Saturday, July 12, 2008

DISNEY PACKS HEAT



Walt Disney World in Florida has shot down a proposal to have their employees bring handguns in their car. The National Rifle Association in Florida has passed a law in that state allowing people to take guns and secure them in their cars. The Magic Kingdom has fired a security guard, Edwin Sotomayor, for bringing a gun to work and leaving it in his car to protest the zero tolerance policy that Disney has mandated for its employees.

I think the CEOs of Disney are well within their rights to ban guns from theme park and administrative properties. Guns are a huge insurance liability and a potential source of immense tragedy. The nightmare scenario is of an employee who forgets to lock the car or of a car that is jacked and used to commit a crime either on the employer's property or at another location. Too, one never knows when an employee will go "postal" and seek to harm tourists or fellow employees. Businesses, especially in the entertainment industry, need to protect their clients and their workers. A ban on guns brought to work and left in a parked car is a sensible response for workplace safety.

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