Unarmed and useless

My industry is a perfect example of one of the real problems with guns. The wrong people have them and the right people don’t. There have been several strip club shootings in the news recently, the most recent occurring less than a week ago in Texas. Before that there was a high-profile incident in Las Vegas involving multiple celebrities.

Working around drunk people in any capacity can be pretty scary. Most of the clubs I’ve worked at either have metal detectors or (more commonly) “wand” patrons as they come in. At the ones that only wand people, I’ve only seen it done on the weekends and evenings. I understand the logic (basically it’s profiling) but it seems to me that a preventative measure that takes 15-20 seconds should be performed every time if it’s going to be used at all.

The real problem, though, is that bouncers are never armed. In most places security is a joke. A lot of dancers refer to them as “door guys,” because we can’t bring ourselves to say “bouncers” or “security” without an accompanying eye-roll. I would love it if every club had armed bouncers. The problem is that clubs don’t want to deal with the hassle of having every bouncer licensed, trained and background-checked. Not for a position that pays minimum wage plus tips. Most bouncers don’t stay in the industry very long, either, so it would be time-consuming and costly to jump through the hoops to arm each bouncer, only to have to do it again a few months later. Additionally, a lot of clubs are skittish of having too much visible security. According to this line of thinking, metal detectors and armed bouncers make a club look dangerous and scare away the “right” type of customer.

Before I started dancing in clubs I worked at a peep show. This was the only time I ever worked with an armed bouncer. The peep show was in a porn shop, and the bouncer was also a clerk. He was definitely a “gun guy” who always had his weapon on him, including at work. He carried it unconcealed. I never had a single problem with customers there when he was on shift. It didn’t seem to affect my money or the shop’s business. However, he carried his weapon because it was part of his lifestyle, not as part of the job. I guess the only conclusion I can reach from these musings is that if I were to ever open a club of any sort I’d want to hire “gun guys” for security. Opening a club is not in my ten-year plan, so for now I’ll just continue to work at places with metal detectors and avoid NFL players.