Request By:
State Representative Bob Heleringer
Opinion
Opinion By: Albert B. Chandler III, Attorney General; Ross T. Carter, Assistant Attorney General
Opinion of the Attorney General
We have been asked to resolve an apparent conflict or ambiguity in two sentences of KRS 237.110(13). The KRS section in question authorizes the carrying of concealed deadly weapons by properly licensed individuals. Subsection 13 deals with the carrying of these weapons on business premises. The two sentences said to be in conflict are the following:
[A] private business enterprise . . . may prohibit employees, not authorized by the employer, holding concealed deadly weapons licenses from carrying concealed deadly weapons on the property of the employer.
An employer . . . may not prohibit employees or other persons holding a concealed deadly weapons license from carrying concealed deadly weapons in vehicles owned by the employee.
Under these provisions an employer may prohibit employees from carrying concealed deadly weapons on the employer's property, but may not prohibit the employees from carrying concealed deadly weapons in the employees' personally owned vehicles. The question that was bound to arise is, what happens when the private vehicle containing a deadly weapon is parked on the employer's premises? May the employer use the first of the two quoted sentences to ban the weapon from the company premises, or is the employer prohibited by the second sentence from taking any action as long as the weapon remains in the privately owned vehicle?
Although it is possible to read the statute as partly in conflict with itself--yes as to premises, no as to vehicles, and thus a conflict when the vehicle is on the premises--that conflict disappears when one considers what the legislature must have meant when it referred to "deadly weapons in vehicles owned by the employee." We do not suppose that the legislature was concerned that employers might try to prohibit employees from carrying concealed weapons in their vehicles at all times and places; it borders on the absurd to fancy an employer saying, "If you work here, you may not carry a weapon in your vehicle, even if the vehicle is not used at work and never comes within fifty miles of our premises." We cannot imagine that the General Assembly's intention was to prevent employers from making such a broad prohibition. It is far more likely that employers might make rules regarding concealed weapons carried in vehicles that have some connection with the employer, either by their use on company business or their presence on company property. That is the conduct that the legislation seeks to prevent.
It would have been clearer all around if "vehicles owned by the employee" had been phrased as "vehicles owned by the employee and used on company business or located on company premises," but such additional clarification would not have changed the meaning of the statute; the only possible time that "vehicles owned by the employee" could be implicated is when the vehicles are used on company business or located on company premises. Common sense supplies the words that the General Assembly omitted; when the statute says, "An employer . . . may not prohibit employees or other persons holding a concealed deadly weapons license from carrying concealed deadly weapons in vehicles owned by the employee," it is saying, as a practical matter, "An employer . . . may not prohibit employees or other persons holding a concealed deadly weapons license from carrying concealed deadly weapons in vehicles owned by the employee and used on company business or located on company premises." Construed in this way, the statute presents no internal conflict. It provides a general rule relating to weapons on the premises, and then provides an exception to that rule for weapons located in employees' vehicles.
Our view is supported by familiar canons of statutory construction, including these: specific words take precedence over general, Kentucky Trust Company v Department of Revenue, Ky, 421 SW 2d 854 (1967); courts must harmonize statutes to give effect to all provisions, Ledford v Faulkner, Ky, 661 SW 2d 475 (1983); and legislative intent is presumed to contemplate the reasonable and probable, George v Scent, Ky, 346 SW 2d 784 (1961).