Earlier this month, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed a law prohibiting employers from firing employees for complying with the state’s “guns-in-trunks” statute. The new law creates another exception to Tennessee’s employment-at-will doctrine, which states that an employer can terminate an employee with or without cause and with or without notice. The law passed despite opposition from some business groups, who argued that the bill’s passage would infringe upon business owners’ private property rights.

‘Guns-in-trunks’ 2.0 ends a two year debate over the scope of the 2013 Tennessee “guns-in-trunks” law. Guns-in-trunks required employers to allow their employees with handgun carry permits to bring their firearms onto company property, so long as the employee kept their gun locked inside their vehicle out of “ordinary observation.” Since the law’s passage in 2013, some members of the state’s legislature contended that the law prohibited employers from firing employees for complying with the law. Tennessee’s then attorney general disagreed, opining that the new law only decriminalized the carrying and storage of firearms under certain circumstances and “has no impact on the employment relationship between an employer and an employee.”