Uber Bans Guns For Drivers and Passengers

The company evidently believes that this will be a popular decision with its core customers.

But it could become an interesting constitutional, regulatory - and tax issue as questions arise about whether it's drivers are  employees or contractors and to what degree Uber 'controls its own operations versus merely coordinating them. JL

Douglas MacMillan and Joe Palazzolo report in the Wall Street Journal:

Uber’s move to ban guns could raise questions about how far the company can go in regulating the behavior of its drivers, whom it (may or may not) employ, and in controlling the experience in their cars, which it (may not) own.
Uber Technologies Inc. has become the latest high-profile company to thrust itself into the gun debate with a decision this month prohibiting drivers and passengers from carrying firearms in its fleet.
The ride-sharing company added a new policy to its website prohibiting anyone using the service from having “firearms of any kind,” a ban that resonated nationally amid renewed calls for gun restrictions in the wake of last week’s shooting at a historic church in Charleston, S.C., that killed nine people.
Efforts to pass federal gun restrictions after recent mass killings in Connecticut and Colorado failed, but gun-control groups have seized on opportunities to expand background checks and other restrictions in a half-dozen states.
They have also found a receptive audience in the private sector, which has provided a platform for the gun debate in recent years that pits firearm rights against the rights of business owners to control what happens in their domains.
In 2013, the Starbucks Corp. SBUX 1.02 % coffee chain asked its customers to refrain from carrying weapons in its stores, and its chief executive noted an increasingly “uncivil” brand of activism by groups that support laws allowing people to carry firearms openly.

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Last year, fast-food chain Jack in the Box Inc. JACK 0.87 % instituted a gun prohibition in its stores. Around the same time, Facebook Inc. FB 0.03 % and its photo-sharing service Instagram pledged to delete posts involving illegal-gun sales in the face of pressure from Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun-control group. National restaurant chains Chili’s, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and Sonic Corp. and the retailer Target Corp. have also stiffened gun restrictions in recent years.
Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said such moves fed a national conversation about the danger associated with firearms that had been lacking. “Our bottom line is we support Uber and any other company making a decision about guns based on consideration of the risks,” Mr. Gross said.
Uber can restrict firearms in its affiliated vehicles without legal consequences, but its decision could affect its business, some legal experts said.
“Uber is free to contract with whoever it wants. If it wants to only hire drivers that shave their head, they can do that,” said David Kopel, a Colorado gun-rights lawyer and law professor at the University of Denver. “I will definitely say that I will use Uber less,” he added.

Ride-sharing company Uber makes it pretty easy to book a car from point A to B. But it’s hitting major congestion from governments and local regulators, who want more information about who its drivers are.

Businesses have broad control over whether and how guns are carried on their property. But gun-rights groups have gotten laws passed in about 20 states since 2004 that allow employees to take firearms to work and store them in their vehicles, even against an employer’s wishes.
The National Rifle Association, which didn’t return requests for comment Sunday, has been a driving force behind such legislation. OpenCarry.org, which advocates for the right to wear or carry guns visibly, also didn’t return a request for comment.
Uber’s ban marks the reversal of an earlier policy that allowed guns with proper permits. It surprised even gun-control groups.
“We applaud Uber and other corporations that take the steps that they think necessary to safeguard their customers—and, in Uber’s case, their drivers and passengers,” said Erika Soto Lamb, a spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a part of Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that supports increasing the restrictions on guns.
The new Uber policy was reported by The New Republic Friday, two days after a 21-year-old white man allegedly gunned down nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. But an Uber spokesman said that the company had changed the policy on June 10.
“We have adopted a no-firearms policy to ensure that both riders and drivers feel safe and comfortable on the platform,” an Uber spokesman said in an emailed statement. “We made this policy change after assessing existing policies and carefully reviewing recent feedback from both riders and driver-partners.”In April, an Uber driver in Chicago who had just dropped off a passenger fired six shots at a man who had fired on a crowd, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. No charges were filed against the Uber driver, who had a concealed-weapon permit and who, a prosecutor said, was acting in defense of himself and others. But the incident raised questions about the ride-sharing company’s stance on guns.
The same month, an Uber spokeswoman told NBC Chicago that “the company requires all its drivers to abide by local, state and federal laws pertaining to transporting firearms in vehicles.”
Lyft Inc., Uber’s biggest rival in the U.S., prohibits guns in vehicles.
Uber’s move to ban guns could raise questions about how far the company can go in regulating the behavior of its drivers, whom it doesn’t employ, and in controlling the experience in their cars, which it doesn’t own.