So liability may be a concern, but it's clearly not the only one. What's odd is that the corporations that fought and killed this law repeatedly before it was finally passed were never able to articulate why they were opposing the law past repeating the concerns about liability--even though the law came with the liability relief from the very beginning.
Writing the blanket policy of no firearms, even in the lot, is easy. If they have to change their policy and allow exceptions in the parking lot, well, there is little hole in the dike. They like the idea of no armed personnel on property, including if the arms are in the car. it places handguns, for example, far too close to both employees and customers, and once again, we have the chance that one of our employees is just nuts.
Having an employee go to his car and arming himself is far too easy. If he has to drive home and arm himself, that's a good thing.
but it will always come back, at least the way I see it, to self protection. We want our workers and our executives safe, but not at the risk of having an incident that sparks a bad thing like a lawsuit. Again, if the company has a comprehensive policy against firearms at the workplace and zero tolerance enforcement, they are well armored for a lawsuit.
Imagine a scenario. Don Quixote brings his .380 to work every day. he works at Best buy. He leaves it in the car, and is covered by corporate toleration and state law.
Don is under a lot of stress. Sancho's burro is messing up the yard, the lady D is premenstrual, and the sea air during vacation rusted his armor. Don, being of a certain psychological mindset, gravitates towards weapons when he is feeling upset and vulnerable. It makes him feel stronger and more secure to have the steel with him. He starts carrying in the store.
It's been a rough week. people are just all over his case. and being the odd duck at work, there are people there who don't like him. Several of these people, including 3 department supervisors, are harassing him in an effort to drive him to resignation.
So, one night, a drunk is looking at televisions. Don is tired, and the drunk is aggressive. Don finally calls him an nasty name, the drunk pastes Don in the mouth, and Don, who has finally had all he can take, drills a surgically neat hole from right to left through the guys frontal lobe.
In civil court, it has just become irrelevant that the gun was in the car legally, as Don carried in the store. When the entire story is told, about the negligence of allowing a stressed employee, who was stressed because of company actions, snuck a gun into work right under the noses of all those other employees, Best Buy will be toast. Best buy will holler night and day that if the law had not allowed him to have it in the car, he would not have had it in the store, and it is the fault of the state.
opposing laws that allow in car carry is just a further extension of the blanket ban. They know that allowing guns in the cars create a one in a trillion increase in risk. They will fight it, because it is easier to defend a zero tolerance policy, and it is going to go just a little farther along the way of keeping guns out of the workplace.
Big business has no dog in the fight for personal liberties. They don't care about the freedoms of the employees. They are going to oppress personal freedoms if necessary to keep the company safe, but of course, they will only go as far as they can get away with. I'm thinking that maybe only 1 or 2% of companies with assets over 10 million dollars will be concerned enough about personnel safety that they will take the risk of institutionalizing private carry of weapons while on work time, on premises. It's not worth the risk. Given the choice, I guarantee you, a lot of businesses would actually support totally disarming the public, because if none of their employees even own guns, well, they can't bring them to work and cause trouble.
50 years ago, you'd have had a hard time convincing anyone to believe what is going on right now. Would you younger guys beleive that I was well into my teenage years and in high school before I ever learned what it meant to sue someone?