http://www.richmondbizsense.com/2010/02/21/bring-your-gun-to-work-house-votes-yes/
The House of Delegates passed a bill last week ensuring that employees, customers, tenants and other Virginians can store their guns in a locked vehicle on a public parking lot.
House Bill 171, approved on a 72-27 vote, says, “No person, property owner, tenant,employer, or business entity shall maintain, establish, or enforce any policy or rule that has the effect of prohibiting a person who may lawfully possess a firearm from storing a firearm locked in or locked to a firearms rack in a motor vehicle in a parking lot, parking space, or other similar property set aside for motor vehicles.”
Currently, employers and property owners have the right to bar employees or other people from leaving a handgun in a car in their parking lot.
“Our Second Amendment rights should not be taken away because we decide to park in a parking lot to go to a business,” said the bill’s sponsor, Delegate Brenda Pogge, R-Yorktown.
However, some business owners raised issues involving safety and property rights.
“Business owners ought to regulate and determine the conduct of their employees and customers in a reasonable fashion,” said Keith Cheatham of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce.
Employers are also concerned that having guns on the premises raises the potential for workplace violence.
In 2007, Virginia had 15 shooting-related workplace fatalities, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
However, David Adams, president of the Virginia Shooting Sports Association, an affiliate of the National Rifle Association, said gun owners won’t cause problems by leaving their weapons in their cars.
“Most law-abiding gun owners are not going to do that, especially concealed gun owners that are already not committing crimes,” Adams said.
Virginia has not had a known case of an employee being fired for having a gun in his car while at work. However, firings have happened in other states.
As a result, Tennessee, Florida and Oklahoma have adopted laws similar to HB 171. The National Rifle Associations is pushing the legislation at statehouses nationwide.
The idea for such laws originated in Oklahoma, where eight employees of a company were fired for having handguns in their car while at work.
Oklahoma then passed a law to prevent such terminations. This year, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law as constitutional. A Florida court ruled the law there to be constitutional as well.
Some Virginia business owners fear HB 171 could cause headaches.
“From a loss prevention perspective to property rights, we’re living in difficult times,” said Laurie Aldrich, president of the Virginia Retail Merchants Association.
HB 171 would provide civil immunity to employers, property owners, business owners and others.
“No person, property owner, tenant, employer, or business entity shall be liable in any civil action for any occurrence that results from or is connected to the use of a firearm that was lawfully stored” in a locked parked car, the bill says.
Cheatham from the chamber said HB 171 would infringe on business owners’ property rights.
“If I don’t want to have people with guns in their car come to my property, the General Assembly doesn’t have the business to tell me,” he said.
At least one business owner – Fahs Wood of Martin and Wood Construction in Richmond – doesn’t see it that way.
“I don’t see how this infringes on my rights as an employer,” Woof said. “It’s their car, not mine.”
The legislation would affect other Virginia employers such as Dominion, one of the nation’s largest energy producers. Dominion, like a majority of employers in the area, currently prohibits employees from keeping a gun in their car while at work, company spokesman Mark Lazenby said.
A bill similar to HB 171 was introduced in 2006 by Delegate L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Woodbridge. It passed the House but was defeated in the Senate.