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Do Guns Protect or Endanger the Workplace?

By Paul L. Kerstein

August 31, 2005 — CSO — Common sense might dictate that the presence of guns on workplace property is a recipe for disaster. Second Amendment advocates and the NRA strongly disagree. Does your right to bear arms extend to the office?

ConocoPhillips, the nation's largest oil refinery, does not believe that guns have a place at work. The company bans employees even from storing locked guns in their cars while parked in company lots, and that ban has made a lot of people angry.

Workplace shootings happen all too frequently. Handgun-Free America reports that workplace shootings almost doubled from 2002 to 2003. In 45 shootings that year, 69 people were killed and 46 were wounded. From 1994 to 2003, 164 workplace shootings claimed the lives of 290 people and wounded 161. Legally, companies are liable if someone is shot on their property, and only two states, Oklahoma and Kentucky, have statutes that prohibit employers from banning weapons on their own property. A recent study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill saw an increased likelihood of homicide at companies that permitted guns at work compared to those that didn't.

The NRA protested the no-gun policy at ConocoPhillips and asked its members to boycott Conoco and Phillips 66 gas stations. Wayne LaPierre, Executive VP of the NRA, told the Christian Science Monitor that the case goes to the very core of Americans' freedom to own and travel with firearms. "It could be a blueprint for thousands of corporations to declare their parking lots anti-Second Amendment zones&"

Statistics also support Second Amendment activists. A Washington Times article claimed that the majority of academic research found that concealed handguns reduce violent crime. A recent study found that from 1977 to 1999, states that adopted right-to-carry laws in general, experienced a 60 percent drop in attack rates overall and a 78 percent drop in injuries and deaths.

Some people go so far as to argue that an unarmed workforce is an easy target for criminals and terrorists. Does the right to bear arms extend to company property? What do you think?