Do Workplace Gun Bans Help or Hinder Workplace Violence Prevention?
Some not-so-hypothetical law-school-style hypotheticals:
A fired employee goes out to his or her car, gets a handgun from the glove compartment, and returns to the plant/office, shooting up the workplace and killing several employees.
Attorneys for the dead employees’ survivors file three negligence claims against the employer:
- Negligent failure to protect employees, because the company did not prohibit firearms in cars on the parking lot.
- Negligent failure to allow employees to protect themselves, because the company did not permit firearms inside the plant/office.
- Negligent hiring, because better preemployment screening would have disclosed the attacker was predisposed to violence.
An employer prohibits guns on its premises, including in parked vehicles.
Gun-loving employees, supported by the NRA, sue, claiming this rule violates their Second Amendment rights. The employer claims that it is not bound by the Second Amendment, and that its rule is grounded in its property rights.
The subject of guns in the workplace is a hot topic these days, and as with everything concerning gun control there’s not too many middle-of-the roaders out there.
Some think we’re safer with more guns, even in the workplace, because people can defend themselves against criminals, who will alwys have guns (bumper sticker from my youth: “If Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns”). That view recently prevailed here in Missouri, where concealed carry is now legal, subject to some restrictions. Strong lobbying efforts support expanding concealed carry rights.
Advocates of stronger measures for workplace violence prevention, on the other hand, find it essential that employers have the right to completely bar firearms.
Personally, I don’t think it’s even a close question as to the workplace. Most employees have no reason to have guns in their cars, or in their workplace, that outweighs the risk of them “going postal” — not even the desire to get an early start on that deer hunting trip by leaving right from work.
Employers should (morally if not legally) do what is reasonable to protect employees from violence by outsiders, as in the case of employees workplace shootings of employees at convenience stores, banks, and other popular holdup targets. But this workplace violence prevention objective should be accomplished with trained security or police protection, or perhaps allowing self-protection by properly trained armed employees in very high risk jobs only.
In most workplaces, in which the biggest threat is a crazed, armed coworker, not an armed robber, workplace shootings would be best prevented by banning guns on premises, including in cars on the lot, and enforcing the ban — with random searches or otherwise, and maintaining tight restrictions on access to employer premises.
But that’s just my opinion. Read on for some other facts and thoughts on the subject.
A recent article summarizes some state law developments:
A bill recently introduced in Florida would allow employees to bring handguns to work, as long as the guns remain locked inside their vehicles. . . Utah introduced a bill last term that would challenge employers’ rights to restrict guns on their property. . . These latest initiatives follow laws passed in 2004 in Oklahoma and Kentucky that go even further in prohibiting employers from outlawing guns in the workplace.
Employers led by ConocoPhillips filed a lawsuit to overturn the Oklahoma law. That suit . . . is now pending before the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, which is considering questions over the criminal sanctions against employers who violate the law. Similarly, Minnesota is caught up in appeals over a provision passed in 2003 that prevents employers from restricting guns in company parking lots. Other states, like Ohio, have laws that allow guns in the workplace unless an employer has a written, posted policy against it.
EMPLOYMENT LAWYERS FRET
Employment lawyers say they are worried about the overall effort to allow employees easier access to guns. . . Allowing employees to keep weapons in their cars cuts down on the “cooling off” period of a disgruntled employee who has to go home to get a weapon.
In reality, the issue is more of a property rights debate than a Second Amendment question, . . . and the prevailing attitude of courts has been to allow employers to set the policy on whether to allow employees to bring guns onto their property.
The Utah Supreme Court followed that line of reasoning last year when it decided Hansen v. Am. Online Inc., 96 P.3d 950 (Utah 2004), which upheld an employer’s right to terminate employees who had violated its “no guns allowed” policy. . .
A risk management consultant . . . asserts that employers in states that allow guns in parking lots and inside their doors will have an even greater burden to ensure the physical security of employees.
law.com: “Employers’ New Worry: Guns at Work”
More on the Oklahoma case:
“ConocoPhillips supports the Second Amendment and respects the rights of law abiding citizens to own guns,” the Houston-based oil company says in a written statement. “Our primary concern is the safety of all our employees. We are simply trying to provide a safe and secure working environment for our employees by keeping guns out of our facilities, including our company parking lots.”
But gun-control opponents see the issue in constitutional terms.
“This case clearly goes to the very core of the freedom of Americans to own and travel with firearms in this country,” says Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA. If companies successfully block the Oklahoma law, “it could be a blueprint for thousands of corporations across this country to declare their parking lots anti-Second Amendment zones, which could in effect gut ‘carry’ laws in 38 states and restrict hunters on every hunting trip.” Conceivably, gun owners would have nowhere to get a sandwich or fill up with gas, he adds.
