ATLANTA (AP) — The owner of a Georgia-based insurance firm is requiring all of his employees to get permits to carry concealed weapons and providing each of them with a handgun. 
 
 Lance Toland of Lance Toland Associates said Tuesday that the slaying of his uncle several years ago influenced his decision to implement the policy for the 10 women and two men who work in the company's three offices. 
 
 None of the employees objected to the policy, Toland said. 
 
 "I said, 'We're all going to get firearms,' and it was a unanimous, 100-percent participation, no dissenters whatsoever," Toland said. "It's about protection, No. 1, but it's really about us as citizens of this great country enjoying and using our right to bear arms." 
 
 Toland is a pilot, and his business provides aircraft insurance risk-management services with offices in the Georgia cities of Griffin and Chamblee, and on St. Simons Island. 
 
 He said he gave each of his employees a Taurus Judge revolver, which can fire shotgun shells. It can fire the shot in a relatively wide range, increasing the chances that the ammunition will make contact, Toland said. 
 
 "This Judge, if someone comes into the room and you aim in that direction, you're going to get a piece of them," Toland said. He added that the gun is the "perfect weapon" for anyone who is not a "seasoned marksman." 
 
 A representative for Everytown for Gun Safety, a national group that advocates gun control, declined to comment Tuesday. 
 
 Toland's employees receive training from National Rifle Association instructors, he said. 
 
 One of them, Andrea Van Buren, said the mandate would be a great idea for other companies, "as long as they are willing to commit to training ... and also you have to commit to being ready to use it if you have to," Van Buren told WSB-TV. ||||| “You get an office computer, and you get an office gun.” 
 
 “One asked me if it came in pink.” 
 
 The Judge is a handgun. Each of Toland’s 12 employees packs the Judge during office hours. 
 
 If you enter one of Lance Toland’s insurance offices wanting to take out a policy, make sure that’s the only thing you want. 
 
 Take something else, and you may meet the Judge. 
 
 The Judge is a handgun. The weapon, whose name really is the Judge, is as much a part of Lance Toland Associates’ work environment as the firm’s laptops and phones. Each of Toland’s 12 employees packs the Judge during office hours. 
 
 “It’s a hand cannon,” Toland said Tuesday afternoon, speaking from his home in Sea Island. “I would not walk into (one of the Toland offices) with anything but business on my mind.” 
 
 Manufactured by Taurus International Manufacturing Inc., the Judge handgun can chamber .410 shotgun shells as well as .45-caliber bullets. At close range — say, in an insurance office — it is devastating. 
 
 + Channel 2 Action News Lance Toland, founder of Toland Associates insurance. (photo credit: Channel 2 Action News) Channel 2 Action News × 
 
 It is, Toland said, a nice insurance policy against someone who would harm his workers, who specialize in aviation coverage. 
 
 He decided last year that each worker ought to get a gun when one of his employees, who routinely carried a weapon, announced her retirement. “I said, ‘I think you need to think about protection,’” Toland recalled. He made them a deal: train in the use of handguns, then get a state permit to carry a weapon. Do that, he told his workers, and I’ll buy the guns. 
 
 They did, and he did. The agents at Toland Associates’ offices in Atlanta, Griffin and St. Simons Island now are armed with their own Judge. Each was eager to have the weapon, he said. “One asked me if it came in pink,” he said. 
 
 (For the record: Taurus offers a Judge with pink grips.) 
 
 He wishes his uncle had been armed when three men with a gun confronted him outside a Griffin convenience store nearly 40 years ago. For $20, Luther Thomas Toland lost his life. The deceased man’s nephew still grieves for him. 
 
 “I have an issue with thugs,” Toland, 61, said. “I want to make sure my family and my employees are protected.” 
 
 Kennesaw’s elected officials sounded a comparable note more than 30 years ago when they passed an ordinance requiring heads of households to own at least one firearm with ammunition. The 1982 law generated headlines worldwide. 
 
 Guns have been a hot topic at the state Capitol this year, too. Just this week, the state House voted to legalize carrying concealed guns on Georgia’s college campuses. That bill must now pass the Senate. A similar measure is already in place in Texas. 
 
