Private bodyguards have the same rights as every other civilian. This means that if a state prohibits people from having firearms, private bodyguards wouldn’t be treated differently.
How then will a private unarmed bodyguard be able to protect a vip in very dangerous parts of town where almost everyone (Edit: a lot of persons) has illegally obtained firearms? Are they trained to disarm people? Or do they just scatter and bail?
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Former private security contractor here. There are duty licenses that are obtained through the agency, and the requirements vary state by state. Some states recognize permits from other states, some don’t (not unlike a concealed carry permit for civilians). There’s always an exception built into the firearm restriction laws for private security companies that have been certified by the states in which they operate, which allow the guard to carry in places they normally wouldn’t be allowed to carry. Some states and locales restrict the carrying to while the guard is on duty, some don’t.
How it works is the agency for which the guard works determines where the guards will likely be working, and contacts the appropriate authorites in order to secure the licenses for the guards they’re planning to assign. The guards sit through the necessary classes (and dear God, its a *lot* of classes), fill out the appropriate paperwork, and either the agency or the state performs the necessary criminal and background checks (sometimes both, it depends on the state). Of course there are waiting periods, during which time the potential guards attend the other various classes the states require them to take (some require first aid training, some require damn near EMT-level training, some require legal training, etc.). Hell, the first three months of my employment were spent in a classroom.
But even with all of that, there are some places private security can’t carry. A celebrity isn’t taking their armed guards into a government building, be it city, state, or federal (there *are* diplomatic exceptions to everything, but a diplomat’s guards still aren’t carrying into, say, the White House).
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