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12-11-2004, 05:13 AM
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Gun owners claim right to take their rifles to work
Gun owners claim right to take their rifles to work
Gun-toting, tough-talking, and anti-establishment to his muddy boot straps, Larry Mullens is an Oklahoman "good ole boy" personified. He is also fast becoming a classic American folk hero as he takes centre stage in a revolt of gun owners that is reverberating in boardrooms across the United States. The son of one of the last of the old-style Wild West ranchers, he first fired a gun as a boy. Now he carries his trusty Winchester in his pick-up on his way to work at a sawmill in case he comes across a coyote, a wild dog or even a wolf attacking his small herd of steers. Last year he lost five calves to wild dogs. So it was perhaps not surprising that he was enraged when his previous employer fired him for breaking company security rules that banned guns from the company car park after they found a .38 pistol stashed behind the seat of his pick-up. No one could have predicted that two years later he and his backers would claim an extraordinary revenge - a law allowing employees to keep guns in locked cars on company property. Just two days after a gunman jumped on to a stage in Columbus, Ohio, and shot dead a heavy metal guitarist and three others before himself being shot dead, it might seem surprising to hear that elsewhere a state is extending gun owners' rights. But in Oklahoma, as across much of rural America, gun control is seen as the work of naive and meddling minds. "Having a gun is no different from having a hammer. It is just a tool," said Jerry Ellis, a Democratic representative in the state legislature who drafted and pushed through the law. "Here, gun control is when you hit what you shoot at." The passage of the law resounded like one of Larry Mullens's Winchester rifle shots through the boardrooms of America. In recent years companies have been implementing anti-gun policies in an attempt to cut down on violence at the work place. Now they fear the Oklahoman ruling will encourage the powerful gun lobby all over America to try to roll back the reforms.
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