Guns in the Workplace: When Your Co-Worker is Packing Heat

I see by the morning news that Louisiana governor Plyush Amrit Jindal (I say that simply to amuse my more conservative friends who had such great fun with the Barack Hussein Obama thing) has signed into law a new bill making it legal to carry guns to church in Louisiana. Given that nasty gaping hole in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico that is relentlessly destroying the coastline of his fair state it is heartening to know that Governor Jindal still has time to make certain that churchgoers in Louisiana will be able to protect themselves from their fellow congregants. It’s one of those brave and decisive blows for freedom that could only happen in 19th and 21st century America and who cares if the rest of the world thinks we’re silly and paranoid.   Most worshippers are probably not likely to avail themselves of this “freedom” and those who do probably aren’t going to shoot anybody.

Of much more concern, it seems to me, are the hordes  of state legislatures rushing to enact laws to prohibit employers from banning guns in the workplace.  The Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Chicago case is bound to accelerate this trend.  How reassuring will it be to know that the hostile IT guy who comes around to fix your printer might be packing heat?  How about that quiet family man whose wife just left him after twelve years and took the kids and the bank account?  Does he seem a little depressed and withdrawn to you?  Is that a bulge in his pocket or is he just not glad to see you?  Do you want to be the one to tell him he’s being let go?

We are about to enter an era in which an employer can ban smoking and shorts and knives and bombs in the workplace, but not guns.  All because a bunch of tobacco growers 250 years ago forgot to write smoking into the Constitution and protected guns instead.

Maybe Nimrata Randhawa Haley can explain the logic after she’s elected governor of South Carolina.

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