Sunday, June 21, 2009

Get a clue

I don't understand how so many people cannot get it.

I recently found myself looking for a job and the CHL crowd in TX are all about "don't go to work at a place that tramples on your rights!!". Right. That's just like saying "don't go to work in the high tech industry". Plus it's not exactly a great idea in the job interview to come out and say, "hey, by the way, what's your policy on carrying guns at work?"

Turns out I got a good job after being laid off without any lapse in income. That's a very good thing in this day and time. My last job had a no-firearms policy, and so does the new job.

Here's where I say 'get a clue'.

It seems like any 4-year-old can understand that criminals intent on doing harm to other people are not going to concern themselves with the company policy if they want to bring in a gun. So by making a rule that employees are not allowed to carry a gun at work, you are making a rule that only those bent on doing harm with a gun are going to carry a gun to work. I mean, when some disgruntled employee comes in and shoots up their coworkers, my guess is not that they are thinking, "hey, if I bring this gun into the office, I might lose my job."

This is, of course, complete common sense.

The other side of the argument is "well, less guns has to be more safe". Yeah right. That's based on the assumption that the presence of a gun is dependent on the presence of intent to commit a crime, or negligence, etc. Which gets me back to the first argument... those with the intent do commit a crime are not going to care about the rules. And around and around we go.

So I wish these employers would just get a clue. Actually I wish the state legislature would get a clue, and make it illegal for an employer to fire someone because they lawfully carried a gun.

Since I find myself in this predicament, and not wanting to lose my job, I have concluded that my workplace is likely not high-risk so I will be leaving the gun in the car. Since their ambiguous policy refers to the company's "property" they presumably mean the parking lot as well. This is a big office complex with shared parking with other businesses, so who knows whether parking far away in front of another tenant's space is going to do any good, but I park there anyway. Then I go through this ritual. I park the car and remove the gun from the holster, put it in my bag. I walk around to the back of the car and open the trunk, lock the gun in the trunk, then proceed the 1/8 mile walk to my office sporting an empty holster. I don't remove the holster since I probably will re-arm at lunch and when heading home and frankly, it's a pain to put it on and off. The other reasonable option is just to leave the gun at home.

What a pain. Foolishness. These are professionals. Why do we have to be treated like children? Man up, legislators.