Posted on 12/11/2004 6:07:04 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
Gun-toting, tough-talking, and anti-establishment to his muddy boot straps, Larry Mullens is an Oklahoman "good ole boy" personified.
He is also fast becoming a classic American folk hero as he takes centre stage in a revolt of gun owners that is reverberating in boardrooms across the United States. The son of one of the last of the old-style Wild West ranchers, he first fired a gun as a boy.
Now he carries his trusty Winchester in his pick-up on his way to work at a sawmill in case he comes across a coyote, a wild dog or even a wolf attacking his small herd of steers. Last year he lost five calves to wild dogs.
So it was perhaps not surprising that he was enraged when his previous employer fired him for breaking company security rules that banned guns from the company car park after they found a .38 pistol stashed behind the seat of his pick-up.
No one could have predicted that two years later he and his backers would claim an extraordinary revenge - a law allowing employees to keep guns in locked cars on company property.
Just two days after a gunman jumped on to a stage in Columbus, Ohio, and shot dead a heavy metal guitarist and three others before himself being shot dead, it might seem surprising to hear that elsewhere a state is extending gun owners' rights.
But in Oklahoma, as across much of rural America, gun control is seen as the work of naive and meddling minds.
"Having a gun is no different from having a hammer. It is just a tool," said Jerry Ellis, a Democratic representative in the state legislature who drafted and pushed through the law.
"Here, gun control is when you hit what you shoot at."
The passage of the law resounded like one of Larry Mullens's Winchester rifle shots through the boardrooms of America.
In recent years companies have been implementing anti-gun policies in an attempt to cut down on violence at the work place.
Now they fear the Oklahoman ruling will encourage the powerful gun lobby all over America to try to roll back the reforms.
Paul Viollis, the president of Risk Control Strategies, is appalled at the new law. Every week there are 17 murders at the work place across America, and most of them involve guns, he says.
"It's the most irresponsible piece of legislation I've seen in my 25 years in the business," he said. "I would invite anyone who'd allow people to bring firearms to work to write the first death notice.
"The argument that emp-loyees should be allowed to bring firearms to work because they'll be locked in the car is so absurd it barely merits a response."
Several companies are trying to block the law. Two days before it was due to come into force last month, a judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing it from taking effect. The next hearing is on Tuesday.
But the firms are fighting on unfavourable terrain. Contrary to the widespread impression that the nation is polarised between gun-loving Republicans and more liberal Democrats, in the heartland gun control spans party lines. The law passed unanimously in Oklahoma's Senate and by 92 votes to four in the House.
Mike Wilt, a Republican, voted against the law, not on security grounds but because he believes the state should not dictate gun policies to property owners. "Here in Oklahoma the issue of guns is not a wedge issue," he said. "We all go hunting together and we all tend to have the same beliefs."
Two weeks ago one of the principal plaintiffs, Whirlpool, a prominent supplier of white goods, withdrew from the case. It said it was satisfied that its ban on guns on its property was not affected. The gun lobby suspects that the decision had more to do with talk of a boycott of the firm.
Nowhere do feelings run more strongly than in Valliant, a small town where, on Oct 1, 2002, at the Weyerhaeuser paper mill, the row began.
Mr Mullens was one of four on-site employees who were sacked after guns were found in their vehicles in contravention of a new company ruling. They are convinced it was just an excuse to lay off workers and insist they did not know about the new security laws.
The firm, which is locked in litigation with the fired employees, rejects the charges and says everyone knew it had a zero-tolerance approach to security. "You don't need a gun to be safe at Weyerhaeuser," said Jim Keller, the firm's senior vice-president. "Safety is our number one priority.
"It's more important to tell someone they don't have a job than to have to tell a family that their loved one is not coming home from work. This is about safety; it's not about guns."
But the people of Valliant, where the high school closes down during the prime week in the deer-hunting season to allow pupils to shoot, will not be easily assuaged.
James Burrell, an assistant at the local gun shop, said: "Most people around here think the new law is already a right."
