Around work I am known as the gun guy.  If anyone has any questions about arms in general I can usually get the correct answer to them.  I've gotten some good natured kidding of the fact that I own more guns than the rest of our group combine etc and it all seemed in good fun.  I had a little cartridge collection setup on my computer (about 15 shells of various calibers, all fired) and my manager came by and said "you might want to take those down, there have been comments made"  Well around here "there have been comments made" seems to translate into "you are not mentally stable" So I took my little collection down (good paying job, don't want to loose it)
So it seems that I will no longer mention firearms in the workplace.  Question for all out there, do you talk about guns at work (assuming it's a non-firearms related job)and have there ever been any consiquences about just common conversation?

yeah all the time. hell i even go on ar15.com course school is my work so no one cared at college

My experience with talking about guns in the workplace (I work as a contract lawyer at a major US corporation) is that there's no halfway.  Either people are fellow gun people, who love to hear others talk freely of their interest in guns, or else they think you're a total whacko gun-nut.

The most hilarious consequence comes from the fact that my father works for the same company and in the same office building.  My father is basically anti-gun, and is very unhappy that I've taken to shooting as a pasttime.  He's even unhappier that the gentleman in the next office is a big gun guy (hand reloader, etc.) and the two of us frequently talk guns.  

Whatever, I say...

Nobody but you knows what it's like to be in your shoes.  If it was my boss, I'd be P.O.'d but I'd probably do just what he suggested and take down the screen saver.  I would not change any other behavior.  If you're talking about guns with your co-workers, they're talking about guns too.

I have to keep it kind of discreet where I work.  Lots of very PC people, but also a surprising number of ex-military, former LEOs, people from free states, etc. as well.  I just don't broadcast my gun discussions over the PA system.

Work isn't a public place, and they can regulate your speech there.  Is your boss's polite informal suggestion worth getting into a war over, when you have a good job in the balance?

No problem where I work, of course half+ of us are shooters and the others don't mind so they must be somewhat gun friendly. I wear my "I'm The NRA" pin at the bottom of my security badge. I've only had one negative comment on it and all the others very positive. I also have firearms pictures in my cube and The American Rifleman on my little conference table. I work for the government as a contractor at one of the national DOE labs, I don't know if that makes a difference or not. Didn't seem to affect me getting my security clearance either.

I remember my security interview, and the investigator, a lady, asked me if there was anything they should know about that was not in the paperwork. I said "Well, I collect guns!" No problem, she says, my brother is an FFL.

i talk guns at work all the time and noone seems to be against it. in fact there are some other gun guys there. one guy that i work with has an h&k SL8 rifle but he's collecting it and hasn't fired it once in the 3 months that he's had it. which is why he want me to help him find a low cost AR15. which leads to a thread that im about to post here in a minute.

I sit in the office and read my gun magazines at lunch. This is the time I find to catch up on such things. I also do any work I want to my guns after hours at my job.

I have both bullets and targets up at my desk.

I have never had anyone ask me to take them down. I can't think of anyone ever being intimidated by my being a gun guy. When they get over the 6'2" 240lb monster manhandling the loaded file cabinets... and find out I don't bite.... they are totally unconcerned with my targets. If I do get the impression that firearms make me dangerous, I am not afraid to let them know I AM insulted. This brings down the wrath of little old ladies that I take care of. Department admins start defending me
I trade recipes with them. I taught one how to make fudge last year
Bottom line is firearms are my hobby, they are not "who" I am.

I would be insulted and make noise about this!
Unless,, you are reclusive and sport tinfoil at work... then I'd have to keep cool.

The place I work is pretty anti-gun, but I have an out of the way office and it seems that nobody really cares what I'm doing down there.  They don't even care if I do my work or not, because they don't want to be bothered to walk all the way over there to check on me (which is NICE!!!!!!).


