That’s the rather interesting question from The Christian Science Monitor which has an article up about a teacher in Medford, Oregon, who wants to bring her Glock 9mm to school with her and is filing a lawsuit so she can do just that.

This is an issue that usually comes up after school shootings (Virginia Tech, etc.), and I am generally in favor of teachers bringing guns to school.  That being said, I’ve got something of a nuanced position on this one in that I don’t think people have a right to bring their guns to work.

Now, in the instance of schools and given this trend where people/kids go nuts and start shooting up schools, I think it’d be a good idea.  But just because an employee wants to bring their gun to school doesn’t mean they have a right to do it.  And there’s some precedent for that.  Employers can already set dress codes, tell an employee where they can go and where they can’t go, and limit an employee’s access to the telephone while on the job.  Employers can also tell employees what they can and cannot say on the job (you can’t curse out customers, for instance, or talk about competitors).  So it follows that employees cannot necessarily exercise their 2nd amendment rights at their place of work either if the employer isn’t on board with it.

This all extends from private property rights.  The employer owns the business (or works for the people who own the business) and thus it is his/her right to say what goes on there.  We don’t have to let people bring guns into our homes, right?  Well we don’t have to let them bring guns into our businesses either if we don’t want them to.

The same argument can be applied to smoking too, by the way, as smoking policies should be decided by the property owner and not the government.  But I digress.