Guns in the Workplace

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With the mass shooting epidemic in the U.S, I felt that now was a good time to address guns in the workplace.

A few months ago, I was having a corporate luncheon, and my boss mentioned that she brought her gun to work everyday. She slept with her gun nightly, and brought it in her purse wherever she went. As she owned her own company, she had every right to do this. The thing is that it sort of creeped me out. A few employees said that made them feel safe, but I expressed shock.

I personally feel a gun has no place in the workplace, except with a security guard. The workplace is a volatile place as it is, and I feel it is all too easy for an armed person to shoot a colleague in a sudden fit of passion. I would much rather be fired than fired on.

I also am not sure a gun can provide security if a mass shooter enters. If someone else has a gun, an armed colleague may try to exchange fire, but lack training. He may be a coward and run away, which is also what I would do. Or he may try to shoot me instead. There are many bosses and colleagues who would love an excuse to get rid of someone they didn't like.

There are just too many variables in the workplace to make me feel safe with a gun around. I believe professionals are the best source of security, and if security is that important to your business, find an office building with an armed guard or two.

That said, other colleagues and some of my relatives have said guns in the workplace make them feel safer. I want your opinion on it.

I have to agree with you. No one is perfect. There's always that one particular day when the stars align themselves the right way and the gun owner suddenly goes on a rampage. It could happen. It could also happen that someone else knows of the gun's presence and uses it to settle a score. Way too many variables to get right. Three shooting incidents on the same day at three different gun shows in three different states? Sounds like a movie but it happened yesterday. What next? Guns in church? Sing along with the organist NOW or get shot? Bizarre.

Preparing for a mass shooter at all is ridiculous. Your chance of dying in any sort of mass shooting is literally in the magnitude of one in a million, higher than plane crashes, train accidents, etc. So stop worrying about a mass shooting at all, as it's frankly just totally irrelevant.

That said, if management is OK with it, and the people have legal permits, I'm fine with it. I used to work as a delivery driver, I was too young/generally unable to carry any sort of weapons, I only worked for a short time as one, but my friend who worked at the place longer got robbed at least 2 or 3 times. Had to be in some sketchy neighborhoods. A bigger issue is getting robbed from the storefront also. If I'm working at, say, a small convenient store, and the manager trusts me with a firearm, yeah. You also gotta keep in mind after work or out in the parking lot/neighborhood, you could get robbed, too. I guess you could keep the gun in the car, but if you don't have a car, then it has to stay on you. In the car it could also have a higher chance of getting stolen than if it's on your person, as people break into cars more than they rob people personally.

I'm fine if a company wishes to prevent guns from being carried by their employees on company grounds, it's within their rights to do so. If the manager or whatever does think it's a volatile place to work or whatever, and he sees it as a concern, then yeah, fine with that. But as far as legislating it or whatever, no.

The thing with security guards, too, as in the case of a small restaurant or convenience store, guards cost money. If the manager trusts an employee with a firearm, or himself, he doesn't have to hire an extra security guard, saves him money. To hire a security guard from a firm, it'd probably cost him $15-20 an hour, compared to a normal employee he could pay $10, or carry himself and cost zero.

Besides the "practical" issues like that, I pretty much don't care. I'm not scared of firearms or firearm owners. If the person with a firearm at work keeps it not seen or heard, I'm fine with it. If he's a jackass and has a threatening demeanor and keeps showing it off to people and whatever, that's an issue. But in that case he's just a jackass anyway, and good management would fire this person, or if he's making threats or something to that affect, call the police. Besides, people already theoretically can kill one another in most jobs, anyway, in a kitchen you got knives, in a packing or unloading industry you have boxcutters you could slice someone very bad with, and so far there's not too many rampages of chef stabbings or anything like that.

Before there was the widespread use of concealed carry permits, I worked for a week in the seedy area of Atlanta. I felt safe in the many small businesses there simply because all of the employees were armed. If I were to feel threatened, I would simply walk into one of these small businesses. I never had trouble or felt threatened.

I would happily work in such a place and not feel unsafe at all.

I've been in many places where concealed carry is the norm, I have a permit to conceal carry. I've never felt unsafe at all. Texas, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware are some of the states I've been in that have liberal carry laws. Never seen any blood in the streets, never seen any shoot outs at the ok-coral, anything like that. I did see a girl running across a parking lot at midnight with a guy chasing her yelling for help, and as I clicked the lock off the holster, I saw they were just racing and she was yelling help for some dumbass reason. No cops to be seen anywhere.

I work in a school, and I do feel unsafe at work at times. I know that the only thing stopping a criminal is a small sign that says "No firearms allowed." I highly doubt this sign will stop him.

If the employee was pointing it at people then I could get unsafe or using it an unsafe way. Or the employee was careless and left it out with the public present so someone could just grab I would feel unsafe.

Also what if you think thinking of ways to die is fun.

I am not sure there is causality in the lowest crime rate among concealed carry holders. If we take away criminals from concealed carry permits and don't allow them to have them wouldn't that be sampling without replacement and cause a group where you kicked criminals out of to have a lower crime rate unless there was a large external factor making there be more criminals in that group to start with. If I take a group of people and throw the criminals out then wouldn't that usually have a lower crime rate unless there was a representative sample.