The Rohrbaugh Forum
Miscellaneous => The Water Cooler -- General Discussions => Topic started by: Aglifter on September 20, 2005, 12:45:59 AM
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I have an employee who want to start carrying. I'm against any kind of intelligence standards, etc being enforced by the government, like literacy tests, too easy to manipulate. He's very reliable, dedicated, loyal (almost to a fault), but I'm concerned about his ability to make decisions quickly, and about that loyalty causing him to act foolishly -- he's a touch over-protective when it comes to the company, or things the belong to it. He's been working for me since he was 15, so I'm a bit closer to him than a normal employee, and I'm afraid of him getting into trouble if he starts carrying.
Thanks for any suggestions/comments
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Liability issue big time and that is why corporate America does not permit it, but if it is your company then do what you want and maybe look for an insurance rider.
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I am not a business owner, but would probably be reluctant for my employees to have weapons at work.
My biggest concern is an employee might act like a policeman, and use the gun to perform police duties.
It takes determination and judgement to avoid using a firearm, except as a last resort, when escape is not possible, and death is at hand.
Naturally, I would have a Commercial Liability and Umbrella policy to address such matters. That is, I would insist upon such coverage involving legal pistols.
And then, spend months worrying that they really did not!
I personally would say Yes, only if my attorney could find case law where the business owner was excused when the employee made errors using his legal firearm.
Bill
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Is your business a service type that you have to drive from location to location?
I'd treat things differently. Not to say it escapes any liability issues, just that his chances of running into trouble may be greater if he's on the road.
If he works in a stationary building, perhaps a locker is as far as his gun should be allowed to enter the work area.
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Both, sometimes he's driving a truck, sometimes he's working for me either at the stores or at the plant -- he really only wants it for driving, but I'm a bit worried that he'll try to fight to keep the truck, if someone tries to hijack it, rather than just turn it over -- I told him he has to get a permit before we talk about it anymore, so that should have bought me some time, at least.
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I think chameleon was right on target by suggesting the firearm be locked up at work.
Considering that a permit is required, and it is understood that the truck must be given to a thief upon request, it would be my position that a pistol could be used at the last moment to save his life.
That sounds reasonable to me. The thief gets what he wants, the police get to enjoy finding the bad person, and the employee has a pistol for the last resort situation.
Bill
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I shouldn't need to say that your business is your business and if you decide to ban CCW in your workplace, I would support your decision even though I might question it. After all, you are the responsible person on the spot and between the two of us, you are the one with the best chance of making a proper decision. That said, when we are discussing another person's right to armed self-defense we should think (as you are) long and hard about restrictions. Perhaps you might feel better by suggesting to your employee that you'd allow CCW if he invested in additional training (for example, Lethal Force Institute) that would cover legal aspects as well as performance instruction. We all agree that investing in a good gun can be money well spent. The same amount invested in training is worth even more.
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First the young employee should get a carry permit. Then he should go to training school ie: Gun Site, Thunder Ranch & etc., where he will be shown control, judgement and the legal aspect of carrying and using a gun.
Then talk with your attorney and see what he suggests. There might even be a problem if you limit his ablility to protect himself.
In Dallas and other large cities in Texas, stores, restaurants & etc., tried to not allow guns in their business. And by doing so where accepting liability for their customers safety. So they then posted signs that carrying a legal concealed gun was ok.
Just some thoughts, you would not like it if you were told that you could not carry.
You might also tell him it needs to locked up at work or locked in his car.
Tom
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Aglifter, That's a tough one. My former employer banned firearms from the workplace AND from employees' vehicles parked on company property. This was a very large Fortune 500 company - in the top 10, actually. At the time, I was really exercised over the policy. Almost 4 years after retirement (and four years with a CCW), I can see their point. I don't agree with the no firearms in parked vehicles, but I wouldn't want some of the people I dealt with daily carrying guns in the workplace.
Your description of your employee's maturity rings alarm bells in my head. Maybe there is a compromise: No firearms on the job, but okay to keep the carry gun in private vehicle AS LONG AS IT IS STORED IN A SECURE LOCKBOX which is permanently fastened to the vehicle's structure. I have one - they ain't cheap, but they do give peace of mind.
I'm not a lawyer, but even I can see the exposure a business owner has when his employees are armed in the business or on the road. A justified shooting will probably result in a civil suit. Even a negligent / accidental / stupid discharge which hurts only the employee is going to cost YOU.
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Then again if this employee carried a weapon and did not tell you how would you know about it? ;)
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Yeah, I thought about that option, but if I tell him not to tell me, then I'm not really acheiving anything, and I'm 99% sure that he'll tell me before he started. I just feel hypocritical to tell him no -- my whole family carries, the company's a member of the NRA, as am I -- I do not intend to try to ever contol what an employee has in his car -- definately don't want that headache. I may just decide to tell him that if he's driving, he can do what he wants, but that I don't want him armed in the stores -- anyone been through one of those training programs? Maybe I could require him to carry self-defense insurance.
