What do you call a law that forces employers to accept guns on their property, when doing so makes it impossible to provide a safe workplace under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)?

Ridiculous?

What do you call a law that could force guns onto the private property of a homeowner who doesn’t want them?

Outrageous?

In Oklahoma, they call it “unenforceable.�

Last Thursday, October 4, Judge Terence Kern of the Federal District Court in Tulsa, Oklahoma, issued a 93-page injunction [pdf document] that rejected the gun lobby’s fiercest effort yet to force guns into America’s workplaces. Notably, the court’s opinion cited the Brady Center report on this critical subject – Forced Entry: The National Rifle Association’s Campaign To Force Businesses To Accept Guns At Work – no fewer than five times.

Under the “forced entry� statutes that Judge Kern rejected (Okla. Stat. §§21-1289.7 and 1290.22(B)), someone who kept a gun in their car would have the right to take their weapon almost anywhere there was a parking lot – courthouses, mental health facilities, day care centers, and almost every private business. Even some homeowners in Oklahoma may not have been able to prevent a guest from driving onto their property with a firearm in his or her automobile. (See pp. 61-62 of the opinion [pdf document].)

Does that make sense to you? Should a guest be able to tell you what you can do on the property that you bought and paid for? Somehow it does to the NRA. Yet to most Americans [see table 8.2] with a more traditional understanding of private property, the Oklahoma law was completely irrational. That helps explain why the NRA’s attempts to pass similar laws have failed in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas and nine other states over the last two years.

As it happens, however, Judge Kern didn’t reject the Oklahoma “forced entry� law because it contradicted a basic understanding of private property. Instead, Judge Kern found it impossible for an Oklahoma employer to simultaneously follow the state’s bizarre “forced entry� gun law and fulfill its general duty under OSHA “to protect [ ] employees from recognized hazards that are likely to cause death or serious bodily injury.� The court rightly concluded that an employer’s general duty “extends to the hazard of gun-related workplace violence� and that such violence “is a ‘hazard’ that is likely to cause death or serious bodily injury to employees.�

The evidence is clearly on the court’s side. And it’s just common sense.

Due to the court’s decision, working families in Oklahoma can rest easier knowing that now business owners have control over their property again, and that they can punch their time-clocks without worrying about how many of their co-workers have a semi-automatic firearm out in the parking lot because the law said it was OK.

It’s not OK, and now they have the right to say so.

Some of us think to ourselves, “It can’t happen to me,� or, “It can’t happen here.� We think, “I’m a good person and I don’t hurt anybody. I live in a safe neighborhood. I couldn’t possibly be a gunshot victim, and neither could my family. It can’t happen to me.�

Except that it can. Just ask Lance Haver.

About a year ago, I attended an anti-gun violence rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that Lance was instrumental in organizing. A longtime advocate of common-sense gun laws, Lance is a man who has worked much of his life helping to make all Pennsylvanians safer by pushing for strong gun policy in his state. He is someone who labors tirelessly behind the scenes against gun violence.

What’s more, Lance happens to be the city of Philadelphia’s Director of Consumer Affairs, an advocate on behalf of regular people who otherwise lack the power or wherewithal to speak to government leaders. His wife, Lisa, is a teacher in the Philadelphia public schools. In many ways, they represent the typical American middle-class family. Yet they are atypical in their unparalleled dedication to public service.

And then, on September 22, their family life was shattered by a man who walked up to their adopted son, Daren Dieter, and shot him in the spine. The shooter left Daren in a parking lot in Philadelphia, paralyzed from the neck down. Daren happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, a young man simply trying to buy a late-night snack for himself and his date.

Now he’s permanently attached to a respirator.

It can’t happen to you?

America suffers over 10,000 gun murders and 17,000 gun suicides every year. Hundreds of thousands of regular Americans are victims of violent gun crime annually, and the country has now suffered the first two-year national violent crime increase in over a decade. Every day we see or hear or read about another senseless gun injury or death. We can no longer assume that it can’t happen to us. We can no longer shut our eyes and hope that other innocent people like Daren Dieter won’t be shot every single day. Condolences aren’t enough.

It is time for us to ask ourselves why we let this slaughter continue, and what we are going to do to stop it.

To begin, we can remember our traditional obligations to one another, and choose to be our brother’s and our sister’s keeper. We have to realize that when gun tragedy strikes one of the Daren Dieters of the world, it affects us all. And then we must come together to stop those who help put illegal guns into criminal hands in the first place: “Hear No Evil� gun manufacturers, “See No Evil� corrupt gun dealers, and “Speak No Evil� politicians in Washington who have been in the hold of the gun lobby for far too long.

Common-sense gun laws are favored by a vast majority of Americans and would do much to alleviate the real-life threat of illegal guns in this country. It is up to all of us to push to get those laws enacted, in spite of the gun lobby’s most strident efforts. This was Lance Haver’s fight long before his son was shot, and it’s even more his fight now.

It’s our fight, too.

Stay strong, Lance, and know that our prayers are with you.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

What are we going to do about guns in our schools?

Over the last week and a half, there have been numerous reports about school “lockdowns� after a gun threat was detected in the vicinity of a school. A simple search of the words “lockdown� and “school� at news.google.com shows the frightening regularity of these events.

