Law would protect employees’ gun rights, affect campus security

Christian Wright

Contributing Writer

The House of Delegates has passed a bill 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, states, “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.”

HB 171 is one of the bills tracked by The Office of the Vice President for Government Relations and Health Policy, the chief lobbying group for VCU and the VCU Health System that cultivates relationships with elected and appointed government officials in an effort to secure financial and legislative support.

According The Office of the Vice President for Government Relations and Health Policy Web site, 2127 bills have been introduced as well as 462 resolutions. Government Relations is tracking 191 education and administration bills and 233 health bills.

“This year and for the last several years there have been an awful lot of bills that deal with guns and guns on campus,” Gehring said. “We have generally tried to take the position that we as a university should be able to control our own buildings and parking facilities and so on and so forth.”

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.

The safety issue stems from 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, the 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 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 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 states.

Cheatham 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 – does not 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 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.

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