-SS

Not only do I talk about them, but I work in an automotive shop and I take my guns in sometimes and work on them. Putting in new triggers, barrels, etc. Show off the latest optics and gadgets. That kind of thing. During the slow times I take in brass to deburr and champher and clean primer pockets. I'd set up my reloading press but it's just too much stuff to take in. One day a customer (a bay area transplant) saw me with one of my ARs and went into the front office saying there was some guy with a machine gun in the shop. They just told him, "yeah, that would be Rob, he does that all the time", and went back to work. We all got a good laugh out of that. Obviously I work in one of those parts of Cali where the gun culture is still alive and a accepted part of life.

well im in the air force so they really dont care much.  i take my ar's in to show the latest configuration to them.  the AF is now known for its gun skills either.  im regarded as a gun wacco by my fellow workers.  they dont understand why a guy needs 7 ar's.  i do work with tree huggin Alaskan civilians though.  2 of them have threatened to take a cutting tortch to my "instruments of death"  i laugh at him and take my ar over to the boss!

My pop is a middle school teacher as well as a FFL. He talks about guns all the time and just sold a 9mm to the associate principal. When I work in the summer for the city, I'm the gun guy at the PD and the garage.

Even in the most antigun companies, in the most antigun areas, you'll find people.  People are comprised of three primary groups:

First, those who like guns.  This is actually a misnomer - those who are familiar with guns is perhaps a better turn of phrase.  It's hard to find antis who are truly familiar with firearms.  These gun-savvy folks are your secret fraternity and can help you to advance within the company.  Plus you can go shooting with 'em occasionally.  

Then there are those who don't like guns and don't want to, ever, for any reason.  For the most part, treat them as normal people despite their ignorance.  You won't change their mind and you can do without the conflict at work.  But it might be interesting to see whether they think it is necessary to have someone else who CAN shoot standing at the ramparts on their behalf.  And perhaps to elicit a reason why they think a shooter should risk his or her life for an antigunner.

Finally, there are those who don't know much at all about guns but might be interested in going shooting once for a lark just to see what it's all about.  These are tomorrow's shooters if you do your part.  I suggest big, bright, easy to see and hit, reactive targets for their first outing - say a box of stationary clay pigeons at 25 yards.

Media reports imply that there is apparently also a fourth group - real antigunners who can successfully argue their point and perhaps even sway undecideds with their arguments.  But I've never met one except in force magnifiers like media forums, which shows how nearly extinct these critters actually are.  Their scarcity should not dissuade you from rigorous preparation in case you should have the opportunity to debate one.

At my job, it was a major a no-go until recently.  I work mostly with former LEO's, and they are rabid anti-gun.  I think it has something to do with "sour-grapes," since many of them can't legally own firearms any longer and all can no longer carry.  I put-up with the bubba-Bill Clinton worship worship for years, and I was getting tired of it.  Most of the guys had no clue that the Democrats their fathers supported are not the same people running the party and writing the platforms now.  Well, the atmosphere was so bad, about half of the guys didn't come into work one day to protest the "carcasses" the owner had in his office.  He head a stuffed trout and mouse antlers on his wall.

Since then, I let the secretary borrow my Marlin Model 60 after spending about an hour with her going over safety rules.  She controls the schedule of who works when and what jobs they do.  In other words, she is not someone you want to make mad unless you want to end-up scheduled to do the worst jobs or scheduled to not work at all.  She brought my Marlin back with an empty box of ammo.  She shot 550 rounds by herself one afternoon!  She like it, and has since bought herself a Winchester Model 190(?).  Since then, most of the guys still run their mouths, but they do it much more quietly now to keep from incurring her wrath.  It's great now.  I no longer have to listen to Bill Clinton and HCI worship stories in the breakroom.  So, if you work with some anti-gunners, take some of your other coworkers shooting to bring them over to our side.z

Quoted: He head a stuffed trout and mouse antlers on his wall.

Really? MOUSE ANTLERS? LOL! Was that all that was left of it after he shot it?

