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Phone: 260-459-2382Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne, IndianaSome recently published articles:
"Gun Show Loophole" Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
"Storing Guns Safely" Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
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Links
"Indiana Carry Permits" Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Guns Locked in Cars at Work
In Valiant, Oklahoma on October 1, 2002, during a surprise search, Weyerhaeuser Co. sent drug-sniffing dogs into the parking lot of its paper mill. The operation found no drugs, but twelve workers were fired after guns were found in their vehicles.
Weyerhaeuser’s raid sparked a firestorm of protest that resulted in the Oklahoma legislature modifying its laws to hold employers criminally liable for prohibiting employees from storing firearms in locked vehicles on company property. After many years of legal wrangling, in February of 2009, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that workers in Oklahoma have the constitutional right to keep guns in their vehicles parked on their employers' parking lots.
The Weyerhaeuser incident, and similar ones, prompted other states to follow Oklahoma’s lead and pass laws protecting law-abiding workers who have firearms locked in their cars on private property, including their employers’ property. Indiana will soon join those states with HB 1065 that passed the Indiana House 76 to 21 and the Senate 41 to 9. This bill also prohibits restricting the lawful possession, transfer, sale, transportation, storage, display, or use of firearms or ammunition during a declared disaster emergency. Certain properties will be exempt from the law, including government properties and schools.
The effectiveness of zero-tolerance laws prohibiting guns on school property was again demonstrated very recently both at Discovery Middle School in Madison, Alabama, where a student was shot dead on February 5, and the University of Alabama—Huntsville, where Amy Bishop, a Harvard-educated professor of neurobiology shot and killed three colleagues, including the biology department chair, at a faculty meeting on February 12. Professor Bishop also shot and injured three others, two critically.
Gun-free zones don’t work—never have and never will. School shootings have proven that beyond any reasonable doubt. Instead of stopping lunatics bent on mass mayhem, gun-free zones embolden such murderers. They may be psychotic, but they are still rational enough to know gun-free zones are where they can kill numerous people without the prospect of armed resistance. Many of these shooters intend to die in the event, either by suicide or suicide by cop. It is ludicrous and absurd in the extreme to believe the prospect of a misdemeanor (or felony) gun possession charge will have the slightest deterrent effect.
Employers and other “persons” defined by HB 1065 have nothing to fear from law-abiding employees and others who have firearms secured and locked in their automobiles. However, some venture into the ridiculous in opposition. On January 27, the Journal Gazette reported the following, “Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, mocked the bill by pulling out a toy gun and saying Hoosier children should be signed up as members of the National Rifle Association when they are born and have guns placed in their lunchboxes for protection.”
There are numerous avid hunters in Indiana, and most of them have jobs. Many of these hunt before or after work hours. Allowing them to have guns secured and locked in their vehicles is no threat to their employers. Furthermore, many Indiana residents have handgun carry permits for personal protection. These law-abiding citizens are no threats to their employers, either. However, prohibiting their having guns secured and locked in their vehicles does make them more vulnerable in their travels before and after work.
The Indiana House and Senate are to be commended for passing this common sense gun law.
"Gun-Proofing Children" Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
"2nd Amendment Rights" Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
"Gun Play--Guns Are Not Toys" Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
The Face of a Mass Murderer
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Harvard educated Professor Amy Bishop, Ph. D., Neurobiology
University of Alabama-Huntsville
Kills three and critically injures two, February 12, 2010, at a faculty meeting
"Guns Locked in Cars at Work" Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