It is chilling how real this threat continues to be nearly six months after the Virginia Tech Massacre – and just over one year since the Amish schoolgirl shootings at Nickel Mines, PA. America is once again experiencing a spate of school-related gun incidents, including assault and murder.

Recent events show that if we choose to do nothing, another tragedy like Virginia Tech could happen tomorrow. Condolences aren’t enough. We must act now to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.

One solution is the NICS Improvement Act (H.R. 2640) [pdf document], a common-sense bill designed to prevent dangerous individuals like the Virginia Tech shooter from legally buying guns. Supporters of this legislation include the Brady Campaign, strong gun law advocates in Congress like Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and Sen. Charles Schumer, and even the National Rifle Association. The bill has been stalled in the Senate by a single member, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

Every concerned American should contact their Senator to get their support to bring this bill to a full vote as soon as possible. Congress must pass strong legislation to ensure that the records of dangerous people who are already prohibited from buying guns actually get into the Brady background check system.

For your information, here are some of the most high-profile examples of school-related gun incidents over the last couple weeks:

• Tennessee State University, September 20th

Police were searching for three men who pulled a gun on a Tennessee State University student inside his dorm. The men walked into the dormitory, knocked on the student’s door, and when the student opened the door and saw that the men had a gun, he tried to close the door as a shot was fired into his room.

• Delaware State University, September 21st

Two students were shot on the campus of Delaware State University. The accused shooter was expelled for violation of the zero-tolerance policy for guns on campus. One of the victims remains in serious condition.

• St. John’s University, September 26th

A mentally ill student wearing a George Bush mask and carrying a .50 caliber rifle was arrested on St. John’s campus in New York. According to state and federal laws, because the rifle was considered a replica of an antique, he did not have to have a background check at the time of purchase. The NYPD test fired the rifle, and confirmed it was fully operational.

• Las Plumas High School (Oroville, CA), September 28

A 17 year old student in a California high school held 30 students at gunpoint with a .22 revolver. Shots were fired but no one was hit. After many hours, a standoff with police ended peacefully.

• University of Mississippi, September 29

Mississippi sprinter Rodney Lydale Lockhart died from one gunshot to the front of his head at his apartment near the Ole Miss campus. Lockhart was a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. 1,600-meter relay team in the 2006 World Junior Championships in Beijing. His death is being investigated as a homicide.

• Dean Middle School (Houston, TX), September 29

A 12-year-old girl allegedly brought a handgun to school and threatened to kill three teachers and a maintenance worker. No one was hurt, and it is unclear how police took her into custody. The student reportedly faces two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and could be charged as an adult.

• University of Memphis, September 30

A University of Memphis football player was shot and killed on the campus of the University of Memphis. University police said the preliminary investigation indicated that the player was targeted and not the victim of a random act of violence.

Clearly, we have a lot of work to do to end the threat of guns in schools. To help prevent another Virginia Tech, we need to keep asking our elected leaders, and each other, “What will you do to reduce gun violence in America?�

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

Now it’s official.

According to the FBI’s final crime statistics for 2006, violent crime is up for the second consecutive year, the first time that’s happened in over 10 years. Gun crime in particular is surging nationwide, with an 8% increase in gun robberies and an almost 3% increase in gun assaults.

The numbers are much worse in America’s small- and medium-sized cities, with gun robberies in cities of 25,000 to 50,000 people up twice the national rate at 16.2%, and in medium-sized cities (250,000 to 500,000 people) up a whopping 14.7%.

As the former mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana (a Midwestern city with just under 250,000 citizens where the number of violent crimes actually dropped between 2005-2006), and as a former president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, I know first-hand the challenges that cities and communities face when confronting the scourge of gun crime. Creating safer communities takes hard work, and success is no accident.

Neither is it any accident that weak gun policies at the Federal level have contributed to the current national violent crime trend: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), responsible for the enforcement [pdf document] of our nation’s gun laws, does not have the resources or effective tools it needs to stop the trafficking in illegal guns; there are gaps in the Brady background check law that allow prohibited purchasers – including the dangerously mentally ill and even suspected terrorists [pdf document] – to walk out of a gun store fully armed; and we have no Federal limits [pdf document] on how many dangerous weapons someone can buy at a time.

The President and Congress could do a great deal to help towns and cities across America in the fight to reduce gun crime and make their communities safer. In the short run, Congress can pass the NICS Improvement Act (H.R. 2640) [pdf document] – a common-sense bill designed to close the gap that allowed the Virginia Tech shooter to get his guns.

Supported by the Brady Campaign, strong gun law advocates like New York Sen. Charles Schumer and New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, and even the NRA, the bill is now stalled in the Senate by a single member, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Every concerned American should contact their Senator to get this bill to the floor for a full vote as soon as possible.

Another step Congress can take is to enact the Administration’s bill, sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Rep. Peter King of New York, to close the terrorist gap in gun store purchases. There are documented cases [pdf document] of suspected terrorists buying guns in gun stores, but Federal authorities can’t stop those sales under current law.

We shouldn’t wait until another tragedy strikes us when we can take steps to close this terrorist gap today. Congress should pass the Lautenberg/King bill (S. 1237/H.R. 2074), and make it harder for terrorists to get firearms.

These are actions that could be taken this Fall to make us all safer. There is still much more left for us to do. We need to keep asking our elected leaders, and each other, “What will you do to reduce gun violence in America?