Does an employer have the right to put someone's life at risk on purpose? If so, is the employer going to be on the hook when an accident does happen?

It's one thing to risk your own life by not using safety gear.

Its another level of reckless to not provide safety gear to your employees

To forbid someone else from using their own safety gear is a level of asine behaviour that trully terrible.

But these guys top even that- they don't just dicourage employees from wearing helmets through hush-hush, hint hint, they boast about it in a public press release.

It's not your life to risk, that person is not a serf, and if I wants to wear a bulletproof vest everywhere I goes that's not the employer's concern. If ee allow this to stand, it sets a terrible precedent.