And I think maybe you DID miss the point, which is that an opinion, considered or not, against a hypothetical and non-experienced threat isn’t exactly the same thing as when one is facing a real threat, or hasn’t experienced the consequence (e.g. his original point about having not served prison time themselves) first hand.Originally Posted by Cory
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I understood your point, but you failed to acknowledge mine. That's okay. I still respect you. I don't feel the need to explain my position any further.
The issue, in my view at least, is that corporations say one thing and do another in regard to the policies in question. They SAY they care about employee safety, but what they DO is make it impossible for employees to take responsibility for their own safety.
At least we agree that it sucks, and to be 100% clear, I do not violate the rules at my job - I just quietly grumble to myself about them and cringe every time I have to take the "active shooter" training because it's so incredibly stupid/tone deaf, possibly even more so than the sexual harassment/everybody is offended all the time about everything training, which is incredibly eye-roll-inducing. I am also VERY thankful for the fact that COVID resulted in essentially my whole department shifting to primarily WFH so carry at work is not really an issue for me anymore. That doesn't mean every time I see an email go by about some employees who actually have to be on site getting mugged on the way in/out of buildings I don't think "geez, if that was me I'd be even more pissed than usual that they tell me I can't carry," though.While I can agree it sucks, particularly if somewhere you work either changes the rules or gets acquired (as happened in my case), it’s still the rules and (as a right to work state makes clear) you have a right to A job, but not necessarily THIS job.
Basically my only real disagreement with you is your point about "opting in" - I don't think there's a lot of choice out there in companies to work for which don't have policies banning employees from carrying, and asking about that during the interview process could easily get you deselected at a lot of places, even if you carefully frame the question as just wanting to know what you'd be getting into.
Corporations about minimizing risk to themselves. Sometimes this aligns with keeping employees safe, sometimes with keeping employees "safe". An employee that gets injured/harmed/scared by a policy they endorse (allowing guns) is a much higher risk to them than if someone is injured/harmed/scared by someone violating a policy they endorse (no guns). Simply put, if you're hurt by a gun they allowed someone to have, it's worse for them in court than if you are hurt by a gun they said someone shouldn't have. That's all. Whether or not someone gets hurt is a moot point.
--Josh
“Formerly we suffered from crimes; now we suffer from laws.” - Tacitus.
Pretty much. Again, I don’t pretend to know exactly what @Cory is contemplating, but some people on this topic engage in some weapons-grade fantasies. And if anyone reads this and gets hot under the collar thinking about their rights, consider what it would actually be like to sit at the defendant’s table, a few rows ahead of your family, waiting to be sentenced to years (or life, depending on how bad the choices were) in a maximum security prison, with all that that entails for everyone in your life.
100% understood, and have long been disappointed with the fact that that's the world we live in.
I went to seminars on the school shootings. Several points were made. First, the university's priority is the outcome for the university. It is not for you. Besides the ideological opposition to firearms which is strong, they also consider the risks. The risk people say that you have limited liability for the actions of criminal actors who invade the school. Unless the institution has clear knowledge of a threat, they are not reasonable for running an armed and secure camp.
We were told that they may be reasonable for the actions of their campus security officers and some argued for them to be unarmed. However, the enrollment impact of not having security counterbalances this. In TX, campuses had officers who were real LEOs. This sometimes went awry as in the Incarnate Word case where a campus officer decided to act off campus in a traffic stop: https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020...death-lawsuit/
However, according to the seminar, if campus carry was allowed and a community member either went nuts or shot an innocent in an incident, the school could be held responsible or have to settle. Given the lack of training of most CCW types, that increased their negative appraisal of carry. Yes, there are courses for campus carry out there. Constitutional carry would make them even more fearful but TX schools that allow carry require a LTC.
The point being from other situations that third party attackers don't have that much liabilty risk as employees screwing up. There are precedents in other domains for that. Gun folk posture that the institution might be liable but that hasn't been clearly demonstrated in denying carry.
Having carry laws that free you from liability in SD actions might help the schools but probably not convincing. They probably wouldn't cover the campus carrier going nuts at the faculty meeting. Anyway the point is that the risk to you doesn't matter, the risk to the school does. It is the same for other institutions, I'm told.
Does an institution have a responsibility for its own armed guards or cops? Don't see that precedent anywhere.
Also, if you are known as the gun guy - folks might expect YOU to protect them. Your instinct might be to hunker down or get out of Dodge, but your colleagues will expect YOU to be Superduperman or woman. I've done what HCM called the hobbyist road in the gun world. I am not HCM, the trained officer - I'll share a burger with him or run into him at B Daddy BBQ, take a class together - but I'm not running to save the day. I don't want my colleagues expecting that. A couple implied I should - I said, NO thanks - I save me. You could train up and you don't.
