We’re labeling our employers as untrusting, unfair bigots
Just about all of us suffer from some form of bigotry and I know I try to be fair but I am not perfect. Haven't met any human I could call perfect either. I am taking exception with a particular kind of bigotry.
Why am I painting this pessimistic picture? It’s accurate.
The last two jobs I did hiring for were managing private security firms in the mountains of southwest Virginia and the mean streets of southeast D.C. In D.C. my armed SPOs' made a bit over minimum but my guards at both firms made the mandated minimum.
All I can say is that things must have really gone down hill fast. We don't see that where I work now (in a Warehouse) and I rarely saw that hiring for guards. When I did get one who called out after the first check there was no shortage of people wanting a job to replace him.
It was hard to find basic skills sometimes, but honest people were not terribly difficult to find. I had 54 boys and girls. In point of fact most of them would be stereotyped by many because they were all from rough neighborhoods and of modest means.
I made it through Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve and the Redskins in the Super Bowl without a single call out. This was not in the 1940's either. Maybe you need better managers. That was my first management job. I read some books and did my best. It wasn't easy but I got the company in the black by cutting overtime out and accomplished the above.
the frightening prospect of allowing all employees to carry weapons during the paid time when these employees are representing the employer.
Here we have to agree to disagree. You see it was my business to hire and sally forth individuals who carried weapons with my employer's name on a four inch round Special Police Patch on each shoulder. That's what I got paid for.
These folks had less training than most ccw permit holders. They got a background check, fired 60 rounds at a range (were prohibited by law from even dry fire practice, no provisions to take their weapons to a range for practice) and they read the oath of office of a sheet of paper under plastic wrap at the Reeves Building at 14th and U streets.
It's only frightening if you project some power onto a firearm that is does not have. I would counter that having my people wear guns made them more responsible because the stakes were raised. They knew they could be injured, dead, or jailed, or sued for breach of duty or care.
My armed people caused far fewer problems of every kind than the unarmed people did. I don't think it was simply a pay difference. The SPO's I supervised at Union Station had better salaries and better benefits than my SPO's in the contract company. The unarmed SPOs' at Union Station were the most problem prone.
So i have to reject your premise and agree to disagree.
The fact that an employee holds a CCW permit is no assurance whatsoever to an employer that this employee can handle the responsibility of being armed in the workplace. Employers simply cannot afford the risk.
If that is your view then that's that. I have to ask how the workplace is so different from every other place? So what you are saying is that a ccw means nothing and people should not carry ? Or that people become rabid animals at work?
Are you saying that having guns would make your people dangerous? Are you saying they can't be trusted period?
That's like saying a driver's permit is no assurance that the employee can handle rush hour traffic in a company vehicle. And rest assured that the employee with a vehicle is more likely to cause injury or death than the one with a ccw.
I would counter that if you can't trust them with guns you shouldn't trust them at all. Why not move your company into a prison. Inmates don't have guns. They still manage to kill each other though.
My point is that prohibiting weapons only deprives the law abiding. Removing guns entirely simply causes substitution for the truly committed. In the workplace since guns are prohibited but not unavailable that means bad people will have them and good people won't.
But I guess that is acceptable to some. Not to me. It was not acceptable to the folks who started this country.
In Florida if the employer allows the public in the workplace they don't get the choice. No problems from ccw there.
I just do not accept the premise that letting people arm themselves turns them into demons or boobs. If they are either and you had no choice to hire them then you need to pay more.
Heck I don't make that much and my employer does not have anybody here who would make me uneasy if they were armed. We all have trucks already. Far more dangerous than guns.
In my brief tenure here this small squad of gun free folks has done more property damage and injury with their trucks in this state than all the ccw permit holders have done in the workplace. (But this state is discretionary where I sit. still in shall issue states I can't find instances of permit holders causing anywhere near the damage my boys here have done by driving)
Oddly enough, our insurance cost would be prohibitive if the workers drove their own vehicles with their own insurance and we had them all licensed to carry. Kind of strange. Not based on what insurance companies call actuarials (dang I can say it but can't spell it) but based on knee jerk emotion. Something you would think would be anathema in running a profit based company.
Uderstand I am not attacking kmoffit for his orientation on gun rights. I am attacking the orientation itself. I used to be anti-gun. The first time I had to carry a gun to work I whined about getting a dog instead. I refused to carry it loaded. I had my eyes opened.
I am not trying to open somebody else's eyes. What I am doing is preaching to the choir and telling them that legal carry is just a start. We have more work to do.
Perldog007 continues to throw out some of the most reckless comments on this thread.
Florida's law in 1987 allowing ordinary citizens to carry concealed deadly weapons was called reckless and worse far and wide by the media, academia, and politicians everywhere. Don't take my word for it, google is your buddy here.
Florida's "stand your ground" statutes and laws protecting permit holders in workplaces the public is allowed in have come under similar attack from the anti-side.
The same arguments in this thread against letting people carry at work can and have been used to promote unilateral personal disarmament.
They were wrong about Florida. They are wrong about schools and they are wrong about the workplace.
If that is reckless to you I would suggest considering literature of an alternate viewpoint. Aaron has an excellent site at
http://www.jpfo.org .
I believe in the right to keep and bear arms. I believe that gun control in all it's various forms only disarms good people who follow rules and puts them at a terrible disadvantage against the lawless.