Robert who....Wasn't he in that movie, "The Incredible Shrinking Man?"
Posted on 08/24/2005 3:15:02 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Guns At Work
Big business and the gun lobby are going at it over workplace firearms. Will the Bush administration pick sides?
By Robert B. Reich
Web Exclusive: 08.18.05
Listen to the evening news and you’re likely to hear a grizzly story about a disaffected worker or estranged spouse or dissatisfied customer arriving at a workplace and going ballistic. It’s all too common.
About 17 employees are murdered every week in American workplaces by someone with a gun, making gun-related killings the third-biggest safety hazard facing American workers -- right after vehicles and machines. In fact, gun-related homicide is the leading cause of death at the workplace for women.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina have shown that killings are five times more likely to occur at workplaces where guns are allowed as where they’re prohibited. It’s just common sense.
So what are we doing about this? Some well-known American companies are taking action. It’s government that’s the problem.
A while back, the Weyerhauser Corporation banned weapons in cars parked in its employee parking lots. Workers who thereafter arrived with shotguns, handguns, rifles, and automatic weapons were fired.
But legislators in Oklahoma didn’t like this at all. Apparently Oklahoma’s lawmakers are more concerned about protecting gun owners than protecting average working people. So they enacted a state law preventing companies from instituting no-guns-in-company-parking-lot policies. Unless something’s done, the law goes into effect this November.
Thankfully, something is being done. A group of companies is going to court to block that Oklahoma law. They say they have a right to take action to protect their employees on company property. These companies -- including the energy giant Halliburton; aircraft-part maker Nordam; and ConocoPhillips, the largest oil refiner in America -- deserve the thanks of workers in Oklahoma and in any other states where gun-fawning lawmakers are intent on endangering them.
True to form, the National Rifle Association is taking a stand against these companies, and in favor of people who want to bring guns to work. It’s even organizing a boycott of ConocoPhillips gas stations.
Now, you may ask, where is the federal government in all this? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is supposed to set national policy for workplace safety. Since it was established more than 30 years ago, OSHA has often been corporate America’s worst nightmare, focusing its enforcement on picayune rules and regulations.
Now here’s OSHA’s chance to side with corporate America and protect workers’ lives. OSHA ought to ban guns in every workplace across America -- thereby preempting the Oklahoma legislation and sending the National Rifle Association packing.
If OSHA fails to take action on this one, you might suspect that the National Rifle Association has trained its sights on the Bush administration.
884 a year. Is this an OSHA statistic? Seems one would see a daily national story by the gun-grabbing liberal MSM if this were the case. Does this include officers killed in the line of duty? I bethcha it does.
The way liberal gun banners skew figures and statistics it almost certainly also includes any bad guys killed who were coming to the work place to kill his bosses and/or coworkers.
The last time I went to my bank, I told the branch manager how much safer I felt knowing that no bank robber would dare bring a gun into the bank, since there's a big sign saying that guns are not allowed, even for those with a CCW permit! He wasn't amused, and said it wasn't a joking matter. I told him that his sign, and the bank's policy was a joke, and that if I was ever in his bank, and injured while a criminal was robbing it, I would personally see that he, and the bank was sued for as much as I could get a jury to take from them, for preventing me from being able to defend myself, and then failing to protect me.
Mark
You never hear about workplace shootings in gun factories, do you.
Precisely! if you go to the national bureau of labor statistics and look at the job situations, a large majority are in positions in dealing with the public. Retail, fast food stores, convenience stores, etc.
I'm pretty wary of left wing DemocRATS who praise Halliburton.
"Another witness, Chuck Newsome, said yesterday the Sept. 11 attacks also were included in the argument, which quickly escalated into an altercation and then to a kind of showdown in front of the market's snack stand.After a scuffle, Newsome said he saw Smith stand beside the snack shed, pull a small pistol out of his pocket, cock the hammer and say, "I'm going to blow your ... brains out."
Witnesses said Moore pulled a .38-caliber pistol from his pocket. "Doug was just quicker," Harold Hannah of Salyersville said."
I love it, you rock Doc! No wonder you fly so well.
Hey do you do loose diamonds?
I used to do a lot of work as a contractor at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, MO, and I had forgotten to take a box of 500 hardcast lead 200gr SWC .45ACP bullets (not cartridges, just the lead bullets themselves) out of the trunk of my car. When they did an inspection, I got into all sorts of trouble for trying to bring "ammunition" into the federal reservation. I had to fill out some forms and check the "ammunition" at the guard shack before I could enter the parking lot.
Does anybody else find it amusing that you can't bring ammunition into the parking lot of an ammunition factory?
Mark
The number of deaths is actually correct. Just the implication that office workers or telephone solicitors are at risk is a lie.
Here's the link: http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm
the same sort of statistical lies that are perpetrated by the gun banners: Sort of like when one drug dealer kills his competition, they add that to the "if you have a gun, you're a gazillion times more likely to kill someone you know, or a family member with it" statistic.
Mark
As with all laws, only the people who obey laws will follow them.
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True it is. But the radical left is so intent on disarming the law-abiding sector of America, that solid reasoning does not apply in their emotional, anti-Constitutional thrust...the beat goes on.
Robert who....Wasn't he in that movie, "The Incredible Shrinking Man?"
Oops - "policement" should be "policemen"
Mark
The pen is mightier than the sword, yet no license or government approval is required of journalists.
Every day, ten of thousands of journalists publish items that are provably false.
Nothing is more important to society than true factual information. It must be licensed and government approved before publishing. After three provably false items, the journalist and company loses their right of free speech and is prohibited from publishing anything.
It’s only common sense!
Watch out Robert Reich, NYT, Wapo, Krugman, Dowd...
Half /Sarcasm
Better yet, change banks now and tell them why.
Just as banning guns in a city won't stop gun crimes, preventing a person from having a firearm for protection on the work site won't save employees from the nuts who will go home and them come back with their guns after being fired.
Reich is such an annoying little man. I can't believe the Air Force was pushing Reich as the guru of Quality Force Management. I hated watching those mandatory videos of Reich lecturing me on socialism.
Is he honestly trying to suggest that somebody who wants to shoot up their coworkers will be discouraged from doing so if the company adopts anti-gun policies? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people who go on a shooting rampage at work aren't too concerned about getting fired.
16.95 of which are convenience and liquor store cashiers.
Well, several things.
First: "These companies ... deserve the thanks of workers in Oklahoma and in any other states where gun-fawning lawmakers are intent on endangering them."
I dont' guess it occurred to this dofus that a lot of workers like being able to bring their guns to work. Maybe they go duck hunting before or squirrel hunting after work or maybe just go plinking.
True to form, the National Rifle Association is taking a stand against these companies, and in favor of people who want to bring guns to work. It’s even organizing a boycott of ConocoPhillips gas stations.
"OSHA ought to ban guns in every workplace across America -- thereby preempting the Oklahoma legislation and sending the National Rifle Association packing."
Does this ban apply to gunshops too? How about walmart that sells guns? Strictly applied, one wouldn't be able to sell a single gun.
And while we're on this subject, where does the workplace end? Could target define the work place to include it's parking lot?
How about the self-employed? If you work at home, would you be allowed to keep a gun in your workplace? Don't laugh, the Clinton administration actually published an opinion that home schoolers who had guns at home were in violation of the Gun Free School Zones act.
Who wants to take bets that the "workplace" has been extended to the dark alley across the street from the actual workplace? Sort of like the way liberals like to inflate the number of "children" killed by guns by incluing 19- through 23-year-old gangbangers.
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