Not that long ago, I wrote a story about how truck drivers want to be armed. They want national reciprocity and for damn good reason. After all, they don’t always know what states they’re going to end up going to, which means their firearms and permits may be a problem. That’s something they shouldn’t have to deal with.

However, it turns out that the situation might be a bit more dire than many might believe.

Forty percent of truck drivers victimized by crime on the road say that crimes were violent in nature, including reports of rape, assault and armed robberies, according to the results of a new poll.

Just last week, truck drivers were shot at on the highway in three states and a truck driver was found shot to death in his truck in Illinois.

Violence against truck drivers appears to be on the rise and many truck drivers are on edge. Just this year, CDLLife has reported numerous acts of violence against truck drivers.

The numbers come from a poll conducted by CDLLife.com via their app. While their numbers are limited–447 respondents out of an estimated 3.5 million truck drivers in the U.S.–it’s still more respondents and a higher percentage of them than we typically get in anti-gun surveys, so we might as well use them.

And 40 percent of crimes being violent is downright terrifying.

Yet, as I’ve noted elsewhere before, a random number can sound scary, but we don’t have any basis for comparison.

Well, CDL Life has offered up the necessary context. You see, out of all their respondents, 21 percent report having been the victim of a crime. Of those, 42 percent said the crime was violent.

That’s far higher than you’d see in the population at large. Why is that?

Well, for one thing, truckers are often in sparsely populated industrial areas or isolated truck stops in the middle of the night. They’re often alone and carrying thousands of dollars worth of cargo. They’re prime targets for any manner of evil.

Further, due to reciprocity issues, these men and women may not be able to lawfully carry a firearm in various places, meaning they keep their guns at home out of fear of prosecution. Do you really think criminals haven’t figured this out by now?

As a result, truck drivers are the victims of crimes at rates that would make most people wet themselves at the thought of stepping outside if it applied to the population at large. Yet, they continue to do so because they have families to feed and bills to pay and because we need the goods they’re hauling.

All they’ve asked is for Congress to give them a little help and allow them to protect themselves. They want national reciprocity. More importantly, they downright need national reciprocity. Their lives are at stake, as we can see from the above numbers and reports.

While everyone is still remembering truck drivers as heroes for their efforts during the COVID-19 shortages, let’s do them the decency of allowing them to defend themselves.