My workplace, like many others, has a "no guns allowed" policy. It goes so far as to prohibit employees from having guns in their cars when they are parked on company property, no matter how they are stored.
It is a farce, of course. First off, it's not like they will ever search peoples cars. Second, I cannot see how it would deter any kind of workplace shooting. It's not like there ISN'T a policy against shooting co-workers. The prohibition against guns at the workplace will, at the very best, simply ensure that no one could fight back if someone were to show up with a gun. Like has happened at workplaces and schools across the country.
Not that I'm worried about someone shooting up my office. Not that I'd carry. Not that I'm advocating folks carrying their handgun to meetings. Geeze. Just that I don't see the point of the prohibition. If you don't trust your co-workers to not shoot you, what the heck are you doing working with them? I do not know a single co-worker I wouldn't trust to not shoot me, frankly, no matter how bad we've disagreed in the past. And if you have people at your work you wouldn't trust with a (licensed) gun, I would recommend finding a different job.
Don't forget that in states with legal concealed carry, random people you see on the street could be carrying a gun. Yet it's your co-workers you are worried about?
There seems to be this magical belief that the very presence of a gun makes people in more danger, like the gun is possesed by evil spirits. No, the gun is carried by people, and it is the people who you must make decisions about. Gun control makes the decision that ordinary, law abiding people are dangerous lunatics that can't be trusted, but police and military can do no wrong. Think about that.
I would contend that the only sensible system for a government to adopt is to either completely disarm the country (impossible and quite probably immoral) or to allow law abiding citizens free access to arms. Any middle ground (varying access and gun-free zones) in an otherwise armed society creates a micro-climate of easy victims. In the UK no "citizen" is armed but many criminals are. Although shootings are relatively rare, when a criminal uses a gun here he can do so with complete impunity.
Posted by: AbrasiveScotsman | May 22, 2007 at 06:23 AM
And something just occured to me. Can an employer override someone's constitutional rights? Can they for example, order someone to be a Muslim at work even though they are a Christian at home? Or a Republican at work and a democrat at home? If people would be appalled at an employer attempting to violate his workers 1st Ammendment rights, why are they not so with the 2nd?
Posted by: AbrasiveScotsman | May 22, 2007 at 06:26 AM
I understand your frustration, but I can't see why an employer is obligated by a document that was written to constrain government actions. Not the "Congress shall make no law" wording in the constitution. Last I checked employers and not Congress.
Posted by: John Long | May 24, 2007 at 07:38 PM