Was July 15, 2011 the new Black Thursday?

That's the day a new bill was passed that was,  apparently,  just discovered today by the news media.  After the Fact!  Here is some history.  Back in 1974, President Gerald Ford signed executive order (11825), giving Americans back the right to own bullion which had been illegal to purchase on the OTC markets since 1933.  Ever since that executive order was signed a government agency called the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has tried to achieve what this bill has now achieved since its 1974 inception. What does this mean to Joe Public?

The New Law will initially ban tangible bullion that is purchased or sold on finance, leveraged, and margin accounts, at least for now. However, purchasing gold and silver and taking delivery or having it delivered to a depository account is exempt from this ban. Precious metals dealers were able to lobby Congress for this exemption.  The new law will, also, make spot/cash market transactions illegal.

.  The purpose of this bill is to "protect consumers" from leveraging and making financed purchases of gold and silver.  They need this bill because their "children" (the American public) are too stupid and foolish to make their own decisions and their own mistakes (if that be the case).  The "big daddy" government is the only one who can make a success of their financial transactions, and we all know what a good job they are doing, right now, with their (read:  our) finances.  You know like, oh, the balanced budget and the debt limit and so on.  You know, the things they are doing such a good job with right now.  Uh, huh.