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Obama's OSHA nominee is anti-gun activist and junk science peddler

Obama has nominated David Michaels, an anti-gun activist, to head the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a powerful agency that regulates real and perceived hazards in the workplace. This raises the specter of federal restrictions on the storage or carrying of firearms in or near workplaces (even though some businessmen in high-crime areas possess guns to protect themselves against armed robbers).

Michaels also has links to wealthy breast implant lawyers, who relied on junk science to drive silicone implants from the market, even though they remained available to consumers in most other Western countries because of their lack of major health risks. (The lawsuits over silicone also harmed patients who need life-saving silicone products like silicone shunts that had nothing to do with breast implants or cosmetic procedures, making them scarcer, less available, and more expensive).

Michaels wants to reverse the Supreme Court’s Daubert decision limiting the use of junk science.

If OSHA succeeds in restricting the storage or possession of guns in workplaces, it may take some time to undo even if a less liberal administration comes to power. For example, in March, a judge blocked a Bush Administration change allowing visitors to national parks to carry concealed weapons, claiming that it might have environmental impacts. A judge could rely on similarly conjectural reasoning to block revisions to OSHA regulations needed to repeal an OSHA ban on people storing their guns in the workplace.

Other Obama appointees, like attorney general Eric Holder, are also big supporters of gun control. (Holder has argued that the Second Amendment does not protect any individual right).

Many (but not all) state constitutions protect the right to possess a firearm. But liberal administrations often seek to use federal workplace laws to try to override rights protected by state constitutions or laws. For example, the Clinton Administration argued that a federal law called Title VII overrode California’s broad equal-protection guarantees, which forbade racial quotas and preferences in government contracting, college admissions, and public employment. This “preemption” argument was rejected by a federal appeals court in Coalition for Economic Equity v. Wilson (1997). (Ironically, liberal lawyers often oppose preemption when it expands individual freedom, like federal curbs on baseless state-court lawsuits. The Obama Administration opposes preemption when it would prevent trial lawyers from bringing lawsuits).  By the way, discriminatory racial preferences are included in the health-care “reform” bills backed by the Obama Administration, drawing criticism from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

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By

DC SCOTUS Examiner

Hans Bader is Counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington. After studying economics and history at the University of Virginia...

Comments

  • Jan 2 years ago
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    Perhaps, the day will come when families whose loved ones are killed by gun shots will aggregate, buy guns and start shooting innocent bystanders in schools, malls, etc.We'd be back to the days of the Wild, Wild West. Children would be the most defensive victims. Why do we see the era of the Wild, Wild West one of the worst and most dangerous, lawless times in America's history? We don't normally hear of productive members of the era. Killers, highway robbers made into the Wild, Wild West' history. If American-made guns can so easily fall into the hands of criminals across the borders, who's to say guns can't made into the hands of angry, vengeful citizens? Angry youths who can't handle rage would be shooting parents and friends. Angry employees will be shooting their bosses and colleagues. Guess this is what gun manufacturers and their supporters would wish for America. Vengeful killers usually have nothing to live for. Think they care being killed after they've already killed many?

  • Jan 2 years ago
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    By the way, I'm never surprised to hear from Right Wing Conservaives and gun-loving nuts that anything that benefits women in the U.S. is regarded junk or evil. I guess, the only way they want women to be are those females in America's Pilgrim who slave for their men without complaining... even when their men have extra-marital affairs.

  • Ron 2 years ago
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    Have any state OSHA equivalents banned guns in the workplace? Just curious.

  • Mona 2 years ago
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    He's an anti-gun activist? Wow...why don't you shoot him? Surely, anyone who is anti-gun is evil. Maybe he should be in prison.

  • RSBL 2 years ago
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    States with CCW laws are much safer statistcally, owning and carrying a weapon is a right, not a priveledge. If you love gun control so much, go spend some time in England. You do not have the right to decide for others, especially if they have done no wrong. You want to feel safe, move! Freedom comes with self responsibility, it comes with danger and the means and willingness to deal with it. Lazy and morally bankrupt people rely on others to protect them, and throughout history, the protectors usually become the oppressors...for your own safety. There is a storm coming here in the US, the same storm that created this country, by armed people willing to rid us of tyranny. You control freaks, by all means, disarm yourselves, it will be easier to bring us back to the founders principles. The 2nd amendment was to keep the government power in check, and to remove it if necessary, it was not for sport, it was for individuals.

  • RSBL 2 years ago
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    " Freedom is risk and responsibility for yourself. To have everything done for you is to give up your own right to self determination and control over your own destiny. The only "rights" we have, are enumerated in the Constitution. We have the right to choose for ourselves, not to choose for others. One mans utopia is another mans hell, no one has the right to forcibly decide for you. This has nothing to do with the false left/right paradyme, it has everything to do with liberty and freedom. Lazy people want socialism, when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul. People are afraid of having to work and think for themselves, if they dont want freedom, they do not belong in the land of the free. "

    (From a different post, but applies here as well)

  • joe hill 2 years ago
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    What are the reasons to carry guns to work?

    Should the supervisor shoot workers who goof off?
    Should workers shoot supervisors who demand too much?

    Whining about the OSHA administrators opinion on guns is as relevant as worrying what color socks he wears.

  • joe hill 2 years ago
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    What are the reasons to carry guns to work?

    Should the supervisor shoot workers who goof off?
    Should workers shoot supervisors who demand too much?

    Whining about the OSHA administrators opinion on guns is as relevant as worrying what color socks he wears.

  • Hans 2 years ago
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    Some businessmen in high-crime areas need guns in the workplace for self-defense.

    Even Washington D.C.'s strict gun laws allow certain business owners to carry guns in the workplace -- to deter armed robberies.

    I am not an opponent of all gun laws. I do think, however, that businessmen who are in danger of being mugged or robbed have a right to defend themselves -- and I am well aware that in places like Washington, DC, the police often arrive too late to prevent an armed robbery or resulting murder.

  • RSBL 2 years ago
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    "[S]edentary life becomes the last stage of civilization and the point where it begins to decay. It also constitutes the last stage of evil and of remoteness from goodness.... [S]edentary people have become used to laziness and ease. They are sunk in well-being and luxury. They have entrusted the defense of their property and lives to the governor who rules them, and to the militia which has the task of guarding them.... They are carefree and trusting, and have ceased to carry weapons. Successive generations have grown up in this way of life. They have become like women and children, who depend upon the master of the house."

    Ibn Khaldûn, Muqaddimah, 1377

    Either way, tools on the job are just as or more dangerous than a gun. But, it should be up to the individual to decide, unless of course it does pose a danger in the performing of ones work. There are some clothing you cant wear when using woodworking equip, but what would be the justification for denying a gun at work?

  • RSBL 2 years ago
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    "Should the supervisor shoot workers who goof off?"

    That would cut down on the goofing off now wouldnt it?

    (lol, tongue in cheek)

  • RSBL 2 years ago
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    And you dont lose your constitutional rights just because you have a job either. Why is it that there neede to be constitution free zones? All the rights are there, you cant pick and choose which ones you support, other than that you are no better than a despot, if you are so scared of someone excercising their rights, you must be doing something wrong, or just paranoid, or even a control freak. You cant push around an armed person.

  • David 2 years ago
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    I am shocked by the misinformation and the levels of intelligence of people who take any oppotunity to deminish any one appointed by the OBAMA administration who wants to have armed people on the job?Violence on the job has claimed too many already we do not go to work to hurt but to earn.Americans are sencible enough to know when we are being BSed and what is just rational public safety non the job.

  • Joe 2 years ago
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    David Michaels is a dangerous left-wing extremist.

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