Posted on 10/22/2005 1:41:31 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Some years ago, long after a co-worker had left the Ministry of Truth, a number of us learned that, during this person's tenure among us, the individual frequently was armed and dangerous in the workplace.
If there is such a thing as a retroactive, post-traumatic, primal scream/crawling into a fetal position/whimpering with delayed fear syndrome -- the idea that many of us once worked alongside not only a complete crazy nut job, but a complete crazy nut job with a GUN certainly qualifies.
Or, put another way, if you ever needed a reason to install the mother of all panic rooms, consider this certifiably insane statistic: At the moment, across our fair beloved state, there are 354,552 Floridians with concealed weapons permits walking among us.
Let's face it, you just know at least a couple thousand of those folks running around with their hidden weapons are probably more unhinged than Edgar Allen Poe meets Rudolf Hess.
A Simple Test
Or perhaps they are directly behind you in traffic. Brrrrrrr.
Which brings us rather neatly to state Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Tea Cup Poodle, the legislative supernumerary of the National Rifle Association, who is the leading lotion boy on behalf of the gun lobby to deny employers the right to bar workers from keeping their weapons in their car while on company property.
How deranged is this?
Take this simple test.
Look around your workplace. Chances are there are one, or two, or three, or more co-workers you and your colleagues have often joked about as being the leading candidate to bring an AK-47 to the office someday.
Or maybe that Dilbert from Hell is -- you!
And now Dennis Baxley, R-You Talkin' To Me?, wants to make it just that much easier for your resident lunatic in the next cubicle to turn Amalgamated Widgets into a killing field.
We live in an imperfect world -- filled with very, very strange people who hear voices; who have issues; who really don't like you just ... because.
And many of these people are down the hall -- seething, fulminating, over in personnel -- filling out a job application.
Perfect World
Purely, as a general principle, can you make some kind of abstract Second Amendment argument that law-abiding citizens ought to be able to take their bazookas, their Uzis, their 50-caliber armor-piercing rocket launchers with them wherever they go, including onto the grounds of Acme Nose Tweezer International?
Well ... OK, whatever.
To be sure, in a perfect world where there was no workplace violence, where some employees weren't more unhinged than Son of Sam meets Lex Luthor, it would be fine if people drove into the company parking lot with their NRA-approved death ray, or their surface-to-air missile, or their Gatling Gun in the trunk. Who would care?
However, if the private sector can regulate other forms of employee behavior, such as smoking in the workplace, why can't employers also establish rules governing the presence of lethal weapons on private property?
There's no question the Florida Legislature, a subsidiary of the National Rifle Association, will pass Baxley's Fortune 500 meets "Six Feet Under" bill.
One question for Baxley, who does happen to have a conflict of interest in his legislation since he is an Ocala funeral director:
If as a result of the representative's legislative actions an act of workplace violence leads to the murders of workers, would Dennis Baxley also be willing to create a NRA-funded compensation account for the surviving families?
Didn't think so.
CBP! I like that.
Once again a writer fails to understand the difference between people who follow the law and criminals.
Good find.
As an owner of a company, Nobody has the right to tell the owner, what kind of legal weaponry can be brought on the owner's company property. If the owner wants bazookas on the property or no guns at all, the property owner gets to decide. Case closed.
"...there are 354,552 Floridians with concealed weapons permits walking among us."
It's a nice start.
Be afraid criminals, and tyrants, and leftist idiots, be veeeerrrryyyy afraid.
Most people who are unhinged wont have a concealed permit as they are -- UNHINDGED! This lefty loony will get on his knees and thank a God he suddenly beleives in if his coworkers saves his life by breaking out his weapon and stopping a would be mass murderer.
Great pic. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Of course the print media could do with a few less bodies....
We wouldn't need any of these gun laws if they would simply make robbery and murder illegal.
That picture puts my gaydar on red alert - as if the article hadn't already.
I was thinking the same thing.
