I had not thought about this much until I read this blog post on the craziest gun laws in the United States. Consider this:
“Property rights end where gun rights begin: According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 17 states, including Oklahoma and Florida, bar employers from preventing their employees from bringing guns to work and keeping them locked in their vehicles, even if those vehicles are on the property of the employer. Indiana and North Dakota allow employees to sue their employers for damages if asked about gun possession. The North Dakota statue specifically bars employers from asking if employees’ vehicles parked on company property have weapons in them. Georgia bars employers from making employment conditional on not bringing guns to work.”
My question is this – do these laws have exemptions for employees of religious bodies? And if so, are these exemptions narrowly defined to places of worship or are they broad-based – encompassing schools, hospitals, and charitable institutions, for example? I think you can see why I am asking this question. This was really the crux of the issue with the contraception mandate – not the contraceptives per se, but the right of the Church as a vital mediating institution to be allowed the appropriate degree of autonomy in its legitimate sphere of influence. And a Catholic employer certainly has the right to demand a work environment that is free of weapons.
Can the lawyers help me out here?
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