ERIK SCHELZIG
The Associated Press
NASHVILLE – Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Haslam’s support for requiring businesses to allow their workers to store guns in vehicles parked on company property conflicts with the policy in place for the 20,000 employees at a chain of truck stops his family owns.
Company spokeswoman Cynthia Moxley told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Knoxville-based Pilot Flying J prohibits workers from storing firearms in their vehicles at both its travel centers and corporate offices.
Haslam said after a speech in Nashville on Tuesday that he was unaware of the policy.
“The leadership of that company made a decision on that,” he said. “I never had a role in even talking to them about it. I didn’t even know what the rule was.”
Haslam was president of Pilot until he was elected Knoxville mayor in 2003. The company was founded by his father Jim Haslam and is now run by his brother Jimmy Haslam. The candidate maintains an unspecified stake in the company with annual revenues of $20 billion, but won’t detail how much he earns from Pilot.
Efforts to repeal a state law that lets companies decide whether to forbid employees from keeping guns in their cars while they work has pitted advocates like the National Rifle Association and Tennessee Firearms Association against business interests like the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Memphis-based Fedex Corp., whose lobbyists in committee hearings have argued that the gun ban is a workplace safety issue.
Haslam caused some confusion on the campaign trail Monday when he first said it should be up to employers to decide about gun policies on their property, but later clarified that business owners’ rights shouldn’t extend to firearms stored in locked cars.
Haslam’s gun positions have come under closer scrutiny since he told the Tennessee Firearms Association last week he would sign into law efforts to end a requirement for people to obtain state-issued permits in order to carry handguns in public.
The Republican said his personal preference is to maintain the current requirements for the state’s about 300,000 permit holders, but that he would defer to the will of the Legislature on the matter.
Haslam, who does not own a gun, said he also supports a new state law allowing handgun carry permit holders to be armed in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. The measure has been subject of two overrides of gubernatorial vetos in the last two years.