HORTONVILLE, WI — Money is such an impersonal gift at Christmas, the owners of a Wisconsin novelty glass manufacturer decided, so they gave employees an early gift that, ahem, packs a little more bang: a gift certificate redeemable for a gun of the employee’s choice.
The 16 full-time employees of BenShot LLC weren’t offended. They deal with bullets every day, inserting them in the shot and beer glasses created at the Hortonville factory.
Giving employees a gift certificate rather than the actual guns put the responsibility for background checks on gun sellers, said Ben Woflgram, who founded the company with his son in 2015 in a small garage workshop in Hortonville, which is located about 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee.
“We are a small, close-knit team at BenShot,” Wolfram told television station WISN. “I want to make sure all of employees are safe and happy – a handgun was the perfect gift.”
Wolfgram told the Appleton Post-Crescent the gift of a gun promotes personal safety and team building.
Most employees appreciated the gift, though a couple initially declined it, Wolfgram told the Appleton newspaper. He said they are reconsidering after taking a gun-safety class offered.
“For him to stand for something and for the company to stand for keeping us safe is really awesome for them to do that,” Chelsea Priest, who handles media relations for the small company, told WISN.
The gift comes amid a national debate over guns, renewed by the Nov. 7 Thousand Oaks, California, mass shooting at a bar, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and a shooting at a software company in Middleton, Wisconsin, two months ago.
Wolfman isn’t particularly worried about workplace violence among his employees. Everyone knows one another well, he told the Appleton newspaper.
“For us, now, we have an entire armed staff,” he said. “I think that’s pretty good.”
The company’s gift got a lot of love on social media.
File photo via Shutterstock
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