If the guns are not locked away in the vehicle, I have no problem with AOL's rights. I do have a problem, though, if the guns are locked away and are unaccessable except by the owner.
It presumes that someone may commit a crime with the gun on their premises - that's a major leap of logic.
What if somebody had marijuana in their glove compartment or cigarettes on the dashboard? Does the employer have a right to fire you because you drove a vehicle with either of these in your possession? How far do we want to take this concept?
And, somehow, I'd imagine AOL wouldn't be bright enough to fire a Middle Easterner with five tons of dynomite parked in his U-Haul on company property.
I hope this gets appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. This would appear to be a fourth admendment challenge to unlawful search and seizure. It's not like the guns are being brought into the workplace just because they are locked away in the parking lot.
Look at it this way. What restrictions do you think you'd accept about ordering people off your front lawn? Perhaps you'd be willing to let them be there with pro-Kerry signs?
Perhaps you'd be willing to let them be there with pro-Kerry signs and shotguns?
It's their stinkin' property just like any property you or I own, and why don't they get to make the rules?
I take it you have issue with Texas Right to Work laws?
By entering into the location you consent to search of your person, vehicle, and effects, at the operator or drilling companies' discretion.
While seldom used on the locations I have been on, the policy exists, and refusal to submit to searches is cause for termination of employment or being banned from that drillling contractor's rigsites.
Their policy trumps my concealed weapons permit. Their rig and jobsite.
Like it or not, that is what anti-liability/pro-safety measures have come to.
That said, in most states, an unloaded firearm, secured in a locked area, of the vehicle, especially the trunk, is legal to posess (in the absence of other disqualifying considerations) even without a concealed weapons permit. The firearm is considered 'secured'.
Field stripped, stored in separate boxes, you have "parts", not a firearm. That may be an out. Stop at the gate and put your piece back together for the drive home.