The Patriot Post® · Tennessee's New Pro-Gun Law Gets It Right

The Tennessee governor’s mansion is occupied by a Republican, and the GOP owns supermajorities in both the House and Senate. The result has been a wave of pro-gun measures, including a “Guns in Parking Lots” law approved in 2013 that gives employees the legal right to store a firearm inside personal vehicles even if it’s against an employer’s inclinations. The move was a good one; the problem is that “an attorney general’s opinion later found that while the law decriminalized the actions of those who ignored posted gun bans on private property, employers could still terminate workers for violating company firearms policies,” explains WTVC News Channel 9. Last week, the legislature passed and Gov. Bill Haslam signed a fix that allows fired persons the ability to take legal action. Now, even some Republicans contend the new law infringes on employers’ rights. But that’s misguided — businesses still have the right to ban firearms, but vehicles don’t belong to the employer. As Hot Air blogger Jazz Shaw concludes, “This law seems to me to have been a good compromise. The employer can bar carrying weapons in the workplace, but the employee’s car is not the workplace. And punishing them for such storage is an unreasonable burden on their constitutional rights.” Tennessee hit the bull’s-eye on this one. More…