"If there is such a thing as a retroactive, post-traumatic, primal scream/crawling into a fetal position/whimpering with delayed fear syndrome "
It is also frightening that someone who writes this type of drivel can be published! Nuts with guns and paranoid idiots with pens - neither is appealing . . . .
I knew when I read the byline and the title that this was a tripe-spewing excursion by a limp-wristed, pantywaist, weak-kneed wanna-be Eurotwit socialist...
Who only trusts the governmnt and its agents to carry guns...
But I still think a barf alert might be appended!
Thanks for posting this - it serves as a reminder that we have dedicated enemies of the Second Amendment running around out there, and they are neither afraid nor unwilling to use loaded, incendiary language and imagery to create a climate of ignorance, fear, and misunderstanding.
A.A.C.
"The Final Crusade has commenced!"
This is the email I sent to Mr. Ruth in response to his obviously biased article:
Mr. Ruth,
Your diatribe against the armed citizens of our fair State is yet another piece of drivel in the annals of the mainstream media's fearmongering literature. Your obvious discontent with the political aspects of gun ownership has clouded your ability to see the benefits to having thousands of armed citizens walking the streets around you. Frankly, I'm quite content knowing that the truck driver, lawn worker, white collar CEO, accountant, engineer (myself included), journalist, et al are armed and capable of protecting themselves in a world that increasingly grows hostile to Americans and a country that has proven more and more often that it is incapable of providing law enforcement protection to people when they need it, not 10 - 15 minutes after a phone call to 911.
I am, sir, one of these lunatics walking the street. I am driving behind and in front of people everyday with a revolver on my hip. I am protecting my home with a shotgun, an AK47 "assault weapon," and a cadre of vintage WWII weaponry that I restore and enjoy shooting and hunting with. Your ignorance for the history of firearms, their utility and their ability to level the playing field for the healthy and the not-so-healthy is tantamount to typical anti-gun scare tactics.
I assure you, Mr. Ruth, I will continue to walk the streets knowing that I am in full control of my life and my freedom with a sidearm to protect me. I am not a nutcase nor am I one of those people "most likely to snap" in my office. Every man and woman I work with knows that I own firearms, and I think it sets them at ease knowing that I would use those firearms in the lawful protection of my friends, my family and myself.
I urge you to do some research into the "gun culture" in Florida. Feel free to email me at the address provided, and I would be happy to accompany you to one of the many facilities in the Tampa Bay area and shoot some of the weapons that won wars and protected the lives of men and women in this world. Until then, please consider finding another subject into which you can instill a wreckless fear, because your commentary lacks fact, substance and overall, knowledge.
Regards, Ronald Arestia
My own 2 cents?
My wife drives a 35 or 50 mile commute to work each day-- the longer trip is on rural roads, the shorter one via the Interstate-- AKA, the "conduit for criminals"
She keeps a sidearm in the glovebox, for fast access- but there's a 12 gauge shotgun in the trunk, for those occassions when you need something better than a pistol.
The Sherrif and his deputies in the county where she works are well aware of this, and you know what? They approve- knowing if they get in a jam on the back roads, and she comes along, she's equipped to help them out.
Years ago, she worked in an office with the wife of the City's Chief of Detectives, and not only did her friend keep a pistol in her handbag ( "just in case I ever need one" ) so did every other woman in her family. Daughters, Mother, Sister- they all had a sidearm or two.
You see, if there are laws against carrying concealed weapons, no certified nut-job whacko who doesn't give a damn anyway will be able to carry one. And we'll all feel safer.
Great post backhoe.
Bump!!
I think -
"....there are 354,552 Floridians with concealed weapons permits walking among us."
- would make an excellent billboard.
I hope this guy has a good supply of Depends. What a pee-in-his-pants little girly-man. Honestly, I thought it was satire at first.
We live in an imperfect world -- filled with very, very strange people who hear voices; who have issues; who really don't like you just ... because.
This is what the elite think of mainstream Americans. That we're gun toting, God-fearing, knee-jerk morons who, in their world, really can't be trusted with guns or a vote.
HA!
I think he's talking about us.
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