Republican-dominated legislatures in at least four states areplanning to consider allowing employees to bring guns to work,turning two of the party's traditional constituencies against eachother: gun-rights supporters and businesses.

The measures, backed by the National Rifle Association, wouldallow workers in Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina andPennsylvania to keep the weapons locked and hidden in their cars inemployee parking areas. Seventeen states have approved similarmeasures since 2003, according to a tally by the Law Center toPrevent Gun Violence in San Francisco.

The laws extend gun rights onto property controlled by privateemployers, prompting opposition from companies such as FedEx Corp.and Volkswagen AG. The proposals are creating a dilemma forRepublicans, said Robert Spitzer, chairman of the political sciencedepartment at the State University of New York at Cortland.

“The gun rights movement is now colliding against traditionalbusiness interests,” Spitzer said. “It's a direct clash between avalues issue and an economic one and both of these competing forcesare particularly strong within the Republican Party.”

The conflict has torn allegiances even among legislators whoconsider themselves strong backers of the U.S. Constitution'sSecond Amendment right to bear arms, as happened this year inTennessee when the NRA, the Fairfax, Virginia-based pro-gunorganization, helped defeat Republican House caucus leader DebraMaggart in a primary. Maggart, who says she is a gun-rightssupporter, had opposed a workplace firearms law because of concernsthat it violated business and property rights.

“I am the most pro-Second Amendment person you can meet,”Maggart said in an interview. “I had a perfect voting record withthe NRA.”

The law's proponents say the measures are needed to protectemployees during their commutes. They say that employers who banguns on their property are preventing workers from possessing theirweapons when they commute, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

“This provides safety and protection for workers who oftentimestravel 20 to 50 miles to their jobs,” said Alabama state SenatorRoger Bedford, a Democrat who has introduced a parking lot gun lawin the state's Republican-controlled legislature.

Second Amendment

Bedford said he introduced the measure at the request ofconstituents. He couldn't point to any incident in which a commuterwould have benefited from having a gun in the car.

“The problem we have is that businesses are being allowed toerode and take away our Second Amendment right to bear arms,” hesaid. “The guns would only be allowed for legally licensed people,and they'd have to be locked up and out of sight.”

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam didn't return four calls forcomment about workplace gun laws.

Opponents say the laws threaten employers' ability to controlworkplace safety and violate their property rights in the name ofgun rights.

Workplace homicides average about 500 a year in the U.S.,according to studies by ASIS International Foundation, anAlexandria, Virginia-based security professional association, andby the U.S. Justice Department. Shootings accounted for 80 percentof workplace homicides between 2005 and 2009, with most involvingrobberies and 21 percent stemming from employee disputes, accordingto the 2011 Justice report.

Guns-to-work legislation has failed in 12 states in the past twoyears, including Alabama, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and SouthCarolina, where lawmakers say they'll push the measures aslegislatures convene next year.

Darrell Scott, a lobbyist with the South Carolina Chamber ofCommerce in Columbia, said the bill is widely opposed by thebusinesses in his state because it limits their ability to controlto set policy on their property.

In Tennessee, FedEx, Volkswagen and the Tennessee Chamber ofCommerce & Industry worked to defeat or modify the workplacegun law, opposing the NRA and the Tennessee Firearms Association, agroup that promotes the right to bear arms.

“We believe that a property owner's right to provide a safe workenvironment trumps an individual's right to possess a firearm onthe owner's property,” said Maury Donahue, a spokeswoman forMemphis, Tennessee-based FedEx, in an e-mail.

Reid Albert, in charge of security for Volkswagen's Chattanoogaoperations, told lawmakers the measure could endanger 3,300 workerswho park in company lots. Dismissals and parking lot argumentsmight both become more dangerous if guns are allowed in cars at theworkplace, he said.

Protecting Lives

“Gun violence in the workplace is a real and ever presentthreat,” he said in testimony earlier this year. “A law whichprevents an employer from addressing this situation hinders myability to protect the lives of all employees at Volkswagen,Chattanooga.”

Richard Archie, a member of the Tennessee Firearms Association,said he pushed for the law to protect his 34-year-old daughter, aschool teacher who commutes through dangerous parts of Jackson,Tennessee.

House Republican leaders killed the bill in a procedural moveafter the NRA didn't agree to an opt-out provision or liabilityprotection for property owners, said Maggart, who was the only oneof those leaders with a primary challenger.

The NRA ran an advertising campaign against her, calling her anenemy of the Constitution who had killed gun rights behind closeddoors. Billboards and pamphlets linked her with DemocraticPresident Barack Obama and special interests: “Bless her heart,”said one. “Debra Maggart has lost her way.”

“I couldn't overcome it,” she said.

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