http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewEFaTI8w0Q

“And some actually carry a gun,” the news anchor tells viewers, his voice heavy with incredulity. What’s with the surprise? As the report points out, some Indianapolis-area pizza delivery dudes were tooled-up long before two of their colleagues were mowed down. Would 30-year-old Papa John’s employee Daniel Jaffke still be alive if he’d been exercising his natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms while shuttling pies? Ditto John Sullivan? Hard to say, but I wouldn’t want to leave this world without a fighting chance. And now, thanks to the media coverage, bad guys know that Papa John’s and Pizza Hut drivers are unarmed, by company fiat. I bet Aunt Polly’s drivers have better odds of survival, now. See how that works?

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55 COMMENTS

  1. You may get killed in spite of being armed. But if you’re unarmed you just give the bad guys a cheap victory.

    • Agreed. Even if the delivery guy is armed he’s still agreeing to enter someone’s ambush zone when he agrees to show up to an area of the caller’s choosing. The potential of the delivery guy being armed might cause some would be robbers to select a softer target, but it might also cause them to shoot the delivery guy preemptively as opposed to just robbing him. I hate to say it, but even though violent crime is on the decline, delivering pizza still seems to be in the “stupid things” category.

      • When I was a teen I worked at a pizza place (Let’s just call the place PJ’s and he has a commercial with a camero). The company policy is strictly against guns, but I know a few of our drivers carried regardless and my store manager let it slide. They said the policy doesn’t mean squat when your talking about protecting your life.

  3. I used to deliver pizza, and there were several instances where I refused to go to a residence because I suspected I was being set up for a robbery. (Address didn’t exist, no lights on in address, etc.) I was actually robbed once, by a guy with (I suspect) a finger gun in his hoodie pocket. (It wasn’t MY money, and I wasn’t going to make him prove it. Had he demanded my car keys, I may have told him to show me the gun. I was younger and dumber…) Nowadays, if I was delivering in the same Cleveland neighborhoods I used to work, I’d carry, company policy be dammed. The only way Papa John’s would find out is if I had to shoot someone in self-defense, and at that point PJ’s could go take a flying f**k at a rolling doughnut. (“It’s against policy!” “Screw you, I’m still alive, and I bet nobody else from this store ever gets robbed again!”)

  4. Hey, pizza delivery guys — you can always get another sh1tty job. You can’t get another life, sh1tty or otherwise.

    Carry. Your life may depend on it.

      • Cause, you know, jobs are so easy to get nowadays… I mean, hell, I have three or four just sitting in my fridge for when I get bored.

        Get real, dude.

        • Barstow… I think it depends on if your name is Mario, you have a brother Luigi and you are dating a princess named Toadstool

        • This is just one piece of anecdotal evidence from one area of the country, but even in the worst job markets of the last decades I saw pizza places, fast food restaurants, retail stores that were constantly posting help wanted. There was a definite lack of work in SKILLED trades, but we’re talking about pizza delivery here.

        • It’s not just the skill level of delivering pizzas, it’s employee attributes. You need your own reliable transportation with liability insurance. Lots of lower skilled people can’t swing that. You also need clean driving and criminal records, as well as drug screen. That eliminates many of the rest. It’s also an inherently high turnover job, which is part of the reason people often don’t develop the skills to rise above it. Add it all up, and the pizza places are always hiring.

        • And best case you need to make more in wages and tips than you spend on mileage and health insurance, otherwise it’s a hobby, not a job. Not hard for most to figure out.

  5. Back in 1996 an acquaintance of mine worked as a pizza delivery man. He got fired for carrying a gun on delivery.

    • I worked for a big pizza chain through college in the early 2000’s that had a strict “no guns” policy. I carried every night I worked. I know there were several other drivers that carried as well. I know at least one of my managers knew some of us carried, but nothing was ever said directly.

  6. After my hitch I worked at a gas station, when you had to go out and wait on the customers. I carried a gun, no permit. After I came to trust the manager we had this talk.

    “Boss, just so you ain’t blind sided I’m packing a gun.”

    “Why?”

