Gun Policy Triggers Controversy Nfl Rule Has Gun-Rights Advocates Pitted Against Opponents Of Firearms

The good ol’ boys would mount a rifle behind the seat of a pickup truck and go hunting in western New York forests before showing up for practice in Buffalo. Sometimes they’d drive down One Bills Drive, their trusty rifle still smoldering on the rack and a deer lying dead in the flatbed.

NFL players have always had a bond with guns.

But lately the connection has become too intimate and violent for Commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s taste.

He reads too many stories about NFL players involved in gun violence. Brian Blades’ cousin is accidentally killed in a struggle for a gun with the player. Daryl Gardener is shot in the face this off-season after leaving a nightclub.

And so guns have become one of Tagliabue’s hot buttons. You press one of those buttons, you stir a commotion at the NFL offices in New York. Dallas coach Barry Switzer did exactly that last week when he was caught with a loaded .38-caliber revolver in his travel bag at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Switzer’s wallet is $75,000 lighter following a fine by the Cowboys. He faces prosecution for the misdemeanor. He also is responsible for igniting a minor controversy among some ardent gun proponents and the league.

In one corner you have folks such as San Francisco defensive tackle Steve Emtman, Carolina tight end Wesley Walls and Dolphins defensive end Trace Armstrong. They view the NFL guns and weapons policy, which has been in effect two years, as an infringement of their constitutional right to bear arms.

The policy prohibits all employees of the NFL and its member clubs from possessing guns and weapons “of any kind” on NFL premises. That means no one can carry a gun at a training camp site, dormitory, locker room, team bus, team plane, team hotel or parking areas.

“As long as I was in full compliance with state and federal regulations, I don’t see how the NFL could tell me I couldn’t carry a gun,” Armstrong says. “That’s a personal decision. Hopefully, each person would make the decision in an intelligent manner. But it remains personal and it’s my right protected under the constitution.”

In the other corner you have Tagliabue, as represented by spokesman Greg Aiello. He says the league’s guns and weapons policy is binding and any violator is subject to discipline, including fine or suspension.

No one has challenged the policy in court because no one has ever been caught breaking its rules - until Switzer. And that is where the policy fails.

Every day across the NFL, players carry guns to work. Big guns, semi-automatic guns, rifles, shotguns, you name it. They keep the weapons in their glove compartments, in their trunks, underneath the driver’s seat.

The policy makes sense in trying to keep guns away from NFL venues. But it fails to keep guns away from NFL players.