Christian Science Monitor: “Worker right or workplace danger?”
See also:
“Guns-at-work push sparks heated debate”
photo credit: tuchodi via flickr
Whether the law allows it or not, banning guns from parking lots will never work because it is unenforceable. Forget about lawyers, ask an engineer how you find a small metal object (a gun) inside a large metal object (a car). Answer: by hand. How many employees would stand for airport-style security checks five days a week? How many employers will spend the $$$ to man those checkpoints?
To wit, how many people have in the past decade actually lost their jobs this way? Any?
Long story short, buying this narrative requires one to believe that an employee in a mental state sufficient to commit murder is going to be dissuaded from bringing a gun to work based on the minor possibility that he will lose his job for doing so.
Conversely, I understand this is a law-school hypothetical, so I suppose there’s no place for the consideration that bringing guns to work can increase safety. In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king; likewise, in the gun-free office, one loony has absolute power. This question is writ large at the state level, and statistics have shown that increased rates of concealed-carry license issuance correspond to reduced levels of crime, particularly robbery and assault.
Last, there is a fundamental question, properly assigned to the Legislature, of how we balance the rights of the employer versus the rights of the individual. An employee who writes an off-hours blog on a controversial subject can bring unwanted attention to his employer.
While the company can clearly restrict the employee from doing so on company time/equipment, can they also restrict the employee from doing so on personal time? And if not, why is the 1st Amendment right different than the 2nd?
All excellent points, and thanks so much for writing.
My counterpoints:
1) No rule/law can be perfectly enforced, but even rarely enforced ones may serve valuable deterrent and normative functions.
Certainly the deer rifles will not be brought on the visible gun racks of the pickups, even if handguns may still be brought in the glove compartments. Random spot checking will create significant deterrence.
2) As I understand it, the guys in some of these litigated cases did lose their jobs.
3) The law of homicide recognizes that such acts are committed in a variety of mental states. Premeditated murder 1 may involve sufficient planning and preparation to include bringing a gun to work for the specific purpose of using it in the workplace on specific people.
But there may also be “heat of the moment” situations in which employees who routinely keep a gun in their car leave the building angry and return shooting. The argument is that if they have to go home for a weapon they might cool off, but its ready availability in the car makes the shooting more likely.
4) The argument for concealed carry as a crime deterrent is supported by some studies, but those are certainly subject to question and criticism. The progun links I provided will lead to some of the favorable material on this; from there I am certain the critiques could be found using the names of the studies’ authors and Google.
This is a position I respect and almost buy. Unfortunately, the best public safety answer, which is highly impractical, would be that individual A should be allowed concealed carry, and individual B not, taking into account a balancing of the likelihood the gun will be properly used for self-defense and will enhance overall deterrence against the likelihood it will be abused.
These probabilities vary greatly from person to person, and are hard to predict. But there are knowable factors, including where the person lives and works, their background and lifestyle (including alcohol and drug use), and the location where the gun is to be allowed or disallowed.
It is a matter of state law. Personally, I think I’d allow concealed carry, but only under quite tight restrictions, including weapons and alternative self-defense training. I might even require such persons act as a “militia,” volunteering some time for informal plainclothes street patrolling in bad neighborhoods.
But I don’t see any compelling justification for keeping a handgun or hunting gun in a car parked in a factory or office building lot that would outweigh the risk.
5) Lastly, my understanding of the law is that a private employer may terminate an employee for “expression,” on or off working time, unless it is protected concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act. The First Amendment protects against government censorship or retribution, not that of private persons or corporations. I believe the same is true of the Second Amendment.
With due respect, InfoBizBlog is insane! There certainly is no legitimate statistical evidence to support his proposition that concealed carry laws lead to a reduction in crime. The idea that having employees walking around the office or factory armed and ready for action will promote a safer working environment is simply nuts.
If a state wishes to organize a militia for the protection of citizens and allow citizens to possess weapons as a part of that effort, then the 2nd Amendment applies. However, it applies in no other context and certainly should not be looked to as a method to restrict employers from taking reasonable steps to enhance employee safety, like banning firearms in the workplace.
I’m glad to see a healthy debate here, but no name-calling please, even “with due respect.”
I agree with what Ed says, except I would point out that there is statistical evidence purporting to establish “that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes, without
increasing accidental deaths.”
See http://www.ee.ualberta.ca/~kaut/files/lott.pdf
Granted, Ed may be correct that this is not a “legitimate” conclusion from the evidence. See http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/sep05/358708.asp
But it is “some” evidence to be reckoned with.
