For transportation professionals, the right to keep and bear arms ends behind the wheel. But a recently formed organization is looking to bring their rights into overdrive.

The ‘Trucker Lives Matter‘ group was launched by the South Florida-based non-profit transportation trade group The Small Business in Transportation Coalition (SBTC), which represents members of the transportation industry nationwide, including truck drivers. The group, who declares it’s time to “Make the Roads Safe Again”, is driving home the point that citizens’ right to bear arms should not be shut down because of their profession.

“I believe the fact that over 15,000 truckers immediately joined TLM within just a few days of our launching this movement shows that truckers believe their lives do indeed matter and it’s high time we ‘make the roads safe again’,” said SBTC president James Lamb.

Lamb is also taking legislative action, similar to NRA’s “national reciprocity” efforts, and challenging the various existing state laws that currently prevent truckers from carrying firearms nationwide to protect themselves.

The bill was named Indiana-based trucker Michael Boeglin, who was murdered while sleeping in his truck in Detroit, MI in June 2014.  But while the Truckers Lives Matter site sends visitors to a petition calling for the National Rifle Association to support the “Michael’s Law Amendment” (to 18 U.S.C. 926A), NRA’s National Reciprocity legislation aims to secure the right to carry for all law-abiding professionals from landlords to nurses, realtors to daycare workers.

In October 2015, NRA ILA stated,”We also believe such a right should be enjoyed by all. That is why the NRA has been working to pass Concealed Carry Reciprocity in the United States Congress. Once signed into law, the right to carry nationwide would extend to truck drivers, bus drivers, families on vacation, and anyone out on the open road. ”

So while I agree with the premise of the TLM organization, I believe it would benefit more Americans if groups like this would throw their support behind the National Rifle Association’s bill, rather than seeking support from the NRA on legislation that only seeks to protect a singular profession.

What say you? Sound off in the comments: Are you more inclined to support the TLM legislation to protect transportation specialists’ right to carry or the NRA’s legislation to protect all American workers’ right to carry?