There are a few of us at work who talk guns and stuff. My former supervisor would cut the gun store ads out of the Thursday newspaper and staple them together and leave them on his desk and we would all check out what's on sale this week. NRA stickers were on the door and on the office window. Wouldn't you know it, somebody complained. The manager, who was my former supervisor's boss, asked that the NRA stickers be taken down and that we be more "discreet" about leaving gun ads lying around. Something in the company rules about not posting "political" things in the work area and reading magazines on company time. The gun ads and magazines were then kept in the top drawer instead of laying out on a desk. It wasn't that big a deal i.e. it didn't really cramp our style all that much, and I started wearing my NRA hat alot more after that. The manager didn't care, he was just covering his ass, and he said "nice hat" one day. Most of the other gun guys, the ones who I used to go shooting with, have transferred to other divisions but there are still a few of us gun guys left.

I work with cops, and they are mostly major gun owners. Heck, if anything, I have to dial down gun-related chatter and blow off people's questions if I ever want to get any work done.

If you act like a nut, you will be treated like one.
If you respond to questions/comments calmly, respectfuly, and, above all, BRIEFLY, you will gain respect and be listened to longer.
If you 'go after' others for their beliefs, you will be seen as unstable & even dangerous.  We automatically label those who disagree with us as 'wrong' or 'ignorant'. Even if they are, try not to tell them so.
As for lining up a cartidge collection on your desk, remove it if it offends someone.  It's not always about YOU and it's rude to offend your co-workers, even if they are wrong.  The workplace is SHARED, not a personal haven for any individual.  If your world cannot continue because you cannot look at your cartidges [or dead fish, or bug collection, or 'pencils-of-the-month'], then your problem is a lot bigger than your battle with your co-workers.
Be the bigger person.  It will make you a better person.

e8ght was on the money - I invite EVERYONE - supervisors included, to go shooting with me.  Most don't - but some DO!!!

Work on em!

FWIW - I work for a huge company and would probably have to remove spent brass from my desk too....

Tate

I talk about guns at work all the time, but then I work at Boeing and we make the things that drop the things that go BOOM

Most of the people around me are republicans and the few that aren't seem to know that they are enough of a minority not to say anything about it. The guys around here who do talk about it usually keep it low keyed enough as to not irritate anyone too much.

Unfortunately,,, some people are scared of guns and would find anything that represented them to be disturbing. I guess your boss is just trying to be sensitive to that. Hell, I was going to wear one of those t-shirts with the picture of Osama with crosshairs and the caption "Got Ammo?" but my boss said that it would probably be in bad taste. I guess he's right,,, but I really wanted to wear that shirt to work on a Friday

When my company was a little 500 person privately owned shop it was fun to talk abt guns @ work with fellow employees.  We'd do team building at the range or paintball.  Most folks had targets up on their cube.  It was a tight team, lots of vets.  We typically got together for dinner at one another's house on the weekends or if someone's wife was out of town for poker night or something.

Then we were bought by a public company outta California & it all changed.  All targets came down, no talk of guns outside of your closed door office.  Seems some people (like 2)were "intimidated" by the veterans, so we informally stopped hiring vets to bring more diversity into the group.

Well, we were successful in our quest for diversity.  Today no one does anything together. Whatever lame "team building" we do is sooooo PC that no one shows up.  Now folks are told they "care too much" abt tier job.  Pretty sad.  I guess freedom of speech only works for the liberals, who won't stop until we have a completely neutered society.....

talk among your friends is fine. if you mention guns casually in passing and LISTEN to their responses you can tell if they're interested.

i've helped introduce several new people to guns this way. if people know you know about guns, but aren't a fanatic (dont tell them you own an arsenal and stockpile ammo till you know them better) they come to you for help when they're ready for it.

cast ye not pearls before swine.

Hey Royce;

Roll over boy. Good Boy!


If people can talk about football, religion, or any other damn thing I'm not interested in, cartriges stay! I don't have silowets(sp) up in my cube. I have one inch squares.

If people want sterile they should stay home.

I am sick of coddeling people! Some whiny litttle shit goes crying to the principle, I say we get him after school! oh  sorry

Well, in my shop...I work with a Navy vet, whom I have mentioned here before know NOTHING about firearms...to him guns are 16" or larger barrels (width that is), his roommate (a devout libertarian-type), one hunter and a 20ish kid. My managers all know about my hobby, one would probably go out shooting one of these days, he likes to like at the gun mags and catalogs I bring in... my computer desktop is one of the AR15 images I picked up here. ONly had one "negative" comment by a manager that is no longer there....came up to me to give me some "bad news" (about the schedule or some other minor BS), and started off half-jokingly with "now don't come in and shoot me for this"

He was an ass anyway, but I brag about my daughter shooting all the time at work, and they know I'm going for my CCW.

