10th Circuit allows Oklahoma workers to have guns in vehicles

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Oklahoma’s law allowing employees to have guns at work in their locked vehicles is valid.

The ruling overturns a court order by a Tulsa judge in 2007.

A panel decided 3-0 that U.S. District Judge Terrence Kern erred in concluding that the law is pre-empted by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act.

In an unusual step, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson had an attorney for the National Rifle Association, instead of one of his own lawyers, argue the case before the appeals court in November. The court had allowed the NRA to submit arguments as a “friend of the court.”

The judges said Kern’s ruling “interferes with Oklahoma’s police powers and essentially promulgates a court-made safety standard — a standard which OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has explicitly refrained from implementing on its own. Such action is beyond the province of federal courts.”

"We disagree,” the appellate judges in Denver wrote. "OSHA is aware of the controversy surrounding firearms in the workplace and has consciously decided not to adopt a standard (banning firearms from the workplace).”

The appellate judges said Kern’s ruling "interferes with Oklahoma’s police powers and essentially promulgates a court-made safety standard. ... Such action is beyond the province of federal courts.”

The law, which allows nonfelons to lock legal guns in their vehicles while parked at work, was passed in two stages in 2004 and 2005.

The law was proposed by legislators after Weyerhauser reportedly fired eight workers who violated policy by having guns in their vehicles at a mill in southeastern Oklahoma.