Case 8.4 MOULTON

2. I think this is more of a legal concern than moral. I can’t see a moral issue with having or not having a firearm at work. I believe more in right to property than to own a firearm (anyone want to get into the militia debate with me) and your ability to control (to a certain degree) what happens on your property. A business is made up of many people, not just one kind of person, so I can see that an employee may want to arm themselves, but that leads to another issue for me: what is going on at the company? If the company is in a high crime area, they should invest in security for their employees, if not, than the employees may want to reconsider why they are working there at all. Also, since most people think background checks are full of loop holes, the employer may not know who is legally allowed to own or who has done enough training to carry safely (taking a concealed carry class is a minimum class, knowing how YOU react in shooting situations is completely different). Companies have other concerns about firearms as well, such as accidental discharge. Whose liability is it if an employee is accidentally shot? Does your insurance cover it? How will other employees feel if someone is accidentally shot at work?

 

3. The NRA over react to something? Wrecking ball to the Second Amendment? Hyperbole much? As if often said: if you don’t like it, you don’t have to work here. In my mind, if you feel so unsafe at work that you need a firearm on you or in your vehicle, you may want to choose another profession or at least a new employer. It’s not anything close to a wrecking ball to the Second Amendment as each person has, in some regard, the ability to look for a job with a company that is inline with their own beliefs.

For my next argument, I am going to assume that Wayne LaPierre of the NRA is a hardened conservative. Hard right wingers have usually fall back on the Constitution and personal rights. This seems to be a sticky area for conservatives as what is more vital than right to property? Without you, the State can take anything or dictate what occurs on your property (which already happens, but to varying degrees). Essentially, the NRA’s view is: We don’t care whose property you are on, you must allow everyone to carry a firearm. Your right to property is subordinate to my right to carry a firearm anywhere I please.

 

4. I’m not going to take the ‘rights’ angle with my response, but rather discuss how making a teacher into a soldier is not an ideal solution and who owns the ‘school’. After school shootings, it is often stated that a teacher with a gun could have stopped the shooter. Ok, what kind of teacher are we talking about? Someone who just bought a gun? Someone who was in the military or law enforcement prior to teaching?
   In an article written for the New York Daily News, MICHAEL DECILLIS who is a retired SWAT Medic, speaks about the massive amount of training required to react to a shooting. He speaks of his massive training and how it would be near impossible to train huge numbers of teachers to be calm, cool, and collected while under fire or engaging a real person. Not just any real person: “Oftentimes the shooter is a student, and we are asking teachers to hunt them down and shoot them. Many times the shooter is armed with military-grade firepower such as the AR-15, and we are asking teachers to confront them with handguns. Handguns that are concealed, so that they hold few rounds of ammunition-perhaps at most 10.’Another thought is who owns the school? The original #4 was about businesses, which I agree with the American Bar Association in that the company’s property should be subject to “the traditional property rights of private employers and other private property owners to exclude’ people with firearms (p322). If public sentiment is to arm teachers, than it should be done district to district, not from the Feds or State governments. Schools can be very localized and trying a one size fits all method may anger some and dissuade others to attend public schools. Public schools are just that, owned by the public and should act in accordance to the publics wishes.

 

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/retired-nypd-rips-trump-proposal-arm-teachers-article-1.3843545