No_Expert

Small privately held software company. There are two of us who are serious shooters. They have affectionately dubbed us the "Militia". We have never been officially deployed, but between the two of us we could handle a Ross Perot sized assignment.

Just for informational purposes. If you are told you can not talk about a specific subject at work  the company can not allow any other topics outside of work to be discussed. This is federal labor law.  If you are allowed to talk about dating you are allowed to talk about guns.  The only problem with this is by the time it runs through the courts you will have been out of work for several years.  This law does not allow harassment, but just because someone is not comfortable with a topic does not make it wrong in the work place.  

I hadn't actively discussed my hobby with anyone until I accidentally left some gun paperwork on the photocopier (yes, that's a violation of company policy). Fortunately, it was found by a woman who turned out to be a shooter as well (reinforcing my belief that there is a just God). She and I talk guns from time to time, her husband I now go on regular forays into the desert to go shooting, etc.

I still don't actively discuss the topic. I don't hide it, but I don't advertise or proselytize either. It's gradually gotten around that I'm a firearms enthusiast -- just like it's gotten around that I'm a part-time photographer and a hack guitarist. It's all just the natural process of learning about the people with whom you work, I suppose. Just like I know about my assistant's doll making hobby, my boss's dog, or my co-worker's daughter's soccer games.

Nobody's changed their attitudes towards me. Most of the time, it just doesn't come up. But a few have been curious enough to ask me about the whole thing (guns, ammo, laws). Some have even noncommittally asked if I would ever take them to the range.

I guess I've been pretty fortunate. Now I have mail order stuff delivered to the office (since no one's at home during the day) without any problems. Every now and then, I'll get a joking rolling of the eyes when something comes from Ammoman or Arizona Shooters or something like that. But it's generally good natured ribbing.

I am a waiter/bartender/manager in a sportsbar/restaraunt. I am the local gun guy. I direct people to training,ammo,repairs, and just good old conversation. We have a diverse clientelle that includes tourists, migrant farmworkers, even a famous gun writer. I carry ALL the time concealed. At least six of the staff(including all the managers and owners carry).Sometimes there will be a customer at the bar wearing an openly carried piece( although not consuming alcohol). There is occasionally something more exotic (CAR15, UZI, or HK SP89) behind the bar, more as a conversation piece than defensive item.Election day found a 20"HBAR sporting a "Sportsman for Bush" sticker on the bar. The local deputies don't hassle us and noone in their right mind causes trouble( and when they do, it usually ends with them being pepper sprayed and taken to the GrayBar Inn.)

I also have the reputation of the gun guy at work.  There have been both positive and negative aspects of it.  The positives are I have hooked a couple of co-workers up with my FFL and helped them mail order guns (1 AK-47 and 1 45 handgun).  The negatives have been some of the stares and disrespect from the anti-gunners.  The latest was last Friday.  A woman saw me reading Guns and Ammo in the lunch room.  She approached me and commented that I was sick and perverse for reading that.  She than informed me that handguns are only meant to kill people, and that it's too bad there are people like me that own them.  She then went on to say that she wished that people like me wouldn't support the NRA and other groups defending the second amendment.  She said this world would be so much safer if there were no guns.  She then walked away.  I didn't know what to say.  I had some not so nice thoughts about her afterwards, though.

I had empty cartridges for everyone of my calibers displayed at my desk, but was informed that there was a company policy against that, so I took them down.  And so it goes....

I work in a weapons dealership/indoor range besides studying, so talking about guns is pretty much mandatory during the day

When it is slow in the shop, i and my two bosses might argue about some tiny trivial type thing for quite some time.

I love the enviroment since the two bosses are good friends also.

