Both bills appear to be on track for passage...

SB78:

A few years ago, some AOL employees in Ogden were fired from AOL because they were seen transferring guns from one car to another in the parking lot. Heck, the parking lot was not exclusively an AOL lot, but AOL fired them anyway for having firearms on company property.

This bill will pretty much put an end to that kind of nonsense.

One thing it does is change the balance of risk for an employer. Basically, if an employer forbids firearms in employee cars in the parking lot, and you're injured or killed by a nut case because you can't get to your gun, the employer is liable. Nice.

Beyond that, if your gun is locked in the trunk and out of sight, the owner of the parking lot has nothing to say about it.

As attorney Mitch Vilos is fond of saying, "Remember the AOL-amo."

HB357:

This bill changes some of the basic firearms laws, for the better.

1. Your right to have a concealed firearm is now formally extended to your car, a car you are in by permission of the owner, your home or hotel room, and the real property your home is on, with or without a permit.

2. As before, if you are hunting protected or unprotected wildlife, you are allowed to have a concealed firearm with a barrel at least 4" long, as long as you are not shooting from a road or within city limits, with or without a permit. So if you stuff your 22 in your jacket pocket, it's no worries officer, just out plinking jackrabbits. Amazingly, most concealed carry seems to be OK outside of town.

3. You can't have a loaded shotgun, rifle, or muzzleloader in a car. Handguns are missing from that list. Concealed permit holders are exempt from this requirement.

4. Concealed permint holders are pretty much exempt from all the restrictions. Interestingly, the bill exempts "any person to whom a permit to carry a concealed firearm has been issued." That seems to exempt anyone who has ever held a concealed weapons permit, not just a current holder.


Be not weary in well doing.