Forcing Guns Into Workplaces

Forcing employers to allow guns at work? This is an idea only the gun lobby could like. Yet it is one they are trying to push into every state and workplace in America at the expense of your safety.

For several years, the NRA had been losing this fight, thanks to solid opposition from the business community, the Brady Center, the American Bar Association, and the vast majority of affected workers.

But earlier this month, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist - a potential running mate for John McCain - ignored that opposition, and concerns for private property rights, and signed his state's guns-at-work bill into law.

If this law takes effect, it will certainly increase the risk of workplace violence for millions of Floridians who go to work every day. Far too often, disgruntled and dangerous employees in a moment of rage have retrieved guns from their cars to shoot coworkers and supervisors.

Consider too, that:

• A May 2005 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that workplaces where guns were permitted were 5 to 7 times more likely to be the site of a workplace homicide compared to workplaces where guns were prohibited.

• According to the most recent CDC data, murder is the leading cause of injury-related death for women in the workplace, while about three-quarters of work-related homicides are committed with firearms; and

• 60% of major employers said in a 2005 survey that disgruntled employees had threatened to assault or kill senior managers in the last year.

We should be making these workplace gun crimes harder to commit, not easier.

What can be done? The next step in Florida will be a lawsuit arguing that this dangerous law is unconstitutional. A federal judge in Oklahoma last year struck down a similar law in that state because it ran afoul of the federal duty shared by every employer in America to provide a safe workplace. Companies can hardly meet this obligation if they no longer have control over guns on their property.

The Brady Center, joined by two major safety and security professional organizations, recently filed a brief seeking affirmance of that decision, and we will certainly support the legal battle in Florida as well.

The 7.8 million Floridians who go to work every day, and who have the power to replace legislators that put the interests of the gun lobby ahead of their safety at work, need to make their voices heard.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)