When someone with a credible death threat against them has to wait for months before they can carry legally and defend themselves with their jacket on, that says it is not working.
Eric Brakey
Maine State Senator (R-Auburn)
Maine State Police Support Rescinding Concealed Permit Requirement
[When you think about laws and regulations just a little bit you realize anything specific to guns, beyond a few safety rules, are nonsensical.
We have a lot of work left to do but making it easier for people to use their guns without getting into trouble is a step forward. The more people that have and use guns the easier it is for them to realize the magazine restrictions, background checks, registration, and “safe gun” rosters are stupid and infringing upon a specific enumerated right.—Joe]
When the law was signed I thought of a few of my friends who got serious death threats.
I knew being Maine they could buy or borrow a gun that day (not so much for Mass), I didn’t care how long a protective order takes because it’s just a piece of paper.
Still to tell a person it would be over a month before they could carry concealed.
One friend had to take a leave of absence from his job while he waited at a friend’s house 100 miles away.
In a situation like that, I’d advise to carry with or without the permit. Chances are no one would know, after all it’s a concealed weapon, right? And “’tis better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6”.
It does help that in NH, if I remember right, first offense carrying without a permit is a misdemeanor. And of course, a person charged for that would make a fine test case of the CC law vs. article 2A of the NH bill of rights — see if NH would follow Vermont and interpret that to imply Constitutional Carry.
No that’s a very valid statement, but there can be secondary risks.
My employer forbids weapons on the job. There is no legal repercussions if my carry gun were to be discovered on the job, (which is more likely than me needing to shoot a spree killer) and if I was fired for this it would make future employ rather difficult.
TLDR: It’s so much easier playing by the rules, and awesome now that the rules will soon be wicked easy in Maine.
You’re quite right. My employer has that same mentally defective attitude. For the moment, I’ve decided to go along. That’s all about risk assessment, of course; I figure the risk is low. If I thought otherwise, I would change my conclusions.
The same applies here more generally: all things being equal, playing by the rules is best, and fixing the rules is best of all. But if the rules are wrong, staying alive is more important than playing by the rules.
One employer of mine had the same rules and I generally followed them. But one guy who I worked with came into my office one day and when I casually asked how things were going he went into a rant about how, “If I had a gun I would have gone postal last week.” He was worked up enough that I could easily envision he was serious. I started carrying at work. He was fired a week later. I continued to carry for a month or so.
I can neither confirm nor deny any such similar situations in my life.
I will say at my past employer who had no weapons policy, I did have a co-worker have a VERY severe psychotic episode. I’m thankful he got the treatment he needed, but I was very concerned I might have to shoot him, and I didn’t WANT to shoot him, I rather liked the guy, but in that state I was VERY glad I was carrying a gun, and VERY glad I was carrying the 1911 and not the 5-shot j-frame.
Still most employers have their weapons policies because lawyers making speculative assumptions about gun fights in the office and legal repercussions.
What needs to be done is if ANY of us are unfortunate enough to be assaulted or injured on the workplace by physical violence, we should sue.
I believe that is being done to the theater chain in Colorado, and it should be done whenever possible.
I know my employer isn’t anti-gun, nor is Pizza Hut or any other employer that bans guns, they just don’t want lawsuits, and if we GIVE them lawsuits that should be all that it takes to get them to all back down.
I rather like the idea of suing those who require we disarm and do not provide any meaningful security.
Where is the accountability? After all, they are proactively denying my 2A rights and there should be a penalty when bad things happen.
Is this a path to eliminating most, or all of the Gun Free Zones?