 Toland is within his rights to require employees to be armed, said Lester Tate, a Cartersville lawyer who has handled a number of gun cases. Georgia, he said, is an “employment-at-will” state, meaning employers are free to hire or fire workers so long as they don’t violate anti-discrimination laws. Employees, he added, are free to leave, too. 
 
 “If you’re an employer and you want to require (workers) to wear yellow ties, you can do it,” Tate said. “He has the right to require employees to carry a gun. But once he requires them to carry a gun, he’s responsible for anything they do with it.” 
 
 Toland is OK with that. “This is a dialogue about responsible gun ownership and stewardship of our Second Amendment rights,” said Toland. The Second Amendment of the Constitution reads, in part, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” 
 
 Nor will his workers’ security be imperiled, Toland said. “I don’t want that to happen on my watch,” he said. 
 
 Insurance agent Andrea Van Buren is confident it won’t. Every day, Van Buren picks up the Judge and brings it to Toland Associates’ Atlanta office, opposite DeKalb Peachtree Airport. She also keeps a Glock handgun ready. 
 
 “It was nice to get,” said Van Buren, who already had a license to carry a weapon when she started work in January. “You get an office computer, and you get an office gun.” 
 
 The presence of handguns in the office hasn’t scared off any customers, said Van Buren. She’s not sure if they’ve chased off any bad guys — but the firepower certainly might have, had a criminal bothered to look. 
 
 “The Judge is on the desk,” she said. “The Glock is on my hip.” ||||| After each employee at Lance Toland Associates gets their license, Toland presents them with a gun known as the judge. 
 
 A local business owner with several offices in Georgia is now requiring all of his employees to get a concealed carry license and be armed. 
 
 After each employee at Lance Toland Associates gets their license, Toland presents them with a gun known as the judge. He says it is one of the most effective self-defense weapons and all his aviation insurance agencies carry them openly in the office. 
 
 Everybody has one of these in their drawer or on their person. I would not want to come into one of my facilities,” Toland said. “It's a 5 shot .410, just like a shotgun and you call it hand cannon.” 
 
 Toland said after hearing about recent home invasions and violent crime in the metro Atlanta area, he came up with the new office mandate. 
 
 “They all had their conceal carry permit within 3 to 4 weeks of me announcing that this was something you had to do,” he said. “With the presentation of their license, they all got a 4/10 judge pistol.” 
 
 A local business owner is requiring his employees to get a concealed carry license and be armed. Is it a good idea? — Craig Lucie (@CraigLucie) February 22, 2016 
 
 Toland told Channel 2’s Craig Lucie he did it out of concern for his employees’ safety. 
 
 “I have a number of offices and most of my employees are women,” he says. 
 
 Toland has offices in Griffin, St. Simons Island and Atlanta where they insure aircrafts worldwide. 
 
 Agent Andrea Van Buren said the mandate is a great idea for other companies, if employees agree to several things. 
 
 “As long as they are willing to get the training, become an expert and if you pull it out, you have to be ready to use it,’ she said. 
 
 Toland says several high-profile business owners who have private planes he insures may follow his lead. 
 
 “A lot of my clients are high fiving when they hear this. They think it's the best things for a company to mandate gun ownership and be responsible,” he said.
– “You get an office computer, and you get an office gun," one employee of Lance Toland Associates tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Georgia aviation insurance agency recently started requiring all 12 of its employees to be armed at work. After employees get their concealed carry license, Lance Toland provides them with a pistol known as the Judge, WSB-TV reports. "Everybody has one of these in their drawer or on their person," he says. "I would not want to come into one of my facilities.” Toland says the new rule was inspired by violent crime in Atlanta and the death of his uncle during a robbery four decades ago. “I have an issue with thugs," he tells the Journal-Constitution. “I want to make sure my family and my employees are protected.” Toland says employees in his three offices were excited to get the guns and had their licenses within a month of the new rule. "It was a unanimous, 100% participation, no dissenters whatsoever," he tells the AP. Toland describes the Judge, a pistol that can fire shotgun shells, as a "hand cannon." One shot can cover a wide area, so he says it's a great weapon for people who aren't great aims. But his rule isn't just about protecting his employees, most of whom, he points out, are women. "It's really about us as citizens of this great country enjoying and using our right to bear arms," Toland tells the AP. Toland's requirement that his employees be armed is legal, but he's also legally responsible for anything his employees do with the guns.