Company owner requires workers to have firearm at the office

My only issue with the article below is why require everyone to carry the same firearm?

 

Different models and different makes fit a person’s hand in different ways making for a more comfortable grip.

Lance Towland, Owner of Lance Towland Associates, an aviation insurance company with three offices in GA has required employees to carry a weapon while at the office. 

This of course has sparked debate on whether this would provide a safer environment.

Also being an NRA instructor I do not agree with this idea. 

Does Mr. Towland require his employees to go to the range once a week and practice?

Who pays for the ammunition and the time to practice.

Why a hand-held pistol that is essentially a shot gun? (Yes it is also capable of using .45 cal. cartridges.

Who determines the mental stability of the employee.

Would a person not wanting to carry a firearm not be eligible for employment?

Wouldn’t that be a 14th Amendment issue?

 

ST LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

By Lisa Marie Pane

MARCH 10 2016

 

ATLANTA • The decision by the owner of a small insurance company to require his employees to carry firearms at the office has sparked a debate: Would having a gun on the job make you safer, or is it inviting violence into the workplace?

Lance Toland said that his three offices, based at small airports in Georgia, hadn’t had problems with crime but that “anyone can slip in these days if they want to. I don’t have a social agenda here. I have a safety agenda.”

When a longtime employee, a National Rifle Association-certified instructor who has been the company’s unofficial security officer, announced her retirement, Toland wanted to ensure that the remaining employees would be safe.

He now requires each of them to get a concealed-carry permit, footing the $65 bill, and undergo training.

He issues a Taurus revolver known as “The Judge” to each of them.

(GA gun law must be very liberal or non existent.)

Many states require the individual to purchase a firearm with a designated waiting period.

The firearm holds five rounds, .410 shells that cast a spray of pellets like a shotgun.

It also holds .45 long colt cartridges.

“It is a weapon, and it is a lethal weapon,” said Toland, whose company specializes in aviation insurance. “When a perpetrator comes into the home or the office, they have started a fire. And this is a fire extinguisher.”

No employee balked at the mandate, he said. “They all embraced it 100 percent, and they said, you know, ‘I’m tired of being afraid,’ ” Toland said.

An employer’s legal standing to impose such a requirement depends on several factors, foremost whether the business is high risk, such as a convenience store or taxi company, said Carin Burford, a labor lawyer in Birmingham, Ala.

More than 400 people on average are killed in the workplace each year, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Just last week, a gunman with a criminal record who had just been served with an order to stay away from his former girlfriend began a shooting spree, eventually landing at the lawn mower parts factory where he worked. Authorities say he killed three people and wounded 14 others before a police officer shot and killed him.

About half of U.S. states have laws allowing people to keep firearms in their cars at work. There are companies that allow employees to bring firearms to the office. But it’s rare to hear of an employer making it a requirement.

See entire article below.

 

Kevin Michalowski, executive editor of Concealed Carry Magazine, said he hadn’t heard of any companies issuing a mandate, but he’s increasingly hearing from companies, churches and schools seeking training so they’re prepared to deal with a workplace shooting.

He said that although workplace shootings didn’t happen every day, when they did happen, people should have the ability to protect themselves — particularly before police are able to respond.

“The gun-free-zone sign isn’t going to stop anyone. In fact, it makes people more vulnerable,” said Michalowski, who is a part-time officer in Wisconsin for a county sheriff’s department and a rural police department. “The good people who could stop things are disarmed.”

One person who isn’t convinced is Charles G. Ehrlich, a lawyer in California. He was working for the Pettit & Martin law firm in California on July 1, 1993, when Gian Luigi Ferri, a failed entrepreneur and former client of the firm, arrived at the high-rise office building with multiple weapons, killing eight people and injuring six before killing himself.

Ehrlich was lucky. A meeting he was attending went long, and he didn’t end up down the hall in a conference room that was Ferri’s first target. “I heard the shouting and the noise” but had just moments earlier left the floor.

“It’s not like it is on TV or at the movies where the good guy just shoots the bad guy,” said Ehrlich, the former president of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “It’s very difficult to shoot a gun accurately, even when you’re not under pressure.”

Ehrlich also worries about the pressure cooker that exists in many workplaces — and that arming more employees might actually lead to more workplace shootings.

“Conceivably, someone who was well-trained — an ex-Green Beret or something like that — could’ve run down the hall, pulled out a weapon and fired a shot,” he said of the shooting at the firm. “But would he have prevented anyone from being killed? No. Unlike John Wayne who is always faster than the other guy, this guy got off the elevator and just started shooting.”

THE END