In case you missed it, bills were recently introduced in the Georgia and Texas legislatures to prevent employers from banning firearms in the workplace. The idea apparently is that having a handgun is important to your workplace safety, and we just cannot allow employers to restrict employees’ access to firearms. What if there were a stampede in Dallas and no one was able to fire a gun to turn the thundering herd away?
We shouldn’t pick on Georgia and Texas, because Alaska, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi and Oklahoma already have those laws in place. I’m sure that rampaging grizzly bears warrant employees being able to protect themselves even on the work site in Alaska, but I didn’t think prairie dogs were so life-threatening that Oklahoma needs to take this step to make sure its citizens are protected.
I don’t know about your workplace, but the idea of handguns being used to settle disputes over lunchroom seating and who gets to use the copier first doesn’t seem like a management innovation that will make the Harvard Business Review.
Here’s hoping that someone files an OSHA complaint to overturn this insanity. Employers have an obligation to provide a safe workplace, and allowing anyone who is crazy enough to bring a gun to the office to do so makes no sense at all.
#1 by Travis K on January 5th, 2007
This issue is not as simple as it seems. To me, it’s an issue of of property rights of the employer vs. the right of the employee to protect himself. I have a hard time with an employer who will give someone a dangerous job and then forbid them from protecting themselves, despite the employee being fully licensed by the law to carry a weapon in public.
As an example, think of the graveyard shift at a convenience store in a bad area. Should an employer be allowed to make that employee work without protection? Another example would be any employee who closes up a store or restaurant at night and carries the cash to the bank. There’s definitely danger in a job like that, and most small businesses will not pay for expensive armed transport services. Those guys carry guns for a reason.
#2 by Johnny K on January 5th, 2007
Edited for clarity
Cleary the good Dr. Coulter is not a business owner and is a liberal. How many office shootings have occured in the above mentioned states with employees carrying handguns ? These aren’t gang members looking to injure a co-worker. And by all means if someone wanted to injure a co-worker, with or without, the law it is going to happen. The only difference now is that someone could defend themselves. I don’t see anyone complaining about irresponsible people having a drivers license? Yet you are more likely to die driving into work than in a shooting at a workplace.
#3 by The Thrill on January 5th, 2007
I find it fascinating that an individual with no means by which to protect himself would dare comment on such a topic. What with all the citizens armed and “dangerous” to both themselves and the public now allowed to carry at work my gosh the steets must run with blood. The fact is Mr. Coulter lives in a world where the constitution does not exist. Nor does the ability to protect oneself and those around them. Rest assured if Mr. Coulter and myself were working in the same office and an armed gunman came into the building to threaten his life…….I and others who have the sense of responsiblity to carry would be his best possible friend. However he is not willing to admit such a valid point. In his mind he would be able to defend himself with some form of “talking it out” with the perpetrator. Before the everone else gets upset…think of this. I have to pay for all expenses in dealing with a negligent discharge et. al. should I “draw on the copy machine line.” Think about it. I am not covered by the police union etc. I must be sure that it is a life threatning situation, this is not the old west….check the nubmers of people that do carry….and the number of “crimes” they commit near the copy machine. Mr. Coulter, do yourself a favor, read a copy of the constitution. Earn some respect for yourself and others by realizing we live in…….oh my goodness a REPUBLIC, not a democracy as you would have us belive.
#4 by Dale Petersen on July 6th, 2008
Of mice and men … or how Mickey shot down the gun totin’ Floridians. Ode to my good friend, Dr. Coulter, a man most devoted to doing no harm. THE Mouse is on your side. Mickey Mouse has hid the cheese from the from those good ol’ boys in Tallahasse by defiantly prohibiting employees from bringing their arsenals on company property. Stay tuned for who’ll blink first — Mickey or the Florida legislature. To think Mickey is defending the rights of law-abiding business owners — big and small — and he’s not even packing heat.