Workplace gun prohibitions = promises not kept

[FWiedner]

Workplace gun prohibitions = promises not kept

By Chad D. Baus
Northwest Ohio Coordinator
Ohioans For Concealed Carry

When companies prohibit employees who have concealed handgun licenses from bringing their protection on company property, they explain by way of making a lot of promises.

They say without the prohibition, there is a risk of misuse, poor judgment or accident by license-holders.

They say the prohibition will make a safer work environment.

They say the prohibition makes the company "weapons-free".

The Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio was none of those things Wednesday night, January 26.

According to a news report from the Toledo Blade, a Jeep worker armed with a double-barreled 20-gauge shotgun shot two supervisors and a team leader at 8:45 p.m. last night in an office area at DaimlerChrysler’s Jeep assembly plant in Toledo, fatally wounding one and injuring two others.

The gunman is identified by police as 54 year-old Toledoan Myles Meyers, who has an extensive criminal record dating back to the 70's. An employee at the plant, Meyers reportedly had met Tuesday with union and company officials to discuss a problem at work, but a company official said today he was not disciplined.

The paper states the attacker was pronounced dead in the office area of the body shop, having apparently shot himself in the head. One supervisor was taken to St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center, where the paper reports he died at 9:20 p.m. The names of the two wounded men, also hospitalized at St. Vincent, were not released last night.

In statements given after the shooting, which have been updated today, Police Chief Mike Navarre said that interviews with witnesses indicate Meyers entered an office in the body shop on the west side of the plant, pointed the shotgun at the head of a female office worker and said he was there to shoot the supervisors and team leader. He then ordered her to contact the men. When two of Meyers' supervisors arrived on a golf cart, they entered the office and were shot by Meyers. The murderer remained in the office, walking past a long row of cubicles as he reloaded, then shot another person before turning the gun on himself. His body was later found in a cubicle.

Navarre stated wires spotted around Meyers' leg and the trunk of his body, originally viewed by police as a potential bomb, were fashioned into a sling used to (illegally) conceal the weapon to get in the plant. The chief said Meyers fired at least five shots, and that he was carrying additional ammunition.

Chief Navarre said about 15 police crews were at the plant "within a few minutes". Several hundred workers were in the plant at the time of the shootings, and when officers arrived, they found people running far from the plant, because when the need for self-protection presents itself, attackers don't wait for help to arrive.

As Navarre staged the press conference to offer details on this tragedy, I couldn't help but recall his opinions on self-defense:

In a June 2004 story about how carry-out owners are arming themselves after a year or more stretch of violent robberies in Toledo, "Navarre said he teaches small business owners not to have a gun." Navarre "wants owners to comply with criminals because anytime you have more guns in a tense situation, the better the chance of people getting shot and it's just not worth it."

At a town hall gathering for concerned store owners and citizens one year ago this month, Navarre was asked what they should do if bullets are flying. He said, "Take immediate cover - get away from the bullets," and added, "Pick up a baseball bat if that’s your only defense against bullets coming toward you." He said the best response to an armed robber is to comply fully and quickly, and to avoid making sudden movements.

"Complying with criminals" didn't prevent the Jeep plant shootings, and apparently there weren't any baseball bats lying around.

The City of Toledo has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the state. During the years leading up to legalization of OhioCCW, Mayor Jack Ford vigorously opposed concealed carry legislation. He presides over a city which bans the practice of open carry for self-defense, held up by five Supreme Court Justices as a "fundamental, individual right". And Ford cast the deciding vote for renewing a ban on inexpensive handguns, which discriminates against the less fortunate citizens of Toledo.

Toledo gun control extremist Toby Hoover recently issued a statement praising workplace weapons prohibitions, fretting that "persons that carry guns make decisions that will affect any of us in their presence. Their judgment of when they will use a firearm puts us all at risk." Indeed, and the decision made by Mr. Meyers was made despite all the Federal gun control laws, state gun control laws, Toledo gun control laws, and employee manual gun control policies, because people who are determined to kill just don't care. This killer broke scores of firearms and criminal laws in committing this rampage, and he didn't need a license to do it. Of course, these same laws did nothing to protect the law-abiding citizens who work for Jeep.

 This incident reinforces the fact that disarmament zones only disarm honest, law-abiding citizens; not the criminals who prey upon them.

When the Ohio House of Representatives passed Sub. House Bill 12 in 2003, a specific exemption prohibited companies from telling licensed customers and employees they could not store a firearm in their own automobile on the company parking lot. This provision was stripped from the final bill by the state Senate, rendering people defenseless (even on the drive to and from work), and making a repeat of the life-saving actions of Pearl High School Assistant Principal Joel Myrick at a Mississippi school shooting in 1997 much less likely here in Ohio.

