d have to evacuate and close shop every time it looks like rain. So would WalMart. So would every sheriff’s department and PX. I’d also have to police the parking lot for smokers on a constant basis to make sure they were outside the 50ft range. How about rural gas stations and hardware stores that sell ammunition? They’d be out of luck as well.
The bigger concern is the rule concerning the carrying of arms and ammunition in such a facility. How exactly do you run a range when your customers can’t handle guns or ammo?
Needless to say, there was a huge uproar, and OSHA has agreed to revise the guidelines.
Still, it nags at the back of my mind. Surely, someone knew what all this implied when they drafted up the new MSDS standard. These guys live and die by semantics. Something like this would be an ideal backdoor for sinking the firearms industry.
Since it’s a change in regulation and not legislation, it doesn’t look like a gun ban, does it? It’s not being enforced by the ATF or the FBI, but rather by OSHA as a “workplace safety” measure.
Of course, a business can be shut down by OSHA just as quickly as by any law enforcement agency. The difference is, instead of guys in black tac-suits, it’d be friendly folks with clipboards and khaki pants handing out injunctions and fines.
Sound paranoid? Guess again. Next year’s elections still look wide open, but the Democrats have been suspiciously quiet about gun control. They learned their lesson when the 1994 Assault Weapons ban cost them Congress, but the issue is still a cornerstone of their agenda.
The trick is to keep it subtle, and this is pretty subtle. They won’t advance anything that looks like a gun control bill, but they can do just as much damage through things like this.