SDGOP spin blogger thinks the new South Dakota Bureau of Human Resources policy allowing state employees to carry concealed weapons on the job is “well thought out” and protects employees and the general public. As usual, Pat Powers is mistaken.
The state says employees can carry concealed weapons on the job and on state property unless specifically prohibited by federal or state law or by executive order of the Governor. As your next Governor, I promise to issue an executive order on Inauguration Day telling state employees to leave their guns at home.
BHR claims that “The State is not liable for any wrongful or negligent act or omission related to actions of persons or employees who carry a concealed pistol.” Um… really? If an employer allows employees to carry deadly weapons in the workplace, and if one of those deadly weapons goes off and injures someone, doesn’t the employer bear some responsibility for creating a hazardous work environment?
BHR does at least require these Nervous Nellies to keep a tight grip on their guns:
An eligible employee must comply with all requirements of the law when carrying a concealed pistol. The employee must always keep the pistol completely concealed, except for those instances where necessary for self-defense or transferring to locked storage. Pistols must always be in the immediate control of the eligible employee in a Level 2 holster (or higher) or in locked storage, and the employee cannot leave his or her pistol unattended in or on his or her workstation or in a purse, bag, desk, filing cabinet, or other storage container left behind at the employee’s office [South Dakota Bureau of Human Resources, “Conceal Carry Policy,” retrieved 2019.07.09].
But there is no reason to allow state employees to carry firearms at work. We have law enforcement officers to provide security. There is no rash of shootings at state buildings, and even if there were, having more guns around doesn’t make us safer.
State employees, I urge you not to defile the Capitol, all state property, and your public trust by coming to work with guns in your purses and pants. Keep us safe: keep your guns at home.
Aside from other factors of incoherence in this policy, this line deserves s a special award: ” Nothing in this policy should be interpreted to require or encourage any employee who lawfully possesses a pistol to use it in defense of others.”
Good guys with guns was how we used to refer to the police, the socialists paid for with tax dollars to -protect us from bad guys with guns.
You’ve probably noticed the “get out of jail free card” is now ” I feared for my life mantra”. It’s used most commonly by the police, but also seems to work for the common man. Guess its good for everyone except the unarmed dead person.
Unbelievable, just unbelievable…….ammosexuals are taking over the state, just glad I got the hell out of Dodge, but feel bad for the people that don’t have the means to get out😟😢
Wow. The stupid gullibility of republicans is staggering, towards truely homicidal
Johnny Cash https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A74Wq0B1WrI
cibvet, it doesn’t work for POC at all. If a gun is involved, they’re gonna get it, one way or another, in the racist court system.
How many people in the workplace will mistake the lethal cell phone for a glock?
The police make that mistake regularly.
Can’t wait to read where a CPS supervisor lays down cover fire for a social worker
Ffs…A good guy with a gun doesn’t stop a bad guy with a gun. I don’t know what it would take for the realization to occur in SD and the country at large that less guns equals less gun deaths. There is no legitimate reason for state employees to conceal carry.
David, yes, that line is interesting. Can the BHR draw a line between allowing concealed carry and encouraging the use of firearms?
Since open carry is more clearly constitutional and legal than concealed carry, does the BHR also allow state employees to openly carry firearms at work? Can Governor Noem step out for her next big public bill signing with a gun on her hip?
Roger’s concern motivates my promise as your next Governor to ban guns in state workplaces. Having that gun there brings the potential for fatal mistakes that cannot happen if no one brings a gun to work.
Rather than wasting time on something as worthless as this, there are Really Important Issues Noem and the SDGOP need to address right now. This is probably #1:
“Think polarization and inequality are bad now?
“Buckle up: Axios’ Kim Hart writes that big cities are poised to get bigger, richer and more powerful — at the expense of the rest of America, a report out later today from McKinsey Global Institute will show.
Why it matters: Automation may end up adding more jobs than it destroys, but the McKinsey analysis of 315 cities and more than 3,000 counties shows that only the healthiest local economies will be able to adapt to the coming disruption.
“Wide swaths of the country, especially already-distressed rural regions, are in danger of shedding more jobs.”
http://bit.ly/2YQskrY
A CAFOs R Us economy isn’t going to do the trick. SD is staring down the barrel of an economy that’s going to blast what passes for an economy farther into the peasant past. Guns and CAFOs won’t help make an ugly picture pretty.