Mr Mullens has now found a new job, where his employer is less pernickety.
"People tell me to 'stick to my guns' because they are all carrying one too," he said. "The bottom line is that it is our constitutional right to have a gun in the car."
"I didn't know it was completely a local thing."
It isn't on federal property. Then it's a federal crime.
You can't really be this stupid....
And? Who owns the car? The Employee or the Employer? The car and the space it encompasses are not under the legal jurisdiction of the plant owner. Period. Your idiot repetition will not transmorgify one fact into another.
It's just you, California, and the likes of Charles Schumer trying to change that. Gun grabbing freaks that are frightened of their own inherent stupidity.
"It's the most irresponsible piece of legislation I've seen in my 25 years in the business," he said. "I would invite anyone who'd allow people to bring firearms to work to write the first death notice.
"The argument that emp-loyees should be allowed to bring firearms to work because they'll be locked in the car is so absurd it barely merits a response."
Sounds like Viollis can hear the sound of his cushy little business based on anti-self defense - anti-firearm - anti-2nd amendment laws being blown away by the rights of the people being rebuilt.
Ok at least I have established yer knowledge on the subject at hand....sorry to bother.
That is the point, you have no RIGHT to armed on private property, just as you have no free speech RIGHTS on private property, and just as you have no religious RIGHTS on private property!!!!!!
UNLESS OF COURSE THE PRIVATE PROPERTY IN QUESTION IS YOURS!!!!!
BOOTSTICK wrote:
So let me get this strait, your RKBA are infringed when the employer does not allow guns to be in your personal vehicle?
Well what about the government then, do they have the right to not allow you into a government parking lot for the same reason? Is Uncle Sam denying your RKBA when you are in your personal auto, on GOVERNMENT PROPERTY???
Why "yes"??? because you say so???? what tripe!
BOOTSTICK wrote:
I'm happy to just find out I can purchase a Full body metal detector for only about $1,800 a door, ---
You pay taxes on the land, maintain it if maintenance is needed, you are financially accountable for anything that might befall the people whom you allow on your property while they are on your property.
That's not Fascism.
Fascism begins when the government steps in and starts telling you, a property owner, that others have the right to set conditions on THEIR use of YOUR property, contrary to YOUR conditions, and that YOU are still financially , and maybe even criminally responsible for their well-being for as long as they remain on your property.
You just happen to find this degree of Fascism acceptable.
Whether an employer allows guns on their property on their own or not, or whether the government forces them to do it, they will be sued after a work place shooting, so I say that the day that ALL employees sign a release agreeing not to file suit against their employees if the were hurt at a job-related shooting, then the employer should allow guns on his property. You know what?
Maybe that's the next law that the Oklahoma legislature should pass; making it illegal to sue an employer if you got shot at work by a co-worker at the work place , or anywhere on the premises.
As a matter of fact, the legislature should release employers in the State of all liability, legal, criminal, or financial; if the people of Oklahoma and their legislature believe that the best way to keep people safe at work is to arm them, and took steps to implement their idea as law, then let the people of Oklahoma and their legislature assume all accountability when they fail to keep people safe at the work place.
But that won't happen.
That would require the intellectual honesty to assume responsibility for their own actions.
So, you feel you are justified in ignoring the law if ignoring it serves in your best interest, and you're in here arguing that employers should not be allowed to ignore the law (Second Amendment) simply because they believe that ignoring the law serves in their best interest?
Tell me...does your head hurt after going in circles that fast?
So you'd have no problem with me carrying a firearm in your home? How will you like it when I protest President Bush on your front yard? You'll no doubt support my First Amendment right to do so. Right?
I would submit that the company does in fact have the right to fire an employee who did so. It would be stupid, wrongheaded (and as you state, asinine and fascist). Nonetheless, the company could do so.
Individuals and enterprises exercise their rights in all sorts of stupid and counterproductive ways, yet we don't ask the government to correct them when they do so. What's different about this case, other than the fact that it's our ox being gored?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.