Guns in the Workplace
A decade after widely publicized school and workplace shootings led many companies to adopt policies prohibiting employees from bringing guns onto employer property, the National Rifle Association and its allies are launching a legal and political campaign to reverse these policies and force employers to accept guns at work.
The Oklahoma law implies that one person's right to have a gun trumps another person's right to keep guns off of his or her property. The NRA claims to be defending constitutional rights and individual freedom, but it apparently has no regard for the rights or freedom of anyone who doesn't want to be surrounded by guns at all times and in all places.
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The initiative to roll back employer-imposed restrictions on guns at work has its roots in a Utah case involving workers at an America Online call center who were fired in 2000 for bringing their guns into a company parking lot. A similar case in Oklahoma led gun rights activists to press for legislation that would protect employees who bring guns to the workplace, at least when they leave the guns locked in their cars. Oklahoma’s passage of a law that purports to bar employers from taking disciplinary action workers who bring guns to work in their automobiles has led gun rights groups to extend the campaign to other states even as some companies have challenged the Oklahoma statute, and the fight over guns in the workplace appears likely to spread to courtrooms and state legislatures in several more states in the near future.