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Sounds like a reasonable restriction to me. Private hospital says no guns on our property. The guard does not have to work for the hospital. Im sure there are plenty of other places to work that would allow firearms.

Nobody is saying that the guard has to work for the hospital, although it may be he has to choose between working for them and not being able to pay the rent and buy food. We're just saying it is stupid of the administrators to hire someone for security of the building, employees, and patients and then not allow them the tools they need to carry out that task and protect their life in the process. Do you think the hospital would compensate the guard's family if he got stabbed to death because he followed the hospital's rule and didn't have a gun?

Personally, I think these problems could be avoided if the hospital looked outside its population of mental patients when hiring administrators.

flb_78 wrote:Sounds like a reasonable restriction to me. Private hospital says no guns on our property. The guard does not have to work for the hospital. Im sure there are plenty of other places to work that would allow firearms.

Wow, that was pretty funny. Feel free to add something useful or informative to the discussion anytime you please.

It's not a private hospital. You might have read the article more carefully. From the quote below, we can see that the facility is run by the state.

The guard’s private security company is supposed to keep its employees from carrying weapons on the Zambarano campus, said Laurie Petrone, a spokeswoman for the facility’s overseer, the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation & Hospitals.

But whether private or state, they can have whatever policy they want as applied to employees. Employers in RI are free to have no guns policies, and to terminate or otherwise punish employees who violate the policies at their total discretion. But it is not a criminal offense to violate a no guns policy. Unlike TX, there is nothing like 30.06. It's just between the employer and the employee. I'm sure that trespass laws would come into play if someone was asked to leave and refused, but this would apply whether a firearm was invoilved or not.

Strangely enough, in one way the gun laws there are better than here in TX in that a carry permit is good "everywhere in the state". There are no places that are off limits except for courthouses and a few state office buildings, including the State House. And those places have lockers where people with pistol permits can check their guns when entering and pick them up when leaving.

Now as to this state hospital, you are certainly free to hold the opinion that their policy is reasonable or not.

I am simply expressing my opinion that the policy is hypocritical (in a big way), lacks empathy, is misguided, and ignores the reality of what the guards are expected to expose themselves to - that is, the range of possible threats.

I also believe that the policy demonstrates very poor judgement on the part of the administrators that represents poor value for their fat salaries and super generous benefit packages. (They are employees of the State of RI. Trust me when I tell you that their pay and bennie package is off the charts.)

And finally, it is clear to me that their emphatic statement and restatement of their policy represents a veritable invitation to unstable lunatics who may ponder perpetrating a mass shooting. They are telling them in no uncertain terms that they will have several minutes to blaze away at guaranteed helpless victims before the cops arrive.

Frankie,

If the whole campus is a mental institution, I think you are overreacting in this case. It is fairly normal to see a no guns policy on the campus of a mental institution (say the Texas State School systems) such as this. One of the very realistic reasons for this is that there are known mentally ill people in the vicinity.

Yes, they do segregate the very unstable as they detect them, but that is the real trick. Mentally ill people can appear normal and responding to treatment, then flip out for some unknown reason. I saw this happen when I was a young rookie. I was assigned to Walter Reed as an MP. They have an annex base, Forest Glen, in Maryland that is all of the mental wards. One of the patients was improving and allowed visitors. He was in the dayroom with his wife when he suddenly turned and yelled at her how she did not like him and her family did not like him, so he was going to kill himself by jumping out the window. It took two MP's plus 4 ward techs to wrestle him down (his belt caught on the window frame when he dived head first through it) and strap him to a gurney. As they were wheeling him back in, he calmed down and told the doctor that they would never know when he was cured. He would just act normal until they let him out and then he would kill himself. That struck me then as a pretty profound observation of mental health and it still does.

As for the no guns in prisons, I think you are wrong. I don't know about the new prison, but there were no guns allowed inside the walls of the old USDB at Ft. Leavenworth. You checked the firearms in and out from the arms room in the barracks across the street and waited at the gates for the prisoner you needed to be brought up. The tower guards could not even bring the guns down out of the towers, but lowered them by rope outside the walls if they needed to be replaced for some reason. A flat out rule of no guns, period.

To me, the bigger question is why the guard was armed in the first place. The contract was bid and let with a no guns clause. That seems like adequate notice to me. I guess it also answers BPet's question. If they truly did make sure the company knew in advance like the article says, there will be no shortage of comapnies to bid on the contract and no shortage of employees willing to work it.

srothstein wrote:Frankie,

If the whole campus is a mental institution, I think you are overreacting in this case. It is fairly normal to see a no guns policy on the campus of a mental institution (say the Texas State School systems) such as this. One of the very realistic reasons for this is that there are known mentally ill people in the vicinity.

