West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice waves to the crowd as he delivers his inauguration speech, Monday, Jan. 16, 2017, in Charleston, W.Va. (AP Photo/ Walter Scriptunas II)

HB 4187 passed the West Virginia senate this week by a 32-1 vote. The bill insures that while business may ban carrying firearms on their premises, they can’t prohibit guns stored in vehicles on their parking lots. Summary From HB 4187:

The purpose of this bill is to create the “Business Liability Protection Act”. The bill includes the right to limit possession of firearms on certain premises and definitions. It also provides for misdemeanor criminal offense and penalty. It prohibits employers from certain specific actions against a person when that person possesses a firearm legally, including a condition of employment. The bill provides a duty of care of public and private employers and provides for immunity from liability. The bill authorizes the Attorney General to enforce this statute, including the right to sue or seek injunctive relief; and seek civil fines.

The bill had two amendments added in the senate.

From wvgazettemail.com:

One change requires that firearms in vehicles be hidden out of view of passers-by. The second clarifies that the right to have firearms in vehicles does not apply to vehicles owned or leased to a private business or association.

The amendments were adopted on a voice vote, without debate.

The only Senator to vote nay was Corey Palumbo, (D- Kanawa, 17). Palumbo has a whopping 43% rating from the NRA and voted against constitutional carry (HB 4145) in 2016.

Twenty-two states now have similar bills that protect the right to bear arms inside of privately owned transportation while at work. The point is clear. Most people move from place to place in their privately owned vehicles. If they’re banned from having firearms in their own parked vehicles, their exercise of Second Amendment rights is effectively chilled.

The House passed the bill on the last day of the session. It’s now on its way to Governor Jim Justice for signature. While HB 4187 passed with veto-proof margins in both sides and while only a simple majority is sufficient to override a veto, the legislature will not be in session to do so.

Governor Justice has an A rating from the NRA and he’s expected to give the bill his approval.

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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18 COMMENTS

    • Codified tyranny. Neat.

      So if enough people vote, we can just ignore whatever laws (natural or otherwise) that exist.

      Great message to future generations, rather than punishing people for their crimes, it’s limit freedoms of everyone else.

    • Lets be honest, Nine… it’s been like that for a while. I may remember a time when folks would keep a shotgun or rifle plainly displayed on their truck’s window gun rack – but that was a very long time ago. We’ve gotten so accustomed to locking our vehicles and concealing our valuables from casual sight that we simply shake our heads at the foolishness of someone who doesn’t do so.
      Take your guns with you into work if you possibly can folks – remember, concealed means concealed. In any major city I know of, no vehicle should be considered a safe hiding spot for anything of value… and yes, that’s sad.

  7. The bill insures that while business may ban carrying firearms on their premises, they can’t prohibit guns stored in vehicles on their parking lots

    So gun owners are in favor of government regulations that violate the private property rights of the Job Creatorz™? 10 years ago, the libertarian magazine Reason wrote about “Gun Rights vs. Freedom? How ‘take your guns to work’ laws violate property rights” after a similar law was passed in Florida:

    Robert Levy, the Cato Institute lawyer who participated in the successful challenge of the Washington ordinance, says the Florida law “has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment.” The Constitution, he notes, is a limit on government power, not a constraint on what private individuals or corporations may do.

    A municipal government may not forbid guns to everyone on the territory under its control. But, as far as the Constitution is concerned, a private property owner certainly can

    So the law doesn’t uphold gun rights. What it does do is infringe on property rights. The Florida Chamber of Commerce makes the obvious argument that there is no right “to have a gun in your car on someone else’s property” (my emphasis). But the law tells company owners they have no control over workers who insist on bringing deadly weapons onto their premises.

    For the NRA to demand that guns be allowed in every company lot is just as oppressive as it would be for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence to insist they be prohibited in every company lot. When gun-rights advocates oppose the use of government power to suppress firearms, they are advancing freedom. When they use government power to dictate to private companies, they are harming it.

