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ulearn.jwu.edu
Writing Assignment 3: Have Gun, ... to Work
Due: Sunday
Directions: Read the following case study: “Have Gun,
Will Travel... to Work” (Case 8.4, pp. 312-314 in your
textbook). Once you have finished reading the article, write
a 2 page paper in which you answer question #5 under
“Discussion Questions” on p. 342: What would a
libertarian say about this issue (the “right" of employees to
keep guns in their cars in company parking lots against the
wishes of the employer)? What would a utilitarian have to
take into account? What conclusion might he or she draw?
Make sure you explain why a libertarian and a utilitarian
would reason as they did.
It is all right if you slightly exceed the 2-page limit.
However, no paper should be more than 5 pages in length.
Do not waste space retyping the question or summarizing
the article. Use the space allotted to answer the question.
This paper should be written entirely in your own words. If
you must quote from the article, quotations should be kept
short (no more than 10 words in length). There should not
be more than two quotations in this paper. Quoted language
must be placed in quotation marks and followed by a
citation. Failure to do so is plagiarism. Plagiarized
assignments will receive a 0.
No outside sources of any kind may be used when
writing this paper. People using outside sources will
receive not receive credit for this assignment. All the
information that you need to answer the question is
contained in your textbook.
Papers should be double-spaced with standard margins. Use
12-point Times New Roman type (the same size and font
used in these directions). Pages should be numbered.
CASE 8.4
Have Gun, Will Travel ... to Work
Paul Price/Getty Images
ORGANIZATIONAL THEORISTS AND EMPLOYEE
advocates frequently emphasize the importance, from both a
moral and a practical point of view, of companies' respecting
the rights of their employees. Many employees spend long
hours at work and remain tethered to the job by phone or
computer even when they are off-site; not just their careers
but also their friendships, social identity, and emotional lives
are tied up with their work. All the more reason, it seems,
that companies should recognize and respect their moral,
political, and legal rights. But enshrined in our Constitution is
one right that frequently gets overlooked in discussions of the
workplace: the right to bear arms. 88
In 2002 Weyerhaeuser, the Seattle-based timber-products
company, fired several employees at an Oklahoma plant who
were discovered to have violated company policy by keeping
guns in their vehicles. Their dismissal provoked a response from
the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun-rights advo-
cates, which since then have been lobbying for legislation that
would make it illegal for companies to bar employees from leav-
ing guns in their cars in company parking lots. Although no state
requires companies to allow workers to carry weapons into the
workplace, four states have passed laws guaranteeing them the
right to keep guns in their cars, and several other states are
weighing whether to follow suit. Gun advocates argue that
licensed gun owners should have access to their weapons in
case they need them on the trek to and from work. If an employer
can ban guns from workers' cars, "it would be a wrecking ball to
the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, says Wayne
LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA.
Brian Siebel, a senior attorney at the Brady Center to
Prevent Gun Violence, thinks otherwise. He sees these laws
as "a systematic attempt to force guns into every nook and
cranny in society and prohibit anyone, whether it's private
employers or college campuses from barring guns from
their premises." But that's not how UCLA law professor
Eugene Volokh looks at it. "It's part of the general movement,"
he says, "to allow people to have guns for self-defense not
only at home, but in public places where they're most likely
needed." For his part, LaPierre of the NRA contends that the
legal right of people to have guns for personal protection is
largely nullified if employers can ban guns from the parking
lot. "Saying you can protect yourself with a firearm when you
get off work late at night," he argues, "is meaningless if you
can't keep it in the trunk of your car when you're at work."
Interpreting the somewhat ambiguous language of the
Second Amendment is not easy. It only says, "A well-regulated
Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right
of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
All jurists agree, however, that the Second Amendment does
not make all forms of gun control unconstitutional and that,
like the rest of the Bill of Rights, it places restrictions only on
what government, not private parties, may do.
