The Second Amendment...
America's Only Homeland Security!
Be Ever Vigilant!
Posted on 02/20/2006 11:38:25 AM PST by neverdem
A federal appeals court in Denver ruled it was legal for an Oklahoma company to fire workers who violated company policy by having guns in their vehicle on the plant parking lot.
Eight former Weyerhaeuser workers sued the company after they were fired in 2002 from the company’s paper mill in Valliant in southeastern Oklahoma.
Their firings prompted legislators in 2004 to enact a law that would make it much harder for property owners and employers to ban guns from their property.
State law in effect at the time of the firings permitted property owners and employers to control the possession of weapons on their property.
Monday’s ruling upheld a decision last March by U.S. Magistrate Kimberly West in Muskogee.
The company “did not unlawfully infringe upon any right of plaintiffs in enforcing its no-firearms policy,” the judges of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in Monday’s 20-page decision.
The workers contended, among other things, plant security officers violated their federal constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures by telling them they would be fired if they did not permit a search of their vehicles. The former employees also contended the law violated their right under the Oklahoma Constitution to keep guns.
The appellate judges disagreed, quoting the state Constitution: “Nothing herein contained shall prevent the Legislature from regulating the carrying of weapons.”
The law was “an example of the kind of reasonable regulation of firearms” that was permitted by the state Constitution, the Legislature and the Oklahoma courts, the judges wrote.
“Employers have an interest in controlling their property as well as in the safety of the workplace and citizens have the right to bear arms subject to lawful regulation of that right,” Garfield County District Attorney Cathy Stocker said.
She said those two interests can sometimes conflict.
“They did in 2002 when the workers ... were fired for violating what was found to be a lawful policy of their employer under the law at the time that allowed property owners and employers to control possession of weapons on their property,” Stocker said.
“Now the law has been changed and those conflicting interests have prompted a challenge to the new statute, this time by employers asserting their interests.”
Brian Hayden, vice president of Advance Food Co., said his company has a gun policy similar to Weyerhaeuser’s.
“We do have a policy that prevents that,” Hayden said of employees having guns on company property. “We’ve had that policy at least 10 years, and we have not had any problems with it.”
Hayden said we’ve all heard stories about violence in the workplace and “that’s why we have policies about guns.”
Enid News & Eagle reporter Cass Rains contributed to this story.
I guess he's never heard of people hurt or killed because they couldn't defend themselves.
Yes very interesting since the "car" is not the property of the company but of the worker.
So its safe to say that a company will have no problem being sued by the family of an employee killed by someone on the company's property who could have defended him/her self from such attack?
How many such policies have actually prevented violence?
ZERO.
This is all about creating a stigma.
The issue should be whether one can remove it from the car while on another's property.
The Second Amendment...
America's Only Homeland Security!
Be Ever Vigilant!
How is a hunter to go hunting after work?
That happens already. People have been assaulted in store parking lots and have sued the store for inadequate security.
Are you saying that if the person was carrying a weapon and was assaulted before they could use it, they couldn't sue because the store/employer gave them the opportunity to defend themselves? Interesting.
SC case law has previously said an RV can be considered an abode. maybe they should all drive RV's full of guns to the company lot.
Why should the owners care when they just fear the cost of insurance and potential liabilty?
When are people going to learn that the Constitution controls the actions of the government with respect to the citizens, not the actions of an employer with respect to its employees?
The federal government does not let much on their facilities either.
"The federal government does not let much on their facilities either."
I have worked at numerous Federal facilities. At none of those was I allowed to bring fire-arms on the premisis. As a matter of fact, I am betting that employers who DO allow firearms on the premisis are in the significant minority.
He who own the land, calls the shots.
Yes, the land is *owned* by the company owner just the same as the land around my house is *owned* by my wife and I. I want my property rights protected to the point where I have control over who shall come onto my property and I want control over what that person may or may not be permitted to bring onto my property.
I do believe all property owners should have the authority to control their private property.
The reason why I placed *'s before and after the word "owned" is that I don't want anyone to think I am ignorant about non payment of taxes and foreclosure laws which can result in the sale of private property. That is another issue entirely.
If your employer doesn't want to permit you to bring your personal weapons onto their private property then quit and find another job somewhere else. That is what I would do. The other option is to carry concealed and deal with the results of being discovered later.
"If your employer doesn't want to permit you to bring your personal weapons onto their private property then quit and find another job somewhere else. That is what I would do. The other option is to carry concealed and deal with the results of being discovered later."
In a nutshell.
Is there any reason those same employees shouldn't have presumed that their contract to work for that company included what had become precedent? If they had come to work every day for the last year or more, and if they had had firearms in their vehicles before, why would they be in the wrong for presuming they couldn't continue to follow that policy?
And then there's the privacy issue. More or less related to the above, and to the presumption that we have a natural right to privacy, why should their jobs be subject to loss simply because a company decided that morning to change what had been the norm?
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