The driver possesses a valid handgun permit. Pizza Hut has a policy that no one is allowed to carry a weapon. I understand why they would make such a rule. There are people who shouldn’t have a gun, even if they are legally allowed to, because they might not be mature enough or responsible enough. But in this case the driver did possess a permit. To me that is an indication that he might be responsible enough to carry. I’m not a fan of zero-tolerance, which is IMO a way of making rules for the least common denominator.
Pizza Hut are perfectly within their rights for their policy and suspending the driver. It’s their company and they can do what they want. That’s not what this thread is about. So leaving the rights of the company aside:
[ul][li]Should a person who is likely to be put into a dangerous situation (and delivery drivers are at risk of meeting people who would rob and/or kill them, as this apparent set-up indicates), who is legally allowed to carry a weapon (i.e., they are properly licensed), be allowed to carry one?[/li][*]If a person who would carry a weapon if not for the company policy is killed or injured because the policy has deprived him of a means of defense, does the company bear any responsibility for his death or injury?[/ul]
No. It’s clear that you’re being asked to undertake a risk – deliever pizzas unarmed. No one is foricng you to do this. You don’t want to do it? Don’t accept the job.
I could almost side with this had this country not thrown that argument out the windows at almost every other opportunity.
I mean, we don’t allow unsafe working conditions at coal mines or elsewhere with the above argument.
It only seems like with the new debate on employee with gun in car laws (like the one being debated in Florida) have some people suddenly revitalized their libertarian streak when it comes to business owners’ property rights…
Or, even worse from a cold financial standpoint, injured. Or sued by the robber (or his estate) or someone injured in the crossfire. Yeah, I can see why Pizza Hut would want its employees to just roll over for a robbery.
When I was in high school, I worked at a dominos as a driver and then a dayshift manager. one night one of my drivers came in with a very illegal .22 pistol with a suppressor. We set up a bunch of napkin bundles in the room behind the office and shot the hell out of them. When the store manager found out she just shook her head.
Come to think of it, a few weeks later a guy tried to rob one of our drivers(an ex marine) and he beat the hell out of the guy. When he told me about it when he came back I asked him why he didn’t call the police. He said “well…he kinda wasn’t breathing when I left him”
No, the reason that Pizza Hut (and in fact, virtually any major food service chain) does not want drivers or other employees to carry firearms is strictly due to liability, regardless of whether it makes the employee safer or not. Should an employee draw and fire the weapon, not only could he but his employer could be held financially accountable for the consequences. This is true of the employee displays or uses the weapon inappropriately or if a bystander is injured. Hell, even if the shooting is completely lawful the perpetrator can still return with a civil suit against all parties involved; even if the suit is strictly a nuisance, it is costly for the company which probably can’t recover any financial damages from the perpetrator who initiated the robbery to begin with.
As for the driver–it’s well known that delivery drivers rarely carry more than $20 in change, and some places have gone to pay over the phone/Internet before delivery so the driver carries nothing. That means that no experienced robber is going to mess with this; that mostly leaves thrill seeking high school punks and tweakers with “Born To Lose” tattooed across their foreheads. Not that these people can’t be dangerous, but generally if you throw the cash at them they zip off, which is generally a lot less costly in the long run that being involved in a shooting. Of course, there is also the rare but dangerous sociopath who actually enjoys hurting people, regardless of the cash, and deliverymen are often out in strange neighborhoods at odd hours.
Pizza Hut is between a rock and a hard place. Letting the incident go conflicts with the Company’s stated policy which is theoretically to the employee’s benefit. On the other hand, people sitting around a board room are not the one’s with a gun in their face. They cannot make the life or death decision the employee made. By firing a folk hero the company will take a financial hit.
I deliver prescription medications, including controlled substances, to nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Some of those facilities are in high crime areas. I have a CCW permit and I carry a gun; I wouldn’t leave home without it. I’m an independent contractor and not an employee so maybe that gives me an edge in any weapons carrying dispute.
