My boss is a fella from Tennessee. He’s all about college football and southern cooking. He carries a Sig P365SAS in his briefcase. I got him some 9mm for his birthday last month. He knows I like to shoot and am a gun guy. We get along.
He’s strolling through the office the other day and most of us are standing in the hallway outside our offices jawboning about nothing important. He says, “People, this thing in the Mideast has me worried. I know we’re not gonna see anything here in our little chunk of Montana but if you see someone weird out in the parking lot waving an AK, please notify someone.”
The next day, as I was getting him to sign some checks, he told me that he assumes I carry or have a gun at work (I do, but I don’t let anyone know…and I did not confirm or deny his assertion.) He said that he’s going to start carrying his pistol in his pocket rather than his briefcase because he “doesn’t like the way things are looking.”
And that’s, oddly, the sentiment that seems to be going around these days in my circles. Most people I know keep a pistol in the console of their vehicle. Maybe a bolt action rifle behind the seat. To a man, all of them have upgraded to something a little less Fudd and a lot more Dredd.
Oh, sure, this little quiet pocket of Montana isn’t exactly known for its Middle Eastern community, although being a college town you do get people from all over, but it is orders of magnitude unlikely that anything more dramatic than some graffiti on a synagogue (yeah, we have a couple) will occur.
Do I genuinely believe that some wanna-be jihadist will run through WalMart with an AK trying to buy himself some cred? I do not. Do I believe that some stupid hipster college kid who has spent too much time on Democratic Underground wiil throw a molotov cocktail at the local power transformers in the name of oppressed people somewhere? Eh…possibly, but unlikely. Do I believe that there will be the possibility of some homeless wastrel with a head full of bad wiring and a grudge might get belligerent when one of the girls in the office shoos him away from the garbage cans? Absolutely.
But whether its wanna-be jihadists with Ak’s or homeless crazy people with steak knives, there’s a definite vibe going on these days…and if my boss feels that his employees being discreetly armed is a good thing, who am I to judge?
Now, obviously there’s more to this than just wink-and-a-nod when the boss asks if I’m carrying a gun. As the president of the company it is a liability nightmare for him to condone, let alone encourage, employees to have Bring Your Gun To Work Day. But, he can publish something in the employee handbook clearly stating that we have an official ‘no weapons’ policy, and we can discreetly ignore it with tacit, unstated, unwritten approval. Dont ask, dont tell. Works for me.
Today he mentioned getting together with me, his 2nd in command, and my direct boss to form a ‘Security Committee’ to look at installing new locks and establishing protocols for evacuation and things like that. I like where his head is at. The trick will be to be helpful without tipping my hat too much about my sooper secret squirrel life as Commander Zero.
Your lucky. Thanks to the idiots who have been elected in Michigan we have 300 thousand middle easterners. Mostly from Iraq. Thanks to the Kenyan he was dumping them all over Michigan. Mostly in smaller towns. Like the one 18 miles south of me. He dumped 5000 of them there. I confirmed that with a family member that worked for the Dept of Human Services. This idiot Biden who in hell knows what that idiot will do next.
In the wake of all the church shootings (pre-pandemic), we formed a security committee for the church. Lots of discussion of passive defensive measures.
I tried to broach more active measures (to see where the conversation would go), like “how about we hang some ax handles discretely behind doors, so there’s at least *something* parishioners can grab & fight with?”. I hoped this would lead to discussion of concealed weapons – but it didn’t. I know there are number of gun guys in the congregation, and I see the ‘print’ of their gats, so I’m not the only one.
Took the pastor aside one day & asked what his thoughts were on concealed carry. He said if someone is carrying legally, it’s none of his business.
Say no more, say no more.
If you are taking applications for employment…….let me know.
Many company legal depts established a ‘no guns’ policy to lower their liability in the event of an employee blasting someone, rather justified or not. That way they can say it was ‘temporary employee misconduct, they violated company policy’ which is also the #1 way companies get out of an OSHA fines for safety violations.
In addition to concealed carry, I like the weapons that don’t look like weapons. Many toolboxes carry claw hammers, no one has ever noticed that my 28oz has the straight claws sharpened. Working for a utility, I was often in backyards at night. A ball peen in my back pocket backed off a lot of dogs, both four legged and two legged. In one of my tool bins a 4′ piece of 3/4” heavy wall steel pipe (with sticky side out tape) was kept handy.
Know what the #2 weapon, behind a knife, is most often used to fatally puncture someone? Screwdriver.
Blast someone in the face with an ABC fire extinguisher and see how long it takes them to recover.
Using a common tool instead of a gun or a knife, if you can, will go a long way to stay out of civil and criminal court cases. “…jeepers your honor, I was so scared for my life I just grabbed the first thing I could to protect myself from that maniac!…”
Keep them all handy and be ready.
And if you carry a baseball bat in your car, keep a ball glove in there too. Your lawyer will thank you.
Little quiet pocket of Montana. This phrase should be framed up in a wall art display, to denote a different time and a different place long since past. (Rockwell paintings of old America) Once the citizenry, or more likely, the deep state election rigging machinery installed a gender confused Trans person into a political office in your A.O. it is indicative of being behind enemy lines. (All of u.s. areas are now essentially contested battlegrounds for power and control) Contending with your own workplace safety scenarios and contingencies only to be stifled by corporate policies or lax attitudes will cause a serious person to just go rogue and off the reservation on their own regarding personal security. Needing that job’s income or benefits is understood, but just like the police Officer Friendly locked into his defensive, go home at the end of shift at all costs mentality, we plebes must look out for ourselves. Just skim through that employee handbook, and layer up yourself defensively as you see fit and can get away with. I would not consider it peculiar at all if a resourceful employee prepositioned a spare rifle, handgun, go bag etc in a secret location at or near his work area. Employee of the month qualities, actually. It is really just a job, it should be a background data point that you may have to quit, get fired, change careers, move elsewhere due to workplace safety shortcomings and your own thresholds.