I am a former reserve police officer who severed on an Indiana police department several years ago. I held an Indiana concealed carry permit for about 10 years, and have had my Ohio permit for a little over a year. I strongly disagree with your comment that the risks of keeping a handgun locked up in a car outweigh the benefits. Virtually all of the work place shootings I’ve heard about in Indiana and Ohio that I’ve been able to get some additional information about involved suspects who did NOT have a permit to carry their guns. Or they used a gun that did not require a permit. In the two years I served as a reserve officer, I can’t remember any cases at all where legal permit holders were involved in any crimes using the guns they were legally carrying. When crimes were committed with guns, they were always committed by people who didn’t have a permit to legally carry the gun. In both Indiana and Ohio, background checks are done on all permit applicants through the FBI’s NCIC system. Both states fingerprint applicants. You can’t get a permit if you have felony convictions or have been convicted of certain other crimes. You can’t get them if you have a history of mental illness. Of all the cases you cite of workplace violence, what percentage of them involved legal permit holders? I don’t know that number, but I’ll bet it’s less than 5% – 10%. You’re not going to stop someone who wants to get even by a handgun in the parking lot ban. They’re either going to bring the gun to work anyway, or will go home and get it. What proof is there anyway that this “cooling off” period of driving home really makes any kind of a difference? I’ve not seen any studies at all to support it. The huge problem I see with preventing employees from even keeping their guns locked in in their cars is that it effectively disarms them for every place they visit while going to and from work. I own some rental properties in some very bad neighborhoods. When I go to one of the houses after work to work on them, I’m not armed because my employer won’t let me have my gun even in my car. When I stop at the gas stations, stores, or anywhere else in those neighborhoods, I’m completely defenseless because my employer disarmed me. I frequently stop at the bank or other places when going to/from work because it’s more convenient to run those errands while I’m already mobile, or doing my lunch break. My employer has effectively disarmed me about 80% of the time I’m mobile. That makes the new Ohio CHL law almost useless to me. What about the women who face the daily threat of domestic violence from an angry ex who is bent on catching them when they’re most vulnerable in one of these no guns, criminal protection zones? She is also disarmed when she drops off or picks up her kids at school, the day care, if she has to do some shopping after leaving, work, etc. When considering all the other places people drive when going to/from work, the workplace ban significantly increases the risk to employees who can’t bring their guns to work because it effectively disarms them most of the time. The concealed carry laws would have a greater effect if so many paranod employers and business owners weren’t foolishly banning guns from their parking lots or even in their buildings. The people they need to be most concerned about are the ones who don’t have permits, and won’t obey their rules because they are CRIMINALS. They should stop putting their law abiding employees who have gone to all the trouble and expense of getting a permit from being able to defend themselves. No employer can provide as good of protection for their employees as a well armed employee can provide himself. During the entire two years I served as police officer, I was only able to prevent a gun related crime one time by being in the right place at the right time. In virtually every other situation, my fellow officers and I were there to pick up the pieces after it was all over with. The victims who were armed generally came out on top. Those who weren’t were traumatized, shot, stabbed or even killed. Thank you for considering my comments.
This one won’t go away, reflecting the tough choices involved. The last comment certainly provides some justifications for gun-in-car-at-work I had not thought about before. Perhaps as such an upstanding former cop he could ask special leave of the employer for an exception to the rule?
I live in Missouri, but work in Kansas. I cannot carry my gun there legally, so I leave it at home. If Kansas allows concealed carry in the future and my employer does not allow it in the parking lot I am defenseless on my way home. I work nights and get off of work between 2 am and 5 am. I drive through several bad neghborhoods on my way home, often stopping for gas. Also, there is road construction going on here and people have moved detour signs that lead down alleys and dead end streets in a very bad part of town.
Unenforceable. Sorry for beating the horse, but it’s just like most bans on guns. All you do is remove them from the good people. Anti-socials don’t care, and are simply not detoured my the rules.
While it might be fair to prohibit guns in the building. But saying I can’t keep one in my car, keeps me from having a way to defend myself when I drive to or from work. So I am assuming the employer is assuming responsibility for any crime that happen on my commute, since I have no way to defend myself.
I am a volinteer fire fighter and Newly appointed President of the BOD for the department. I am writing this to get peoples opinions. We are dealing with this question in the department now. I have spoken with many gun owners, some with ccp and some without. They all seem to be ok with not bringing there guns in the work place. That being said . I have gotten feedback from one person who says we would be violating every ones civil rights. do i not have an obligation to provide a safe work environment? If one person feels unsafe about people having guns in the building, am i providing a safe work place for that person?
Can the department be heald liable if something bad happens? Would it not look better in court if the department had a policy in place that kept guns out of the work place? Keep in mind that i am all for guns and being able to carry them but would it hurt just to keep them in the car. Please give me your advice.
Thanks
Truly on the fence with this one
Tim