Anyway, I'm out of that game and now in a smaller town away from college risks. The mall, the store - maybe and I'm legal here. Still not Superduperman. At least, I'm not advocating the open carry of a BP 1851 revolver in a cross drawer holster because I can't hit a target with a 1911 (another forum). LOL on that one.
But couldn't a reasonable person also consider laying on the coroners table in front of their family with all that entails for everyone in their life because of their choice as well?
It is a tough choice regardless of which way a person chooses. Evaluating the risks/benefits carefully and adjusting as necessary if things change for or against the original choice. After that accept the responsibility and the outcome if you get caught or need to use the tool. It seems fairly straight forward for a number of convenience store employees or Uber/Lyft drivers who made the news. It also isn't the same finding another job as in academia or similar white collar fields. I respect a person's decision either way as it is theirs to make. Hopefully after careful consideration and not just disregard or casual thought.
I'm a member of that Facebook group, and I feel really bad for what happened to that guy.
My entire career has happened in extreme NPEs. Office environments, field environments, as a "company man", as a contractor, onshore, offshore, test ranges, campuses, the mere presence of guns has always been deeply forbidden with high consequences for non-compliance. I've been lucky to have a fun and professionally successful career, but a part of my professional "value proposition" is that I'm highly and enthusiastically compliant in all sorts of ways. While I like to be able to carry, I've never tried to carry in any sort of professional setting.
I'd echo the point that off-body carry has negatives that can easily outweigh the positives. There are levels to NPEs, and the work ones that I've been in have all been the most severe. If I was ever going to try anything (and I won't), I wouldn't try anything more than a LCP in a pocket holster designed to both break up the outline of the gun and present a pocket without bulges. I once spent a year, in the middle of a divorce, stringing together various "underemployment" jobs until I could get back into a career-level position. For me, it's just nowhere near worth having to go jobless/underemployed. As an additional plus, getting fired (and, depending on exactly which job, facing real legal consequences as well) for a weapons violation would have made it damn hard to get back into the career fields that I like. A weapons violation would be about as bad as a company-time DUI for me.
One job gave me a company car with free gas and maintenance, and that was explicitly approved for additional personal use. But no guns in the car, ever, and no more car on the first offense. I was good at that job, but I put 40k miles on a company car in 6 months in order to be good at that job. No car would have ultimately meant losing that job.
Firearms, and firearm-adjacent work is salted through my resume. "Gun Systems Engineer" is a part of my resume, and I did some small-arms related work with my current employer back a decade-plus ago that my management and my co-workers already know about. While work is busy, and there's little time for truly useless small talk, I can't avoid being associated with guns.
Employers only see liability, harm, and workplace violence when it comes to guns. If it's a small enough company, or if the insurance terms are atypical, then I could see it, but I've never had, and probably never will experience a pro-gun or gun-neutral workplace. I had a college-level summer job where housing was provided, and guns in that employer-provided housing were very forbidden.
The closest I've ever come to a real lethal-force incident was in a gun free zone, a fact that I think will surprise exactly no one on this board. In my current gun free work zone, there have been multiple incidents that required a law enforcement intervention. Those policies and signs still stay in place.
Per the PF Code of Conduct, I have a commercial interest in the StreakTM product as sold by Ammo, Inc.
If we're talking about carrying at work, sure. A convenience store clerk might decide to carry against the company's rules, so as to have better chances of surviving a robbery attempt, and actually being alive to look for another entry-level job afterwards.
However, I was addressing the subject of keeping an AR after a severe ban, which @Cory suggested he was more likely to do than to carry at work against the rules. The reasoning I've seen for that kind of decision has not ventured into more convincing territory than "it's my right", which I'm saying is very cold comfort to your wife and kid when you're gone. Fortunately, a ban is unlikely, and so people can fantasize about whatever they want without much of a chance of ever having to face the music.
If they did face the music one day, and either found themselves shot by LEOs after opening fire with their precious AR, or sitting at the defendant's table with their young kid crying in the background, I would be willing to wager that they would regret not turning in the AR and buying a 1301T.
It's extremely doubtful that there would exist a scenario wherein not having a banned AR (versus a hypothetically legal alternative like a semi-auto shotgun, a lever gun, or a handgun) would be the deciding factor that would result in someone's death.
In no way am I arguing for AR bans, of course. But some people are just lying to themselves.
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