Making the workplace less safe

Feel safer?

Gov. Mitch Daniels, removing any question about the clout of the National Rifle Association in Indiana politics, has signed into law a bill that allows people to bring their firearms to work.

Two weeks after a work-related shooting, the governor decided that the Indiana General Assembly had it right when it passed legislation allowing folks to keep guns in their vehicles while parked on their employers' property.

In an era when workplace violence is increasingly commonplace and work-related stress and anxiety are high because of the fragile state of the economy, the governor and our legislators have with a single stroke made each and every person working in Indiana less safe.

Gun rights advocates will trot out the usual arguments about the Second Amendment, but it ought to be obvious by now that America has a gun problem. There are too many of them, and it's far too easy for them to get into the hands of individuals who are unstable.

It ought to be possible to have a meaningful debate about how to make the country safer. But Second Amendment absolutists find debate intolerable.

This time around, reasonable arguments from employers and business groups concerned about being able to maintain safety rules on their own property were knocked down by the NRA bulldozer.

What's next? Will the state issue targets for foremen, supervisors, and personnel departments to wear to make things easier for the next disgruntled employee with a grudge and a gun in his car? - J.R.[[In-content Ad]]