As a disclaimer, I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment, life member of the NRA, a certified NRA instructor for basic pistol, and teach handgun safety courses in the state of Maine. To carry a concealed firearm in Maine requires that you have a license to do so, and it applies only to firearms and not other types of weapons.
Recently there have been some bills introduced to change some of the laws around carrying a concealed firearm in the state. Some of these laws may be a good idea, but there were some around the area of where you can carry that I think are really boneheaded.
First the easy one. One proposal is to allow the carrying a firearm in your place of employment. My opinion is that this should totally be up to the company and not a blanket policy. The argument I’m sure I’ll hear will be around workplace shootings and the need to protect yourself in such a situation. The question I’ll ask is how often does that happen? Look at the number of places of employment here in the US and compare that to the number of shootings that take place each day. It would be far easier and safer to reduce these numbers through better pre-employment screening and procedures when an employee is fired.
Another area where they want to allow concealed is at the site of a labor dispute. Hmm, emotions never run wild there and never been a history of violence at labor disputes in the past, seems perfectly fine to me. To clarify this one it means that would be legal to carry a firearm to place where you can apply for a job where the employer is in a labor dispute, strike, or lockout. Currently only law enforcement officers or licensed security guards can carry in such a location. I would love to hear the reasoning behind changing this policy.
The last one is the one that really raises my eyebrow. The change would allow the holder of a concealed firearms license to carry a concealed firearm into an establishment serving alcohol for consumption on the premises (i.e. a bar). So, lets take one of the major areas where violence happens in this country, and let a person carry a concealed firearm into said place. First off, if I thought I needed to have a firearm on me in a certain bar I wouldn’t be going to that bar. Now when people do what Rory Miller calls the “monkey dance“, it just won’t be fist and kicks, maybe a beer bottle or two, now when the smaller monkey gets pushed to the floor by the bigger monkey he can equalize the situation with his friend Col Colt. I just see a recipe for bad things happening with this law change.
These are just my opinion. People are welcome to argue an opposing viewpoint.