The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently upheld an employee’s right to sue his Mississippi employer for firing him because he kept a registered gun in his locked car while parked in a company parking lot, finding that a state law allowing employees to store guns in their cars on company property overrode the employer’s “no guns on company property” policy.
The decision by the Fifth Circuit in Swindol v. Aurora Flight Sciences Corp., 832 F.3d 492 (2016), serves as a reminder that nearly half the states have so-called state “parking lot gun laws” that generally make it illegal for an employer to prohibit an employee from keeping a firearm in his or her locked vehicle while parked in a company parking lot.
Including Mississippi, 22 states have parking lot gun laws on the books.
A copy of the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in Swindol is available here.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.