[ul][li]Should a person who is likely to be put into a dangerous situation (and delivery drivers are at risk of meeting people who would rob and/or kill them, as this apparent set-up indicates), who is legally allowed to carry a weapon (i.e., they are properly licensed), be allowed to carry one?[/li][/quote]
Hells yes. Even though I don’t personally like guns, I support the right to bear arms. I delivered pizza as a teenager and when I moved out of my parents’ house to “the big city” the one thing my mom asked is that I never deliver pizza again. It’s a dangerous job. I found myself in some very creepy situations in a small, “safe” town.
[quote=Johnny L.A.]
[li]If a person who would carry a weapon if not for the company policy is killed or injured because the policy has deprived him of a means of defense, does the company bear any responsibility for his death or injury?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
No. If you want to carry a gun while delivering pizza and your company doesn’t allow it, then don’t work for that company. There are plenty of independent pizza parlors out there that either don’t care or forgot to put it in their rules.
If you opt to defy the rules of the company you work for, you forfeit your right to your job. If you feel as though you have a grievance, you can petition for redress after the fact. If you feel as though the policy is unjust, you can work for somebody else.
Everything has consequences. In all seriousness, were it me I would probably carry a weapon in defiance of the policy, with the full knowledge that it could cost me my job. Better I lose my lob than I lose my life. But at no point would I ever try to convince myself that I could defy rules with impunity. It doesn’t work that way.
Pizza delivery people often enter homes, or at least personal spaces. They are also often young men. If I knew employees at a certain pizza company routinely carried guns, I would likely not order from that company because I’m uncomfortable with a young armed man entering my home.
Should a person who is likely to be put into a dangerous situation (and delivery drivers are at risk of meeting people who would rob and/or kill them, as this apparent set-up indicates), who is legally allowed to carry a weapon (i.e., they are properly licensed), be allowed to carry one?
[/QUOTE]
I personally think it depends on if they are using a company vehicle, or their own. On the one hand they are on “company property” as it were, and the company has a right to demand they not carry. On the other hand (which is, I think, the usual situation with pizza delivery here) they are using their own property as a de facto subcontractor to the company, in which case, should they choose, they should not be deprived of their ability to defend said property. I personally would rather be robbed and let insurance cover the losses, but if someone wants to get into a gunfight over their car or tips, it’s their prerogative.
[/ul]
Nope - they knew the drill when they signed up. Plus there’s a slight case of assuming the antecedent in that statement.
Nobody is forced to work in a coal mine, but we have thousands of regulations regarding mine safety. We don’t just let a company put their employees in a dangerous position (like pizza hut putting their drivers in bad neighborhoods unprotected) and say, “You knew the risks when you took the job, so too bad that your husband and 15 of his friends are dead.”
My point is that in every other avenue, it seems that we pass laws curtailing the freedom of a business to the safety of the worker, but when it comes to an employee carrying a gun for protection, all of a sudden a business’ property rights come back with arguments that haven’t been used since before the New Deal in the 1930s…
Fascinating thread…what I found chilling about this, was the (implicit) understantding that somebody doing an honest job (delivering food) has to expect being robbed and assaulted! We have all kinds of laws to protect criminals-and nobody seems to think that it is OUR rights that are being abridged.
No, we have an argument as to whether someone doing a service job even has the right to protect hiself. Personally, if criminals who assault and rob dliverymen were subjected to harsh punishment, we would be a lot safer. It is this constant concern with the “rights” of criminals that has gotten us to this state. The criminals have made the equation-they have determined that killing a deliverman over $20-50 is worth the danger. Heck, their court-appointed lawyers will argue that they were just doing because of the bad circumstrances of their lives.
They’re not de facto subcontractors, even if they use their own cars. They are emploees and as such are subject to the rules of the company. Even if they were reclassified as subcontractors, the company could set a rule that even as subcontractors, they would not be able to carry guns.
Is this generally true? I can’t remember the last time a pizza delivery person left my house with less than $20 in their hand, and that’s just between my front door and their car. I assume they make several deliveries each time out.