LYNN HULSEY ON MAR 9, 2017
SOURCE: MCCLATCHY, SecurityInfoWatch
Ohio has joined the nation's stampede to loosen gun laws in recent years, approving laws allowing open- and concealed-carry, adopting a lethal self-defense "Castle Doctrine" measure, and now letting people bring guns onto company parking lots.
What comes next is unclear, but some gun rights advocates are pushing for laws requiring that companies allow guns inside the workplace, something that no state currently mandates but which companies can choose to do voluntarily in Ohio.
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Dana Silvey, 32, of Miami Twp., says she agrees with the new law in Ohio, which allows people with concealed-carry permits to store handguns in a locked car on company property.
But Silvey doesn't think it goes far enough.
"An even better idea would be being able to have it in the building," she said. "I think we should be able to protect ourselves. And if you're a law-abiding citizen with a permit, I don't see why not."
Interviews conducted by this newspaper show area attitudes on gun laws mirror the sharply split views Americans have on many aspects of public policy, with some arguing that more relaxed laws will make the workplace safer and others maintaining just the opposite.
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Senate Bill 199, approved in the wee hours of the final rush lame-duck session in December, pit the Republican-dominated legislature against anti-gun advocates and an unlikely ally: the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
Business groups like the chamber see the law as an infringement on their ability to control company property.
"Our opposition to it has nothing to do with anything an employee may or may not do with the firearm. It has to do with the firearm coming onto the property at all," said Don Boyd, director of labor and legal affairs for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. "Many believe property rights are just as important as other constitutional rights."
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The law is of great concern to companies handling hazardous materials, where accidental discharge of a firearm could have dangerous consequences, as well power plants and businesses doing work for the federal government, Boyd said.
Jim Irvine, chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Association, which advocated for the new law, said the U.S. Constitution clearly protects a person's right to bear arms, and restricting that right endangers society.
"For any business that tells you they don't like this, ask them, 'Are you willing to take the liability for the 25-year-old single mother who gets car-jacked on the way home?'" Irvine said. "There is no right to be free of guns. There is no right to be free of stupid people. We don't have the right to be free of danger."
About a tenth of all workplace fatalities are caused by someone wielding a firearm, data compiled by this newspaper shows. In 2015 4,836 people were fatally injured at work, 486 of them by firearms, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Ohio the total number of people fatally injured at work that year was 202, 18 of whom were killed by firearms.
That ranked Ohio seventh nationally for the number of people killed by firearms at work that year.
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