Guns in the workplace?

By Matt Field, Herald Argus

The Indiana General Assembly appears poised to pass a law allowing employees to bring guns onto work property, even if the employer objects.

Versions of the law would prevent employers from banning weapons in parking lots and allow workers to keep guns locked in their car. A final version is likely to be sent to Gov. Mitch Daniels soon.

Republican State Sen. Johnny Nugent sponsored the Senate bill. He has said it would allow hunters to hunt before or after work and allow people to defend themselves.

But where supporters see a bill giving them more freedom, major business groups and others see an encroachment on the rights of employers.

“Is Indiana crazy that they are allowing this law? They should be banning this,” said Sona Murarka, who manages Power Drive LLC, a company that manufactures machinery components and has a distribution center in Michigan City. Her company employs about 20 to 25 people in the city.

The company has a policy against bringing weapons onto company property, but Murarka does not know what the company will do if the state approves the law.

“We are not going to approve it,” she said. “Why are we going to allow employees to bring weapons on the parking lot?”

George Raymond, Indiana Chamber of Commerce vice president for human resources and labor relations, said the organization is opposed to the new gun law. Raymond said businesses should be able to decide its own policies.

“Now, you’re taking away my right as property owner to say what can or cannot be brought on to my property,” Raymond said.

He said large companies such as Eli Lilly and chemical companies are worried about the new law. If the bill passes, his group and others will ask the governor to veto it, he said. The bills that passed each chamber passed with wide margins, though, and Raymond believes even if Daniels vetoes the bill, there may be enough votes to overturn it. The National Rifle Association believes the right to self-defense is more important than the rights of employers in this case.

“We absolutely, 100 percent respect property rights,” NRA spokeswoman Rachel Parsons said. “However, we think our constitutional freedom for self protection trumps that.”

Michigan City consultant Nora Akins said the bill will make workplaces less safe. Akins, who owns Strategic Management, a local human resources company, said employers have a responsibility to provide a safe workplace.

“I also think that having a gun in proximity — should somebody get mad — that somebody would go into the parking lot and get their gun,” said Akins, adding that if people had to drive home to get their gun, they would have time to calm down.

Dave Kempf, owner of Kempf Gun Shop in Michigan City, doesn’t think that’s the case.

“If you’re intending to shoot somebody, you’re doing something a lot more serious than breaking some regulation,” he said.

Parsons said passing the law would not make workplaces less safe.

“There’s several states across the country that have this type of legislation in place,” she said, “and they’ve never seen a problem.”

Nationwide the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there were 517 workplace homicides in 2008, down from a 1994 high of 1,080. The data do not list homicide figures just for those who were killed with guns.

Michigan City Police Chief Ben Neitzel said his officers don’t assume that because there is a rule against bringing guns to work, people don’t have them.

“We should mentally go into a situation prepared for anything,” he said.

Neitzel wouldn’t get into whether he supports the potential new law.

“Our job is to enforce the laws the legislature makes,” he said.