Even now, in Oklahoma, a group of corporations is fighting a newly-passed state law which would return the right of self-defense to customers and employees (at least in part) by exempting parking lots from places where businesses can ban firearms. How tragic.

Banning the human right to self-defense for customers or employees has proven time and again to be a complete failure. It is time for this nation's businesses to recognize there is nothing to fear from law-abiding citizens who choose to defend themselves.


http://www.ohioccw.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2738

[dukkillr]

i think it's important to recognize that private property rights (of the employer) can conflict with first and second amendment rights (or any right for that matter).  There is a certain amount of balancing involved to try and resolve this area of conflict.  I'm not prepared to tell a private property owner that they can no longer eject people form their property at their own will, regardless of reason.  It obviously is unfortunate that this company had the policy they did.  Unfortunately they have the right to control what come on and off their property.

[FWiedner]

No company and no employer has the authority to dictate life and death to it's employee's and guests, unless that is the obvious nature of the business.

The property rights versus personal rights argument is long standing and a valid concern, but if a person or corporate entity does not guarantee your personal security while on their premises, then it is my belief that they have forfeited any "right" from that point to dictate what any individual might provide for themself in that regard.

Unarmed is not "safe".

 :x

[dukkillr]

i agree that unarmed is not "safe".  unfortunately i won't agree that someone's right to carry supercedes my right to define who, and what, comes onto my property.  if you don't like it, feel free to visit elsewhere...

that beings said, i'm not trying to ban guns from my property at all, i'm just defending the right of others to do so.

[Will Bison]

The core problem in this instance was in exposing other employees to a person with a long and well known criminal history. All employers have an obligation to provide a safe work environment. This mandate includes reasonable background investigations of all employees.

The account related here is obviously from a biased source but if taken at face value I would rule against Jeep. Jeep did not take reasonable precautions to ensure a safe work environment in that they knowingly/unknowingly hired a person of questionable past history. What that past history was is not fully known and may well have been benign.

Reasonable prohibitions regarding certain items or activities on private property is well within the purview of the owner/employer. Employment is a mutually agreed upon contract between the employer and the employee. If either party finds fault in the contract, either or both may "step away". Patrons entering a private establishment are subject to the rules promulgated by the property owner. The owner has the right to bar entry to his property and the patron has the right to take his business elsewhere.

[Old Syko]

At what point did so many people determine their personal or constitutional rights were less important than the rights of their employer?  I'm sorry but I'm not willing to turn my well being and that of my family and friends over for a buck!  In the above case, at least from all I have read everyone seems to feel the majority of blame falls on the shoulders of Jeep.  Why doesn't any of the blame fall on the employees for not standing up for their own rights of self defense?  I've refused employment for this very reason.  Am I alone here?

[williamlayton]

Boy am I goanna catch whatfer on thisun.
It is a common confession and saying that your rights end where somebody elses nose begins also, to have liberty you have need to grant liberty.
Folks if I own something I feel I can control who does what with it, on it, or in it.
That said I feel that those who would take this stance, in the situation described, should take extraordinary care and responsibility to insure (Folks I said Insure, Guarantee, do everthing possible, go beyond reasonable care, take responsibility for and liability for) that their wishes and stance will protect.
Blessings

[FWiedner]

At what point did so many people determine their personal or constitutional rights were less important than the rights of their employer?  I'm sorry but I'm not willing to turn my well being and that of my family and friends over for a buck!  In the above case, at least from all I have read everyone seems to feel the majority of blame falls on the shoulders of Jeep.  Why doesn't any of the blame fall on the employees for not standing up for their own rights of self defense?  I've refused employment for this very reason.  Am I alone here?

You are not alone.

[alsatian]

Maybe the answer is that if a company prohibits guns on their property that they thereby explicitly undertake to guarantee the safety of all those legitimately on their property.  Failure to preserve that safety having both severe financial penalties -- tens of millions of dollars of damages against the company -- and criminal penalties -- plant general managers and plant security chiefs serving 10 years in the joint.  It is amazing how accountability makes people think with deliberation and acuity.

What I don't like is that mindset that a gun is such a dangerous and untrustworthy tool.  An automobile hurtling down the road at 70 MPH or more is also pretty dangerous, and lots more people are killed by automobiles every year in our country than by firearms, I suspect.  Why do police tell us we shouldn't be armed or that responding to an armed threat with a firearm is generally a mistake?