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bigyimmy,
I thought of that, but my post was getting a bit long, and I figured it would make my reply look like a flip-flop.
If an employer "doesn't ask", and the employee "doesn't tell', I guess nothing happens - as long as nothing happens. But if there is gunplay, bad things are almost guaranteed to happen, eh?
Many years ago a bar-owner customer of my father's lost his liquor license for running a "disorderly house". As I recall, it was a Friday night and one patron objected to another guy dancing to the juke box music the first guy had paid for. Words led to pushing & shoving. The dancing man fnally decked the first guy. The first guy left the bar, came back with a .38 and killed the second guy. Over a nickel!! (This was a LONG time ago.)
To make a long story short, the bartender called the police. The bar owner got his place closed down by the PA Liquor Board, and the killer served a couple of years.
So, bad things can happen that are way beyond your control, but not your liability.
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I agree with you. I would tend to think the liability would be greater if the owner knew. While no criminal charges are brought against a knowing business owner, civil damages most likely would be incurred. Hence insurance may offset or pay them in full.
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If I were Sarah Brady reading this thread, I'd be salivating.
On the question of liability, ever consider your liability if your employee is denied permission to carry a gun, and is then killed in a mugging at a time when he would have been armed but for your permission? This lawyer would happily take that case on a contingency fee.
Do you even have a duty to regulate weapons on your business premises beyond requiring obedience to the law? By imposing a rule, might you be taking on a responsibility that you could be held negligent for violating, but that you never had to take on in the first place? I'd speak with an attorney in your state about those questions.
If someone has poor judgment, should they be working for you in the first place, armed or not? If they don't have poor judgment, why not trust them?
Ever notice how the rare employee who "goes postal" almost always does so in a place where guns are banned?
The statistics I have seen show that people with concealed handgun licenses are only 1/5 as likely to commit a crime as the general population. I'd be more worried about someone who didn't have a concealed carry license.
I suspect insurance coverage for this sort of thing could be tough to find.
It would be good to speak with a gun knowledgeable attorney in your state (make sure they are a shooter) about these issues, but my suggestion would be a policy requiring no more than obedience to the law and sound judgment.
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Good judgement is a relative thing -- the level that I expect from a $7'hr employee is different than that I would expect from my accountant.
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Good judgement is a relative thing -- the level that I expect from a $7'hr employee is different than that I would expect from my accountant.
either one is a human being and could "snap" without notice,really doesnt matter what theyre salary is,lol
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A person who is trusted driving a car could easily kill 10 people with one mistake. It isn't easy to kill that many people with a gun with one mistake.
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I'm glad I'm not in the position of having to decide a policy like that. Seems like either way you decide, there could be horrible consequences, and you'll second guess your decision.
Remember that you don't decide to give the guy a carry permit, the state does. If they believe he is worthy of being trusted with carrying a firearm, then perhaps that should be good enough. But the idea of requiring additional training, beyond what the state requires, makes sense in both a legal and moral way -- you are asking the employee to take the training that is useful for that particular tool (just as he would receive training to use a forklift before he could drive one) and if you were ever sued, you could point out that a) it was the state's decision to issue the permit, b) and you went beyond their requirements in your workplace policy. You might even hire a firearms instructor to create a class that deals *specifically* with the situations that might be encountered in your workplace, and trains on the exact responses you want in those situations.
Good luck.
Woodstock Doug
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That sounds up there w. my "terrorist attack policy" I have to develop -- because my little bitty NRA member ice cream stores/plant is going to be a target -- although you probably have a point -- same as the inspectors did once they started talking about checking milk tankers for being poisoned, etc. (As for the terrorist policy we basically went w. "run like hell if possible, fight like hell if not.")
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"run like hell if possible, fight like hell if not.")
;D ;D ;D
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You are correct, WSD, that the state confers the CCW
permit but it is also true that the employer in Texas can
prohibit a concealed weapon on his place of business.
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That is true, but does he also accept libility for the safety of folks in his store & etc? Because he denied them the ability to defend themselves. That thought has changed some of the (store) owners demand to limit firearms carried with permit.
Alot of business owners now post a sign saying, that the unlicensed carrying of a firearms is a felony.
Tom
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I was only stating what the law says about the employer's
right to prohibit concealed weapons; what they do beyond that is strictly up to them. Not that we don't have a firm
grasp of the obvious but it is a felony to possess an illegal
firearm with or without a sign.
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Tracker, I know, I was not at all flaming you.
Tom
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None taken, Tom; just discussion about a subject that
is close to some.
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Tracker, Minnesota is going thru that problem now with their CCW. Business owners are busy posting no guns in here signs.
Tom
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I don't understand why a business would post "no guns" sign for customers -- there's no way to hold the owner responsible legally for what his customers do -- unfortunately, there is a growing tendency to hold employer's responsible for an employee's actions, even if the employee's actions are illegal/unforeseeable -- we covered one case this semester where a Wal-Mart was held responsible for an attack in their parking lot because they built their store in a bad neighborhood -- obviously a case from one of the "crazy" jurisdictions. -- I think Cook county