By Scott L. On my retirement from 20 years of driving trucks for Uncle Sam I acquired a CDL and went into the civilian truck transportation industry. If ever an industry and class of citizens had their Second Amendment rights discriminated against, it is professional interstate truck drivers. Truckers travel the nation and constantly spend the night in their trucks in sketchy industrial areas and among people who see them as secluded vagabonds and easy targets . . .

Many truckers want to be able to carry for self-defense, but the nature of their business makes it a legal minefield. They have the same legal rights as any other citizen but they often travel throughout the lower 48 states in a matter of days and weeks. They may have a carry permit in one state, but no state has 48-state reciprocity. We also know how widely one state’s laws can vary from another’s.

There is also the complication that truckers are constantly going onto the property of multiple shippers and receivers. All of those industrial customers have anti-gun and workplace violence policies that forbid, (in many jurisdictions by force of law), these hard-working citizens from being on the customer’s property while armed. As another complication, most trucking companies have anti-gun policies that forbid their drivers from carrying weapons in their company-owned trucks.

As a result of this discrimination, many in the trucking industry are introducing “Mike’s Law.” It’s a call for a nationwide federal firearms reciprocity for those who are professionally engaged in interstate commerce. It’s named for Michael Boeglin who was shot and his body was found in the sleeper of his burned-out truck.