Good and logical answer. Wish it had come earlier.
My problem with this are two-fold:
1) Discrimination against a class of people.
2) Unwarranted search of a privately owned vehicle (or did they dismiss these employees simply on hearsay?).
What you point out is that a weapon is not a weapon if it is unloaded or disassembled. It's an inanimate object (or several objects).
If the employer makes this policy clear at the time of employment, the employee has no recourse. But it sounds to me as if the policy is an emotional overreaction to the minimal danger this situation provides.
I work for Time Warner Cable and they have strong policies against smoking - yet they allow smokers to bring their cigarettes on the premesis and even to finger their precious nicotine habit inside the workplace so long as they don't actually smoke them inside the building. Imagine if they told employees they could no longer bring cigarettes onto the property, even if safely locked away in the glove compartment of an employee's car, for fear of what second-hand smoke might do to young children and the inherrent liability of the employer if a cigarette started a fire on the property, etc.
Do you think these judges would support Time Warner firing a person for holding a cigarette in the parking lot or do you think the judges would just tell Time Warner that their policy is nuts and allow smoking to continue with certain restrictions?
It's the inconsistency that bothers me which is why I see this as class discrimination. They are singling out a group of people for termination based solely on what inanimate object they have chosen to lock in their car.
BTW, your oilfield example probably restricts smoking due to the catastrophic effects that an oilfield fire could have. Am I right? Do they restrict cigarettes as much as they restrict firearms?
There is little objection to restrictions, usually because the first person immolated would be the smoker if they started a major conflagration. Legitimate safety concerns are reasonable, especially as this is not an anti-tobacco thing. Many tobacco users simply chew. However, there is no limit on tobacco products or such being on location or in an employee's vehicle, merely limits on where they are used.
As a safety measure, I do not keep smoking materials on my person, so there is no chance of inappropriately lighting a cigarette and causing (or getting blamed for) a problem. Even bic lighters used to check gas detection equipment lines have the flint removed.
As the hazardous moments are generally just that (moments) the policy makes sense. People will become lax otherwise, with possibly fatal results. Most drilling contractors are very safety concious, with active programs which include daily topical safety meetings, and active employee participation in new hazard identification. I read the bulletins posted on the rig, and am amazed at the variety of new ways people find to become injured or killed.
Most searches are instigated by an incident, complaint, or accident. There is plenty to do without snooping. My bet is that someone at AOL was talking about their firearm, or it was seen by another (non gun friendly) employee. If someone made serious threats, there would, in most quarters, be cause to check things out.