Guns in the Workplace

In my personal opinion, everybody is legally and morally entitled to own guns. The U.S. Constitution does delineate citizens' right to possess and carry arms -- a right that is often disregarded in the organizational context. In the year 2002, timberland owner and timber-products manufacturer, Weyerhaeuser, based in Seattle, sacked a number of its Oklahoma factory workers for violating the company-stipulated prohibition against keeping arms in their automobiles. This mass firing elicited a sharp outcry from gun-rights supporters such as the NRA (National Rifle Association).

These groups assert that individuals bearing a firearms license must be able to access their guns in the event they are really needed, while traveling back and forth between their homes and workplaces. According to the NRA's executive VP, Wayne Lapierre, the fact that organizations can prohibit firearms in employee automobiles represents a serious blow to the Constitutional Amendment II (Shaw). However, senior attorney working for the 'Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence', Brian Siebel, disagrees.

In his view, these regulations constitute a systematic endeavor to force arms across the whole of society and forbid anybody, right from school and college authorities to private sector firms, from banning guns on campus. Although I believe we are legally and morally entitled to gun ownership, the ethicality of this idea gets complicated if one takes into account the aspect of respecting others' wishes.

For instance, carrying a firearm into a privately owned parking space, whose owner is uncomfortable with the idea, would not be morally right -- the owner's comfort and wishes must be acknowledged and complied with. Amendment II doesn't, specifically, accord firearms owners a constitutional right to walk onto private property carrying a weapon, in opposition to the owner's wishes.

As has been rightly stated by a professor of law at Harvard University, Mark Tushnet, a person who forbids another from bringing a weapon into his/her house wouldn't be violating the latter's rights. Consequently, the American Bar Association supports corporate owners and approves of private owners' time-honored property rights to bar anyone who bears arms (Shaw). A Jacksonville-based construction firm's president, Steve Halverson, acknowledges that employers must be free to choose whether or not to permit guns into their car parks.

One should think practically and imagine one is going to somebody else's home. The home-owner is entitled to decide what happens on his/her property. Just because our views differ, we cannot blame him/her. 2) The issue, in this organizational context, deals with property rights. It is a widely accepted fact that enterprises and institutions are duty-bound to ensure maximum possible personnel and workplace safety. In the opinion of many, this also includes ensuring company premises are weapon-free.

Over 500 workplace murders occur every year -- besides this alarming figure, 1.5 million workers are attacked at their company premises, largely by ex-employees or colleagues (Shaw). Company owners express concerns that the presence of weapons close at hand serves to make precarious situations deadlier. A Jacksonville-based construction firm's president, Steve Halverson, acknowledges that employers must be free to choose whether or not to permit guns into their car parks.

In his view, the bigger problem deals with property rights as well as whether home- and company- owners should be allowed to regulate the things that come onto their property. I concur with Halverson's perspective. Gun-rights advocates argue that the claim revolving around property rights is a deliberately distracting and misleading argument. Organizations are artificial legal bodies, and not people; their rights are wholly at the state's discretion. They believe what is actually transpiring here is an anti-weapon political agenda. I disagree with this assertion.

Firms are not only concerned with property rights. They are responsible for ensuring personnel safety and implementing what, according to them, is the appropriate safety standard. 3) State laws or state governments forbid firearms owners from bringing their guns to work, as of now. This then, normally, gives organizations the liberty to formulate their own weapons policies. Of late, however, state laws have been implemented which allow workers to carry firearms to their owners' property so long as workers abide by both state and federal weapons regulations (Writer Thoughts).

This again raises the issue of individuals potentially being deprived of a means to protect themselves when commuting to their workplace, if they cannot carry arms within their automobiles and into work settings. In the end, the issue persists with regard to whether state governments must intervene or leave matters to the organization and its workforce. No state in the U.S.

has passed any law requiring corporations to permit their employees to bring firearms to work, but 4 states have enacted legislation that safeguards workers' rights keep firearms in their vehicle. Furthermore, a number of states are mulling over whether to do the same (Shaw), thus, sparking the debate. It is hard to interpret Amendment II's fairly vague language. The Amendment only states that owing to the necessity of a well-controlled Militia for the nation's security, citizens' rights "to keep and bear Arms" must not be violated.

In view of the aforementioned difficulty with interpretation, I personally feel that, in the end, the company and its personnel must sort out matters by themselves. Lastly, state laws must be looked at if they cannot reach any definite resolution. 4) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that workplace murders (largely using guns) claim the lives of over 700 individuals per annum. The Society for HRM conducted a survey, in the year 2012, which revealed that over 33% of organizations experienced violent workplace incidents (Noguchi, 2014).

Connecticut's capital, Hartford witnessed workplace violence in the year 2010 when a just-sacked employee of Hartford Distributors -- Omar Thornton -- walked into the office with a gun and took the lives of eight workers, before killing himself. With respect to organizations' sensibleness in permitting firearms in their premises (car parks and offices included), my perspective is that: Society will be in a perpetual tug-of-war in relation to gun rights and regulation. As regards public entities, gun advocates can strive for expanding Amendment II powers.

Concurrently, parties against free bearing of firearms.