It seems that what ever I get into they guys at work get in to.  I recently started rebuilding my gun collection and now I go shooting with my managers and other co-workers.  A few of us have guns on our computer desktops.  No one seems to mind.  I live in WY.  That might have something to do with it :)

 I get to wear gun related T-shirts to work because they keep me hidden away from the outside vendors (mostly) I've got a row of those stick on bullet holes across my hard hat too, that always gets a laugh.
 I don't get any flack about the gun stuff at all. Many folks come and ask me gun related questions.
 

I am the gun guy at work too, even though other guys actually have more guns than me. They are hunters. They still let me put up my Dillon calendar, and I must have handed out 20 Osama targets at work for the other shooters.

Id say my shop is quite pro gun,

My supervisor lives for guided hunts, the quality control supervisor has a target of his first experience with a black rifle tacked to the wall and the plant supervisor has stuffed moose head in his office.
On top of that opening day for deer is akin to a religious holiday .


But it is I who is known as the all knowing all seeing gun guru.
I've also ben told on several occasions that if SHTF they're all coming to my "compound" for protection.
As if i was going to let any non nra members  in for free

If they want to know what to get, where to get it, how it shoots, and where the good deals are they all make a holy pilgrimage to my inner sangtom.
From the mighty corporate VP to the lowly temps i have guided many.

All who seek the firearm wisdom of the ages seek me out.

Our company is in the process of doing a new employee manual. When I got the proofs there was a "no weapons" policy listed under the workplace safety section. I took it back to the CFO (HR reports to him, I didn't want to deal with the HR people directly) and told him to have it changed to "no unlawful weapons."

His response was "Good idea. You know some people might be carr..." and stopped in mid-sentance.  I just smiled and left his office.

Haven't seen the manual yet. I am wondering what it says, though.  I'm just the CTO, so I'm not directly invoved in those decisions, though I do sit on the Executive Committee that's supposed to have final say.

And my collection of TAPCO firearms coffee mugs always elicits comments from somebody in meetings.

"Welcome to GUN CHAT with your hosts Lock and Load" - Those are the words of my manager @ the start of every shift.  I'm lucky to have my shooting partner on the same shift, in the same dept.  We mostly drive everybody crazy talking about guns all the time (our shift routinely has a pool on how many seconds it will take after we both arrive before some firearms related topic will come up), but we're also the one's everybody comes to with questions - even the local FFL's.

I wouldn't have taken it down, personally.  Actually I think I would have done something totally the opposite, I would have brought all my gun related stuff, pictures and all in from home, and set them in my office, on display for all to see.  

I doubt you can get fired for bringing your gun related stuff to work with you.  If someone complains that you are mentally unstable, then let them, go prove to the medical health professional that you are sane and come back to the job and show them, if you are sane nothing can be done about your stuff.

Actually, I have most of my gun magazines at work...I feel it's part of my job as a firearms instructor to push the way I feel about gun laws and such, kind of like religous people think I want to hear about jesus.

BIGMAC,
The war we are in to keep our rights is bigger than than me...evn bigger than you.  My personal needs to make a statement are not as important as getting others to CHANGE THEIR MINDS when they VOTE.
You are angry...and it shows.  You are seen as fanatic.  Everyone who doesn't like what you like is the enemy...and the war goes on.  When your co-workers go to the polls, they think of you.  That is a sure vote against our rights.
Leave your ego home.
I have guns, I carry guns, I know it, those who know me know it, and I don't have to remind everyone else to make myself feel bigger. My gun is not a badge of courage.
As far as 'roll over' & 'good boy',  I never did teach my dog (when she was alive) any 'tricks'.  She was a friend & companion, not a circus animal there for my amusement.
Other people talk about other things.  It seems you ony talk about one thing.  And I'll remind you that your hobby is about killing.  There are no pretty colored balls or good spirited running around with your friends.  I don't have a problem with that, but some others do.  They're not sick, just uneducated. Go slow and go easy and you will be surprised at who you can turn to our side.  In the end, if you don't turn them, you will get your wish...to be dragged from your house guns-a-blazin' against the G-men.
Bigmac, you have seen too many old movies and heard too many weekend-warrior stories at the gunshop. I think you need a hobby.