    • If the business owner allows employees to park their vehicle on company property, they are allowing a slice of the employee’s property to be inserted into the company’s property, kind of like an foreign embassy. The company cannot reasonably regulate the contents of the employee’s property. Your reasoning would make it legal for a business to disallow any aspect of the vehicle or contents whatsoever, from the presence of snacks to the color of the vehicle.

      • If the business owner allows employees to park their vehicle on company property, they are allowing a slice of the employee’s property to be inserted into the company’s property,

        You are your own property. By your logic, employers have to allow employees to carry guns on their own person at work.

        The company cannot reasonably regulate the contents of the employee’s property.

        Unless the law says otherwise, yes it can.

      • The company cannot reasonably regulate the contents of the employee’s property.

        Then how do you explain HOAs — homeowner associations, which are private corporations — regulating the use and enjoyment of a homeowner’s own private property?

        • “Then how do you explain HOAs — homeowner associations, which are private corporations — regulating the use and enjoyment of a homeowner’s own private property?”

          Because you’re a member of that association and agreed to its terms when you purchased the property? Even then, they are limited in their powers. They can’t restrict who can buy a property, or what is owned or done within the property that isn’t visible or audible. They could say what color you can paint the house, where you can park a vehicle, when your trash cans are visible, how high your grass can be, how much your dogs can bark, etc. They can’t keep you from owning a gun, drinking beer, eating Twinkies, or getting Lewinskis — that’s what wives are for.

        • “Then how do you explain HOAs — homeowner associations, which are private corporations — regulating the use and enjoyment of a homeowner’s own private property?”

          Because you’re a member of that association and agreed to its terms when you purchased the property?

          Just like employees agreed to the employer’s terms of employment.

          If the employer’s terms are “no guns in your car parked in our lot”, then the employee agreed to it.

        • “Then how do you explain HOAs — homeowner associations, which are private corporations — regulating the use and enjoyment of a homeowner’s own private property?”

          They can’t restrict who can buy a property

          Actually, that was the original purpose of HOAs — to prohibit property owners from selling to blacks, Jews, the Irish, etc. Keeping those deplorable out of neighborhoods was the original meaning of “protecting property values”.

          The only reason race restrictive covenants are no longer enforceable is because the Supreme Court said they aren’t (Shelley vs Kraemer in 1947).

          Age-restrictive covenants still exist and are legal (55 and over communities).

        • “Then how do you explain HOAs — homeowner associations, which are private corporations — regulating the use and enjoyment of a homeowner’s own private property?”

          They can’t restrict…what is owned or done within the property that isn’t visible or audible.

          Yes, they can.

          Unless otherwise prohibited by law or their own governing documents, HOAs can dictate what is “done within the property that isn’t visible or audible”.

        • “Then how do you explain HOAs — homeowner associations, which are private corporations — regulating the use and enjoyment of a homeowner’s own private property?”

          They can’t keep you from owning a gun.

          Yes, they can.

          https://www.allpropertymanagement.com/ask-a-pro/can-firearms-be-prohibited-on-properties-in-an-hoa/

          Q: Can firearms be prohibited on properties in an HOA?

          A: … case law tends to grant HOAs and condominium association boards substantial latitude to enact whatever covenants and restrictions they please, provided they are clearly spelled out in association bylaws and covenants and properly voted on and enacted in open meetings of the association board, in accordance with governing documents.

          To draw a point on it – for those who believe that living in a development that prohibits gun ownership is a dumb idea, the courts believe that while the federal government cannot disarm them, private individuals and associations have a right to be dumb. This is a foundational element of liberty. …

          … Furthermore, even where the state and local governments generally allow the private possession of firearms, the law generally allows HOA and condo boards to restrict gun possession while on their property. …

          … There is no blanket court decision dealing with the validity of HOA bans on gun possession once and for all, but the legal bias is clearly in favor of the right of HOAs to impose such a restriction if they so desire – simply on the basis of upholding the right of private individuals to enter into whatever contracts and associations they like.

          As long as the courts do not define HOAs as government or quasi-government agencies for this purpose, it will probably be allowable.

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