Stay Frosty, even while on the job……
“It is really just a job, it should be a background data point that you may have to quit, get fired, change careers, move elsewhere due to workplace safety shortcomings and your own thresholds.”
Wise words.
My company has the same policy, don’t ask don’t tell. The one boss was happy that I carry in case someone tries to rob the place – I told them “Why? I’m going to get the handcart and help them load whatever they want into their stolen car.”
Me carrying a firearm isn’t to protect their property, it’s to protect my life and the lives of others – period.
The real hard part it keeping your knowledge of your level of preparedness and your blog hidden from people you work with. I keep my knowledge to basic “I like to go camping. . .”
I went to my local gun range this weekend which is near Detroit/Dearborn and was surprised to see the clerk behind the rental counter in hard plates with a hot AR on the counter behind him. With everything we have seen over the past couple of decades, this was the first time I have seen them prepped to that extent. When I asked, he said that the past several days have been really weird– they normally sell 5.56 and 7.62×39 in roughly equal amounts. This past week they have been selling a ton of 5.56 as everybody has ramped up, but they aren’t selling any 7.62×39 and have not seen their normal mid-Eastern clients. The local police have publicly warned churches and schools to be more vigilant, but Dearborn has actually been quieter than normal, other than one hot head that posted on social media that he was going to go hunting Palestines in Dearborn. He was promptly arrested with a $50k full cash bail. A lot of worried people, but everybody is staying quiet thus far.
idk, sounds like boss may be another sooper secret commander zero.
We all should be carrying, and training. An armed society………..
The trick will be to be helpful without tipping my hat too much about my sooper secret squirrel life
— yeah, this. It’s easier to give a new convert or newly awakened person some links and online resources than to walk them thru everything in person, but if the good resources would ‘out’ you to someone who knows you….
Sometimes it’s really hard to maintain that opsec.
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Or the boss is reading this now!!! hmm!! I wonder? Is he, or isn’t he? That is the question!
Snort! Why should today be different? Love my P365SAS. Even fires accurately while spewing built up sock lint. Tested myself because sock lint is reality.
“The trick will be to be helpful without tipping my hat too much about my sooper secret squirrel life as Commander Zero.”
You still believe there are many people with in ten miles of you who don’t know?
I thought I saw a terrorist on Montana 35 one day.
Turned out to be roadkill
So the same thing then?
An understandable mistake…
Uvalde, Texas was sleepy country community of 15,000 (small town by Texas standards of course) until it wasn’t. Sutherland Springs Church Texas shooting was in a community of about 600. Unless walking on the south side of Chicago on any given day, we just don’t know when it might happen. Kudos to your boss for being proactive.
I spent my career working in a “gun free zone”, a major medical center. If I carried at work and was caught, I’d have been fired on the spot, escorted off campus, and told never to return. I told my co-workers that I had a very bad attitude about that. I said that if I ever heard “pop-pop-pop” down the hallway, do not look to me for help, that I was GONE. I would vanish faster than a cartoon character without even the puff of smoke to show for it.
I knew people who carried anyway at work, accepting the risk. One nurse showed me the discreet thigh holster she had, saying that she’d been raped, and it would never happen again.
Now, we’ve retired to an isolated little town way out in flyover country. Open carry is common here, concealed even more so. One of our church deacons does his Sundays outside the church as a security watch, with a bluetooth headset to listen to the services.
Yeah. I’ve spend more than 45 years working in emergency departments – in big cities, in small towns, a few essential access places out in the middle of nowhere,USA….
In the big city tertiary trauma center/medical school I have been stabbed (with a knife) twice, shot once, shot at twice more….
Being in California, carrying is not just a firing offense, it’s a felony conviction. Everywhere else, I carried. Not going to get shot again, it hurts!
in my little spot in MS. every old man and women on the bench in walmart has one, always have, and they don’t take crap from anyone. it’s just the way they were raised. they are nicest people you have ever, ever met, but DON”T piss them off. they will shoot the sh*t out of you, and you may not be the first one. they just don’t play.
and the law is always on the side of the old folks here. someone had it coming in their books.
I started carrying at work-a small-town hardware where there’s a very low expectation of crime-just to get accustomed to carrying.Ownership is aware and has no problem with it.My coworkers are aware,as are a few customers.No negative reactions at all.
If anyone at work is aware you carry, you are doing it wrong. Open carry around the public is really bad news. Lots of videos showing customers grabbing an open carry handgun. It also causes everyone around you to develop the mindset that YOU are the problem solver when things go sideways. You REALLY don’t want that to complicate an already lethal situation that is developing at work or another location, where someone recognizes you as an armed person and DEMANDS that you step up and fix the problem RIGHT NOW!
Make it real clear to anyone you spend time with, that knows you carry, that they are NEVER to announce that in any public area EVER! You have no idea how stupid people can be about this sort of thing, and people have died as a direct result of this sort of idiocy. This is one of the main reasons to heavily restrict the fact that you carry to an absolute minimum of people in the know. If they don’t NEED to know, they don’t need to know. Period.
My church recently had a Men’s Retreat, it’s an annual event. We are in East Tennessee and our pastor encourages those that will, to carry in church. Anyway, we had a guest speaker who in trying to make a joke talked about the last venue where he’s spoken being in a blue state in a not so nice part of town and he was a little worried but that here, with 400 in attendance he figured at least 40 of us were armed. I figured more like 100, and the pastor later joked it was more like 300. We believe in Luke 22:36. We have several retired and active law enforcement who attend and nearly all carry.