What was company policy on employee discharge? Assuming it wasn't an employment-at-will situation, since the discharged employees must have had grounds in court, was there a breach of implied covenant of good faith? The employees had guns in their vehicles, an apparent breach on their part, but did the company also breach the contract by denying them due process by not giving them a chance to correct the offense? Did the company act without notice by conducting a search of employee vehicles--an action that may or may not have happened in the past? Was it company policy to threaten employees with termination if they did not consent to what amounted to an invasion of their privacy, given the company's track record? Again, a violation of due process by denying them a chance to correct their wrong if there had been no searchs in the past, this was unannounced, and the employees were operating on past company enforcement of policy.
Was the search limited to guns? Does company policy forbid other articles in employee vehicles? Civil rights legislation doesn't recognize gun owners as a protected class, but I hazard that the 2nd A does protect them as a class. Were all vehicles searched? If not, then gun owners were singled out and they have legal standing as a protected class based on the SA and the company is guilty of intentional disparate-treatment discrimination. Assuming this was the first time a search was conducted, a search that violated employees' rights to due process by not giving them an opportunity to correct their offense was the search also conducted during a scheduled hunting season? If so, why?
If we knew everything there is to know about this case, you could stop asking me the questions, huh? Just maybe they need to rewrite or eliminate all the other laws that protect job rights.