Great idea! Questionable follow-through.
Business owner requiring all employees to be armed
GRIFFIN, Ga. — A local business owner with several offices in Georgia is now requiring all of his employees to get a concealed carry license and be armed.
Great!
After each employee at Lance Toland Associates gets their license, Toland presents them with a gun known as the judge. He says it is one of the most effective self-defense weapons and all his aviation insurance agencies carry them openly in the office.
Oh.
Can I have a full-flap holster with that? To go with the paper bag I’ll be wearing?
But other than that, great plan! I like it.
One of my acquaintances likes the Judge as well. Lives in the rurals where poisonous snakes and feral hog are common. Pulling back hammer and spinning cylinder to shot shell / .45 Colt load is a quick solution to either problem.
Seems really bulky to me, but it works for him.
I always keep a link to this one page so I can just quote Tam when these things pop up:
http://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2010/10/because-i-just-have-to-say-it.html
“The continued sales success of the Taurus Judge and its spinoffs is the most damning condemnation of the general firearms and ballistics knowledge level of the average American shooter that I have ever seen.”
Got to shoot one once. Really heavy and awkward to handle. Not a good carry gun, to say the least, and very unsuitable for anyone with small hands, low strength. Completely impossible for most of us to conceal as well. OC would be interesting…. until the joke wore off.
“Mandatory” arms are only slightly less repugnant than prohibited… and to saddle novices, especially, with this monster is sadistic. And potentially dangerous if any of those people suddenly had to actually use it in an emergency.
Dumb, dumb idea.
Buy a reproduction LeMat instead, and have a legitimate shotgun barrel.
I like the idea behind the move, to “allow” people to carry at work, but, like ML, I hate the idea of it being compulsory. And I’m one of those people who most likely couldn’t handle the Judge effectively, with small old arthritic hands.
I could maybe agree with the boss “mandating” gun training for all his employees(at his expense) and allowing, even encouraging, gun carry, but only for those employees willing and able to do so. Maybe they could open carry the Judge for appearances and discretely cc a gun suited to the individual.
I knew somebody would bring up the mandatory nature of the guy’s plan. In general, I strongly agree that requiring people to do things not directly related to the job description is always questionable. In practice, though, there’s nothing inherently immoral about engineering a work environment where all employees are at least conceptually prepared to defend themselves. Hey, nobody blinks twice at non-smoking offices anymore. The only hardship involved here would be for someone who really finds guns repugnant – and I’d be easing that person out anyway.
Ian (or anybody else who knows), aren’t Lemats NFA weapons?
True, Joel. Much as I deplore “mandatory” or prohibited anything – anything that does not amount to aggression, my main complaint isn’t expecting employees to be armed, but damn… get a decent gun and do as much as possible to get them trained appropriately. sigh Untrained, armed employees would seem to be a serious liability.
Amen to all the above . . . particularly Tam’s observation, a thought I have shared since the silly thing was introduced. That S&W chose to jump on that wagon only compounds my amazement.
I wonder how gun-savvy people who would attempt to rob such a business might be? If they are not particularly well-versed, and if the owner advertises what he has done, as he seems to be doing, it might help convince potential criminals that they do not want to “meet the Judge“.
Unless his business is security, the arms or lack of them, for his employees is none of his business. What is so hard to understand about liberty? Infringements on it from businesses are as unwelcome as if from governments. Making you carry a gun is as unwelcome as forbidding you from doing so.
Quite agreed, No One. But a situation where somebody makes an unwelcome demand on me – and I have the option of telling him to stuff it and walking away – has a certain charm. That’s the difference between a boss and a ruler. That, and a paycheck.
Funny thing, that. I’ll take things from a boss that I wouldn’t take from a ruler, because he’s paying me. Then again I’ll take things from a ruler I wouldn’t take from a boss, because he’ll kill me if I don’t.
Well, while I dislike the choice of weapon there’s a lot to be said for either 45LC or a healthy dose of 410 at close range