Property Rights Versus RKBAThe NRA has mounted a full attack on employers who forbid their workers to bring firearms on company property. NRA EVP Wayne LaPierre announced yesterday a billboard campaign and boycott of ConocoPhillips. The oil and energy company is challenging a new Oklahoma law that gives employees the right to keep firearms in their cars at the workplace.
At issue are the competing employee right of self-protection and the property rights of employers. Business owners claim the right to make their property off-limits to firearms. But this amounts to a practical ban on their own employees' right to self-defense. Who should prevail?
We know from numerous workplace and school shootings that banning firearms from the workplace and schools has a cost that is measured in lives.
On the other hand, aside from the anti-gun rights prejudice that we know exists in the leadership of many companies, executives are doubtless trying to avoid liability arising from any injurious use of a firearm. This may change if victims of workplace or school violence start holding responsible those executives and school officials who left them defenseless in the face of a lethal threat. No company policy should deprive any person of the natural right of self-defense.
http://www.claremont.org/localliberty/archives/003543.html.