    “Cause I’m here by myself at closing time. The gun ain’t to protect the companies assets. Man wants to rob the place he can have it all. He don’t even have to show me a gun. I’ll empty the til for him and even pump him a tank full of gas.”

    “Then why carry the gun?”

    “Cause if he gets everything he wants and still says ‘let’s go in the back room’ that’s when the gun fight starts.”

    That’s when my boss showed me his .38 and told me I still had a job.

    • When I was a kd, I made pies at Shakey’s in San Bernardino. There was a shottie in the cold room and the staff knew about it, were instructed in its use and (it was hoped) would be able to take action were a robber to become violent.

      Different times.

      • Russ, what Shakey’s was it? Was it the one on (I think) Highland and Sterling over by the Von’s shopping center? You just gave me a flashback with the Shakey’s reference.

        • Negative. Y’know, I don’t remember precisely where it was. Lemme cogitate fer a moment…

          Just north of Highland, maybe ’round Sierra? There was a large hardware store on the corner, which might have been Ole’s. Or was Ole’s the one at Waterman and Baseline along with Stater Bros…? No – that was George’s.

          Just north of Ole’s on Sierra, methinks. It was nearly forty years ago, and the old’ grey matter ain’t what it used to be.

          I didn’t know there was a Shakeys up at Sterling, although I do remember several other pizza places up thatta way.

          My favourite was Roaring ’20s on Mt. Vernon almost to Colton, right across from the junior college. A lot of inventing was scribbled on napkins there, and at the Bob’s at Baseline and D.

          Crike – how things have changed. The first revolver I ever owned I bought as a kid at a yard sale in that town, and noone thought anything of it.

          I sure didn’t see this version of America coming dowin the pike.

  7. I’d not want to stay in this world without a fighting chance. Sure I’d stay, but under protest.

    How are we to force sense into cold, dead minds?

  8. My friend used to deliver pizzas up in Minneapolis. One night he got an order for 6 pizzas in one of the many bad parts of town, but he went anyway. As he was walking up to the door 4-5 guys came around the corner of the house and just beat the crap out of him. No demands, no warning, just beat the shit out of him. Didn’t take his money, his keys, or his car. They took 4 of the pizzas and the several 2 liters of soda he had in the car.

    Delivery guys don’t get paid enough in some places. just my opinion

    • You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to doing it, but as long as there are high school dropouts who have illegitimate kids and have more optimism than sense, there will always be pizza delivery men.

  9. The Pizza Hut response was laughable. If I was working there, and I heard my boss utter that drivel… I’d hand in my walking papers that day, on camera if I could.

    • Have the prez and all the executive officers of Pizza Hut deliver pizzas for a month… send them someplace nice… like Cleveland or Detroit or someplace in New Jersey. And make them leave their security details at home, and their concealed carry too, just like they do to their drivers. Let them listen to the sweet lullaby of police sirens and helicopters and the sound of gunshots on the fun nights.

      And make them keep doing it so long as they see sense in this policy.

  10. what are yu gonna do? yu gotta have a job when your unemployed.. and if it means delivering pizzas to keep the lights on, then you deliver pizzas.. too bad they can’t protect themselves while doing it.

    • Maybe Pizza Hut can score some surplus MRAP’s from the DOD and they can send out the delivery guys in squad sized elements, using bounding overwatch to get from the vehicle to the door and back in the vehicle.

      • Better not forget the bread sticks or they will be using the REbounding over watch back to their rattletrap.

  11. Make no mistake: the pizza companies’ policies have absolutely nothing to do with employee safety and everything to do with profits. Clearly they are totally okay with sacrificing their employees to violent criminals as long as they guarantee that none of their “customers” can sue the company if an employee defends themselves.

    The whole thing stinks to high heaven. If those pizza companies told their employees to climb into the ovens for maintenance, OSHA would be all over them like a cheap suit.

    And one more thing. Why is it that an employer cannot demand sex from an employee, but they can demand that employees be unarmed and go to their death?

  12. I am a driver for a company I am not going to mention, and that is WHY I started saving up for a gun, and a CCW license. It is why I started coming to this site too.

