Union Pacific Loses a Bid to Override Arkansas’s Parking-Lot Gun Protection

Union Pacific’s federal-law arguments did not clear away Arkansas’s protection for guns stored in employees’ vehicles. The railroad’s case is still running.

Bearing Arms reported October 2 that U.S. District Judge Lee P. Rudofsky rejected the company’s bid for summary judgment. Union Pacific argued federal railroad laws prevented enforcement of the state’s parking-lot statute against it, including a theory based on collective bargaining.

Arkansas Code Section 11-5-117 generally prohibits a private employer from preventing an employee from keeping a lawfully possessed firearm for a lawful purpose, out of sight in a locked vehicle, where the employer allows employee parking. The dispute followed discipline imposed on an employee for a gun in his vehicle.

The ruling addresses federal preemption arguments. It is not a sweeping new Second Amendment holding, and it does not authorize carrying a gun through every workplace. The report says the judge requested a status conference on the next steps. Watch those proceedings and the statute’s specific conditions. Sign up for WTF News for the decisions that affect gun owners’ everyday lives.