2923.1210. (A) A business entity, property owner, or public or private employer may not establish, maintain, or enforce a policy or rule that prohibits or has the effect of prohibiting a person who has been issued a valid concealed handgun license from transporting or storing a firearm or ammunition when both of the following conditions are met:
(1) Each firearm and all of the ammunition remains inside the person’s privately owned motor vehicle while the person is physically present inside the motor vehicle, or each firearm and all of the ammunition is locked within the trunk, glove box, or other enclosed compartment or container within or on the person’s privately owned motor vehicle;(2) The vehicle is in a location where it is otherwise permitted to be.
All signals point the House and Senate passing this amended bill, and Gov. John Kasich signing it into law before year’s end.
So, if Ohio law is going to permit your employees to store handguns in their cars on your property, what are you, as a business, to do to protect your business, its employees, customers, vendors and others? One option is to engage in pre-work security screenings, including posting guards, installing metal detectors, and engaging in pat-down searches. The expense, however, is cost-prohibitive for most businesses, and nevertheless it is the epitome of overkill.
A logical and more cost-effective starting point for most businesses is with an Active Shooter / Emergency Action Plan, so that your business knows how to respond in the event this evil enters your workplace.
The Department of Homeland Security published a guide [pdf] on how to respond to an active shooter. The guide instructs:
- How to respond if an active shooter is in your vicinity (evacuate, hide, or, as a last resort, take action).
- How to respond when law enforcement arrives.
- How to train your staff (including implementing an Emergency Action Plan and running training exercises).
- How HR and management should prepare for, and respond during, an active shooter event.
DHS also suggests that an effective Emergency Action Plan contains each of the following:
- A preferred method for reporting fires and other emergencies.
- An evacuation policy and procedure.
- Emergency escape procedures and route assignments (i.e., floor plans, safe areas).
- Contact information for, and responsibilities of individuals to be contacted under the EAP.
- Information concerning local area hospitals (i.e., name, telephone number, and distance from your location).
- An emergency notification system.
I hope this is an issue your never business never has to confront. If you must, however, never has the proverb “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” been more apt.
The threat of an active killer hasn’t changed because of this law (which, by the way, has ALREADY been passed by the House and Senate last Friday and awaits the governor’s signature). What HAS changed is the chance that if such an attack does take place, a CHL-holder might just be able to go to their car, retrieve their firearm, and stop the attack, such as happened at Oklahoma’s Vaughan Foods in 2014. What has ALSO changed is the ability of a worker to protect themselves on the drive to and from work.
All I can say is, wow. As a gun owner and private citizen licensed to carry a concealed firearm, I’m offended and confused by some of the assumptions here. Consider these two:
“So, if Ohio law is going to permit your employees to store handguns in their cars on your property, what are you, as a business, to do to protect your business, its employees, customers, vendors and others?”
“A logical and more cost-effective starting point for most businesses is with an Active Shooter / Emergency Action Plan, so that your business knows how to respond in the event this evil enters your workplace.”
Mr. Hyman, you appear to be saying that people who have a Ohio Concealed Handgun License are a de facto threat to other employees. You suggest they are potential “active shooters.” In addition to conflating ordinary citizens with bloodthirsty criminals, overlooking the fact that license holders have gone through a criminal background check, and ignoring the statistics showing that those licensed to legally carry are more law-abiding than the general population, you are assuming that a company policy (don’t store guns in your car at work) is a deterrent to workplace violence.
If someone makes the terrible decision to show up at work and kill people, company policy or little red “no gun” signs won’t deter them any more than general criminal law will, such as laws that say “don’t murder.”
I just went through a local “Citizen Police Academy” course. Every police officer I talked to said more or less the same thing about citizens with a Concealed Handgun License: “I’m relieved when I find out the person has a CHL, because I know they’re almost certainly a good guy I can trust. It’s everyone else who worries me.”
Mr. Hyman, you have it all backwards. When a business employs people who carry concealed, even when they’re forced to store their gun in a car outside, everyone is safer!
This author is expressing exactly the sentiment that requires that concealed handgun license holders be added to the protected classes of employees. He immediately equates legal ownership and carry of a firearm and active shooters, this is propaganda. I doubt he is ignorant enough to not realize that active shooters really do not care if they are permitted to legally have a gone in their car.
Hyman’s tag line, “If a state is going to permit employees to store
handguns in their cars on your property, what is a business to do to
protect employees, customers, vendors and others?” tells me that he would like to discriminate against CHL holders, denying them jobs. I will be referencing his article as I reach out to law makers requesting a new bill with the employment protections that legal gun owning citizens need.
I appreciate any publicity you provide by circulating this article.
Yes, I understand that most (nearly all) concealed handgun license holders are not, and will never become, active shooters. The question, however, is whose rights prevail, the gun owner or the property owner. I fall on the side of the property owner, 10 times out of 10. It’s no different than retail or service establishments banning handguns from entering such establishment. All I am espousing is the proper extension of these property rights to other property owned, operated, and/or controlled by the business owner, i.e., vehicles parked in the lot.