Making Us Safer?

CNN carries an Associated Press report Ammo, weapons, tunnel found in California home:

More than 1 million rounds of ammunition, a cache of weapons and a tunnel were found at a man’s home after an explosive fire that forced a neighborhood evacuation, authorities said Friday.

…

Dozens of metal and cardboard boxes filled with ammunition for shotguns, small handguns and assault rifles sat in a driveway. Two of the assault rifles were illegal, [Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Juan] Zamora said.

The man had no permit for 75 pounds of black gunpowder that was also recovered, Zamora said.

I reloaded ammo for years because I was going through a lot of rounds on the range to feel competent to carry a firearm every day. Three of us got together to share the cost of equipment and we fired an average of 1,000 rounds of .38, .357, .380, and 9MM a month at an indoor range, and 100 rounds of 12 gauge on the farm. We never bought more than a pound of gunpowder at a time, and never had more than 2,000 rounds of all types combined. Everything was kept in fireproof metal boxes in an out building on a farm. The stuff is dangerous.

We would have needed a special license to buy 10 pounds of powder and would have had to build a separate concrete bunker for storage before getting the license. We checked before we found out how many rounds you could reload with a pound of powder [hundreds], making the question moot.

Understand one of us was a competitive shooter on his department’s pistol team, and the guy who owned the farm was an avid [if unsuccessful] hunter. I was maintaining qualifications on four different handguns.

While everyone is running around looking for Arabs, these “good ol’ boys” are going to blow up something.