In particular, the Second Amendment does not give
gun owners a constitutionally protected right to carry their
weapons onto somebody else's private property against the
wishes of the owner. "If I said to somebody, You can't bring
your gun into my house," that person's rights would not be
violated," explains Mark Tushnet, a Harvard law professor.
For this reason, the American Bar Association sides with
business owners and endorses "the traditional property
rights of private employers and other private property own-
ers to exclude" people with firearms. Steve Halverson, pres-
ident of a Jacksonville, Florida, construction company
agrees that business owners should be allowed to decide
whether to allow weapons in their parking lots. "The larger
issue is property rights," he says, "and whether you as a
homeowner and I as a business owner ought to have the
right to say what comes onto our property." However,
Tennessee state senator Paul Stanley, a Republican sponsor
of legislation requiring that guns be allowed in company
parking lots, begs to differ. "I respect property and business
rights," he says. "But I also think that some issues need to
overshadow this. ... We have a right to keep and bear
arms. Other gun advocates think that the property-rights
argument is a red herring. Corporations are not individuals,
they argue, but artificial legal entities, whose "rights" are
entirely at the discretion of the state. What's really going on,
they think, is that some companies have an anti-gun politi-
cal agenda.
Property rights, however, aren't the only thing that compa-
nies are concerned about. Business and other organizations
have a widely acknowledged duty to keep their workplaces-
and their employees—as safe as possible, and that means,
many of them believe, keeping their campuses free of weap-
ons. There are more than five hundred workplace homicides
per year, in addition, 1.5 million employees are assaulted at
work, many of them by coworkers or former employees.
Having guns anywhere in the vicinity, many employers worry,
can only make volatile situations more deadly. "There's no
need to allow guns ſinto) parking lots," says the Brady Center's
Siebel. "The increased risks are obvious." Steve Halveson
drives that point home, too. "1 object to anyone telling me that
we can't...take steps necessary to protect our employees."
For him it's no different from banning guns from his construc-
tion sites or requiring workers to wear hard hats. The context
is worker safety, and that's why it's important."
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Do you have a moral, not only a legal, right to own a gun?
Assume that either the Second Amendment or state law
gives you a legal right to keep a gun in your car when you
drive. Do you also have a moral right to do this? Do you
have either a moral or a legal right to park a car with a
loaded gun in a privately owned public parking lot regard-
less of what the lot's owner wants?
2. In your view, do employees have either a moral or a legal
right to park cars with guns in them in the company
parking lot? If so, what about the property rights and
safety concerns of employers? If employees don't have
this right, would it be good policy for companies to allow
them to stow guns in their cars anyway? Do companies
have good grounds for being concerned about weapons
in their parking lots?
3. Do you agree with the NRA that if companies ban guns
from their parking lots, this restriction would take “a
wrecking ball to the Second Amendment” or nullify the
right of people to have weapons for self-defense? Explain
why or why not. In your view, have gun advocates been
guilty of politicizing this issue? Do you think state legisla-
tures are right to get involved, or should the matter be left
to companies and employees to settle?
4. Because the workplace is the company's private property,
the company could choose, if it wished, to allow employ-
ees to bring guns not only into the parking lot but also
into the workplace itself. Are there ever circumstances
in which doing so might be reasonable? Or would the
presence of guns automatically violate the rights of other
employees to be guaranteed a safe working environment?
5. What would a libertarian say about this issue? What con-
siderations would a utilitarian have to take into account?
What conclusion might he or she draw?
6. If you were on a company's board of directors, what policy
would you recommend regarding handguns, rifles, or other
weapons in employees' cars? In making your recommenda-
tion, what factors would you take into account? Would it
make a difference how large the company was, the nature
of its workforce, or where it was located? If you support
banning firearms from the parking lot, what steps, if any, do
you think the company should take to enforce that policy?
7. Explain whether (and why) you agree or disagree with the
following argument: “If employees have a right to keep guns
in the parking lot, then they also have a right to bring them
into workplace. After all, we're only talking about licensed,
responsible owners, and the same rationale applies: An
employee might need a weapon for self-protection. What if
a lunatic starts shooting up the company?"
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