Gun-Toting Postal Service Workers Will Now Be Fired

Any postal employee who brings a gun to work will be fired, the post office’s governing board announced Tuesday.

Postal officials insist that workplace violence is really less common in their facilities than in businesses in general. Nonetheless, the Postal Service has been plagued by a series of highly publicized killings in the past few years, most recently on July 9, when a postal worker in the City of Industry pulled a gun from a paper bag and shot his boss in the head.

“Our society has changed so dramatically in the last 30 years that we have reached the point where disputes that formerly were settled by words are now resolved sadly and tragically with guns,” Sam Winters, chairman of the postal governing board, said at the time of the California shooting.

“Guns won’t be tolerated in postal installations. Any employee who violates this policy will immediately lose his or her job--no ifs, ands or buts,” Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon Jr. said Tuesday. He said the policy applies to all postal employees except police and inspectors.

“Employees everywhere--in every company--should come to work without having to worry if a co-worker is carrying a gun or storing a gun in a locker,” he said.