Federal Judge Strikes Down Guns In Car Bill
I’ve always been lukewarm on these sorts of bills by reasoning that an employer can control what happens on their property and an employee can control what happens in his. And his car is his property. But a judge basically said that banning guns is consistent with OSHA. That’s a rather stupid ruling because, as shown numerous times, a prevalence of firearms does not lead to an increase in violence. And particularly I cannot possibly see how guns locked up in a car in a parking lot can make a workplace unsafe.
In other news, I won’t buy anything from Whirlpool, ConocoPhillips or Williams Co.
October 9th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Good luck in avoiding Williams. If your house uses natural gas, you’re doing business with Williams.
October 9th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I figure that, if the government can prohibit folks from firing people over gender, sex, race, religion, creed, looking weird, or any other of dozens of protected classes, the government can prohibit folks from firing people over executing a constitutional right.
October 9th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
ConocoPhillips doesn’t own many of the Conoco, Phillips, or Union 76 retail outlets. Almost all their business is trading commodities with other energy companies, or buying crude to refine and selling the products to other companies (Shell, BP, Continental Airlines, etc).
That said, I think they ban guns simply for liability reasons. Because their employees at the Houston headquarters live in Houston and work at an oil company. I guarantee you that 20% or more of the cars in their parking lot have guns in them. I went hunting after work with a ConocoPhillips guy once and dropped him off at his car in their lot afterwords. Security didn’t seem to mind the shotguns in the car.
October 10th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Note, however, that carrying on a refinery is an actual safety hazard (as we found out when Sebastian questioned why several Nevada (?) state lawmakers were required to disarm at a refinery. Source of spark + flammable fumes = BOOM.
Parking lot of an office building? You should only be able to require me to disarm if you’re willing to guarantee my personal an dindividual safety. To be fair, my employer, which does have such a policy, also agressively patrols the parking lot. But that wouldn’t help me if I had to run an errand afterwards.
(All this is hypothetical, living in the Peoples Repbulic of NJ, I can’t actually carry anyway. Which is why my househunting is taking place one state west.)