    • Driver, go save up for a cheap suit and get a job at some place that doesn’t expect you to jeopardize your safety for tips. Seriously.

      • “Seriously”; I delivered pizza while I went to school; there are few other jobs that pays as well with tips and gas money until you get a degree or certification in some skilled profession.

        And what no one knows that is on your belt or in your pocket doesn’t hurt them; unless some one tries to hurt or kill you.

        • Yeah, you’re right, tips and mileage are worth dying for, just ask those two dead drivers they were talking about in the story. It’s great to have a gun to react to things that just can’t be avoided, but wouldn’t it be much better to just avoid things?

    • Keep your resume up to date, keep looking for something better. An extra 20 minutes each day emailing resumes.

      Best of luck to you driver.

    • Best of luck to you driver, just always remember that keeping situational awareness will go miles to keep you out of a gunfight. And the best way to win a gunfight is to totally avoid it. Trust your gut.

  13. Maybe we should deliver cheap suits with every food order. That would nip the robbery issue in the bud by your “logic.”

  14. Long before Wisconsin had CC, pizza delivery man Vega was packin. He shot a few robbers & was charged by wonderfull gov doyle(you know, my life is precious yours isn’t worth shit). I believe the case made it to the Wi supreme court where they told asshat doyle that just because Vega chose a dangerous job didn’t mean that he had to give up his life. Randy

  15. I’ve been driving delivery for about a year now and am glad to say that my employer takes a hands off approach to the guns issue. When somebody can call in and have their victim delivered to their neighborhood with a bag of cash in their pocket, it really makes them cautious when they know that would be victim might turn the tables.

  16. Just don’t take the gun back into the store when you pick up the pies to deliver. You are using your own car so keep it there; your employer doesn’t have the right to say you can’t have a weapon in your car. A job is not worth your life. Carry

  17. Wear a shirt that says that “This is a crime-free zone”. Liberals seem to think this works for guns so give it a try.

  18. Screw company policy. I’ve worked for companies that had huge no gun policies. Couldn’t even have a pocket knife. But I carried anyways. You can get a new job not a new life.

  19. That company fiat is why we do our pie-business with Hungry Howie’s, which does NOT require their drivers to toodle on down into demilitarized zones as large, unarmed targets.

    That and they put together a damn good pizza.

  21. I think all pizza drivers should carry especially after the murder of a guy for 20 bucks and a pizza a few years back by some idiots teens(they got 40 some years each). The only thing I know they’ve done since is denying pizza sent to any ghetto after a certain time but I’d hope they would allow drivers to carry as well.

  22. hell I delivered for Papa Johns for 1 to 2 years and carried regardless of their policy. Manager wasn’t against it.

    • Unexpurgated trumpery moonadshine. By the logic of this flloew, a pizza of diaadmeter zero, or in other words, no pizza at all would be 27p a square inch. He also fails to mention that, according to his graph, if the pizza were to exceed 22a0inches, the vendor would have to pay you to accept the pizza from them…There must be number-crunchers with the craft of Mr Reid employed by the govadernadment, given the nonadsensical statadistics we are expected toa0digest.

  23. In the case of being a pizza delivery person in a bad area, well, as many say, “I’d rather be tried by 12 than carried by 6….”
    Just don’t take it into the store (where there is presumably no danger).

    Probably safer to cook frozen cow parts for about the same wage anyway. Dunno, but I sure did it. And bet yer azz I kept lookin for better jobs until I finally ended up educated and an electrical/electronics/robotics friggin engineer. Where there is a will, there is a way.
    I’m sick of hearing younger people whine about the job market. You just have to take what you can get until you can get what you want. Gut it the heck out!

    Perhaps military service put that attitude in me, and taught me to never say die…perhaps boot camp should be a required High School Senior course required for graduation…

  24. “I’d rather be tried by 12 than carried by 6….”

    Those that make pizza their primary food source may well need to be carried by 12 and not 6…

  25. John Sullivan was my brother and he had a gun. Don’t know if on him or in the car. So sometimes it doesn’t matter.

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