With shortages in grocery stores across the country, America’s over-the-road truckers are getting a well-deserved moment in the spotlight. Four states are under a ‘shelter in place’ order with no concrete end date in sight. As people seek to minimize their exposure to others in stores, they’re stocking up on groceries and other essentials, putting more pressure on truckers in an already stressful situation.
Rule Change Needed for Changing Times
To ensure their safety, the Small Business Transportation Coalition is asking federal authorities to nullify state and local laws that would prevent them from carrying guns across state lines.
The SBTC is an organization that represents 15,000 truckers nationwide. In an email sent to the Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the group said the following:
“With four states now having issued stay at home orders causing metropolitan areas to now be desolate, and with cities like New York and Los Angeles releasing criminals from jails, now more than ever are there significant life threatening dangers to the men and women who drive trucks as America’s supply chain first responders.
Therefore, in accordance with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, we hereby request the U.S. Department of Transportation please issue a preemption order nullifying any and all state and local laws that restrict truck drivers from carrying firearms across state lines throughout America in order to enable them to protect themselves and their cargo as they engage in interstate commerce.”
It only seems fair, really. After all, Americans are depending on truckers to restock grocery stores that have been emptied, and to bring medical supplies to facilities in Corona Virus ‘hot spots.’ People are ordering everyday essentials online rather than risk exposure to the virus–or violating a ‘shelter in place’ order. Heck, gun owners are relying on truckers to deliver all the ammo they’ve ordered online in recent weeks!
This level of societal uncertainty is brand new for all of us. And truckers aren’t crazy to feel uneasy about things. While average Americans are lining up at gun stores because of rising social unrest, truckers have to keep on trucking.
Truckers are still making deliveries in cities where police aren’t responding to calls about petty crime. Additionally, some of those same cities have released hundreds or even thousands of criminals back onto the streets in recent weeks! They’ve been making deliveries in the early morning hours for stores that are being swarmed during the day.
Most of us can stay home, camped on the couch watching Netflix. But for America’s truckers, this is the new reality of their workplace every day.
No Help Coming For Truckers Because It Doesn’t Fit The Narrative
The overall legal response to the Corona Virus has been ‘take the rights away now and we’ll worry about giving them back later.’ The right to assemble is virtually gone nationwide. In some places, local businesses are being commanded to shut their doors or face fines or have their business licenses revoked. Los Angeles’s Sheriff made headlines when he announced that he would be closing all gun stores as non-essential. (He later changed his mind.) Elections have been illegally postponed. Mayors across the country have declared that they will decide whether or not you can transport your firearms.
All of these actions are allowed because ‘it’s an emergency!’ The fearmongers shriek, “We have to do it or millions and billions of people will die!” Now cue the panic and fear that the media has injected into the situation. Within days, people who weren’t under ‘shelter in place’ orders were begging the government to take more of their rights away in hopes of giving them a sense of security.
How much do you want to bet that NOBODY will use their emergency powers to expand the current scope of our Second Amendment laws to make it easier to own and carry a gun? How much of an ’emergency’ is it to protect our truckers?
You see, emergency powers only work one way and it’s not to give more freedom. Tyranny is the result of ’emergency powers’, not more liberty. Sorry, truckers, but it’s our bet that you’re on your own.