The incident in question seems to have happened at the Zambarano Unit of the Eleanor Slater Hospital. They do take:

Geriatric patients with chronic medical and psychiatric conditions who are unable to be cared for in the community
Adults with complex behavioral and rehabilitative needs requiring adaptive equipment to maximize quality of life

As far as I can tell it is not a dedicated mental hospital; I think why Frankie mentioned that is because it is run by the RI Department of Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals. The description seems to be of a long-term care and rehabilitation facility--it is basically a nursing home. That type of facility needs to have the capability to deal with patients with concomitant mental illness because they develop medical problems as much as anyone else.

bpet wrote:Hmmmm! Wonder how many volunteers the security company will have to work at that hospital.

Unfortunately, there's always somebody willing to take barely over minimum wage to work a dangerous site unarmed. Hence, those of us at not-very-dangerous sites have no bargaining power whatsoever. (Given the nature of my post, I'm probably safer from VCAs at work, unarmed, than waiting for my food at Sonic with two handguns in easy reach.)

The companies consider the guards expendable; policy is that you don't carry any cell phones or radios unless approved by the client, and they don't push the client to approve or issue anything. It's not uncommon for a guard walking rounds to have no way to call for help - for that matter, since they expect barely-over-minimum-wage guards to provide their own batteries, even using the company-issued flashlight (3-D Mag, tungsten bulb with accompanying battery life - sympathetic clients occasionally issue LED models, but most of us carry personal lights and leave that thing at the desk.) to observe your surroundings properly is effectively discouraged.

frankie_the_yankee wrote:So let me get this straight. A security guard confronts and runs off a knife-wielding intruder, and the hospital's main concern is that the guard was carrying a gun?

Sounds like "reasonable restrictions" at work.

tarkus wrote:

frankie_the_yankee wrote:So let me get this straight. A security guard confronts and runs off a knife-wielding intruder, and the hospital's main concern is that the guard was carrying a gun?

Sounds like "reasonable restrictions" at work.

Oh please.

If you want to debate reasonable restrictions, start another thread. Then, insteading of simply ranting on the absolutist position, cite some actual legal arguments as to why that is the best model. And while you're at it, explain why none of the Heller briefs argue for the absolutist position.

Finally, you can explain how an absolutist regime would deal with the worst case scenarios that would predictably result from an absolutist position.

Whatever.

It still sounds like "reasonable restrictions" at work.

There used to be a security guard that used to hang around here, and the way he explained it, was that in Texas if a security guard (even if he had a CHL) was caught with a handgun on duty and he wasn't certified, he would be in a boatload of trouble.
A licensed Security guard in Texas can not carry a concealed weapon on duty.

tarkus wrote:Whatever.

It still sounds like "reasonable restrictions" at work.

+1

srothstein wrote:Frankie,

If the whole campus is a mental institution, I think you are overreacting in this case. It is fairly normal to see a no guns policy on the campus of a mental institution (say the Texas State School systems) such as this. One of the very realistic reasons for this is that there are known mentally ill people in the vicinity.

Yup, pretty simple.

To me, the bigger question is why the guard was armed in the first place. The contract was bid and let with a no guns clause. That seems like adequate notice to me. I guess it also answers BPet's question

Nothing hard to understand about this either.

Liberty wrote:A licensed Security guard in Texas can not carry a concealed weapon on duty.

Perhaps, but this story happened in Rhode Island, not Texas.

Liberty wrote:There used to be a security guard that used to hang around here, and the way he explained it, was that in Texas if a security guard (even if he had a CHL) was caught with a handgun on duty and he wasn't certified, he would be in a boatload of trouble.
A licensed Security guard in Texas can not carry a concealed weapon on duty.

That is only correct if he or she does not carry a commision. Commisioned security officers carry weapons. Non commisioned do not. This is true regardless of whether or not they have a CHL. CHL holders employed as non commisioned security officers cannot legally carry while on duty.

asleepatthereel wrote:

Liberty wrote:There used to be a security guard that used to hang around here, and the way he explained it, was that in Texas if a security guard (even if he had a CHL) was caught with a handgun on duty and he wasn't certified, he would be in a boatload of trouble.
A licensed Security guard in Texas can not carry a concealed weapon on duty.

That is only correct if he or she does not carry a commision. Commisioned security officers carry weapons. Non commisioned do not. This is true regardless of whether or not they have a CHL. CHL holders employed as non commisioned security officers cannot legally carry while on duty.

Just saw the 'concealed' part of that statement. As far as I know, it is correct that regardless of commision status, concealed carry is a no-no.