NRA bill would OK guns in cars at work

MiamiHerald.com ^ | Feb. 08, 2006 | MARC CAPUTO

[neverdem]

TALLAHASSEE

A bill being pushed by the NRA to allow people to keep guns in their cars on workplace parking lots faces a tough challenge from the powerful Florida Chamber of Commerce.

TALLAHASSEE - The National Rifle Association is pushing a bill that would penalize Florida employers with prison time and lawsuits if they prohibit people from keeping guns in their cars at workplace parking lots.

But the proposal is facing stiff opposition from a group just as powerful in the state capital as the NRA: Florida's biggest business lobby.

Mark Wilson, a vice president of Florida's Chamber of Commerce, which represents 136,000 businesses, said the proposal, to be voted on today in a House committee, is ''an all-out assault'' on employer-employee relations that intrudes on private property rights.

With other business groups expected to join in, the widespread opposition to the NRA bill sets the stage for a rare power struggle between two of the Legislature's mightiest lobbies. And some political observers predict that, for one of the first times in recent history, the NRA will lose in the Legislature of a state where one of every 49 people has a concealed weapons permit and an estimated six million own firearms.

Bill sponsor Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican, said he filed the legislation to prevent ''back-door gun control.'' In the past two years, he has successfully sponsored bills limiting lawsuits against gun ranges, preventing cops from compiling electronic lists of gun owners and expanding people's rights to use deadly force if they feel threatened outside their homes.

''We just disagree that the business community's private property rights trumps my Second Amendment rights,'' Baxley said, noting he doesn't personally support carrying firearms in the workplace.

Under the bill, if business owners ban guns in cars on workplace parking lots, they could get sued and charged with a third-degree felony, punishable by a maximum five-year prison sentence and a $5,000 fine. The bill has an exception for places like schools, where guns are banned by law.

Gov. Jeb Bush, who noted he helped reshape the controversial gun-range bill, said he's uncommitted right now and wants to ``let things develop a little bit.''

The measure was inspired by a case out of Oklahoma in 2002, when a dozen paper mill workers were fired after bosses found out they had guns in their cars. Oklahoma lawmakers passed a law similar to the Florida proposal, and business owners sued in federal court. Among them: ConocoPhillips. The NRA then launched a boycott, replete with billboards saying, ''ConocoPhillips is no friend of the Second Amendment.'' Since then, four states have passed laws like Oklahoma's, seven are considering them, and five killed the idea with relatively little debate, said Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

He said the Florida legislation is faring badly because it tells big business what to do.

''I don't know what the NRA is smoking,'' Hamm said. ``They're taking on the business lobby, which is just foolish.''

Wilson, the Florida chamber executive, said employers have the right to regulate what happens on their property ``just like we have dress codes, just like we have all kinds of things. As soon as we allow a national organization to decide employment terms between an employee and an employer, we've gone too far.''

Wilson added that ``this seems to be a collision between the Second Amendment rights and property rights of homeowners and businesses.''

But the NRA's Florida lobbyist, Marion Hammer, said the federal and state constitutions don't expressly recognize employer rights to regulate behavior.

''The Constitution gives you the right to bear arms,'' she said. ``It doesn't say you have a right to come to work nude or come to work wearing a bathing suit, or how long your hair can be or whether you have facial hair or whether you come to work smelling because you haven't taken a bath.''

Hammer said she's not worried about taking on the chamber of commerce: ``The chamber represents self-interests. NRA represents the people. I fear nothing, except losing freedom and losing rights.''

Miami Herald staff writer Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this report. mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com

[spunkets]

"I doubt that their is anyone here who does not support the 2nd admendment. However, a persons right to their property, and the regulation of what takes place there by those persons, is just as important.

IT ain't about the 2nd Amend. THe property in question is the employee's car. It ain't yours and you have no right to search it. It wasn't your right in the past, it was NEVER done at all, and it ain't going to be done now. That's property rights!

As far as the 2nd Amendment goes and the employee's right to self defense that's secondary. The motivation for this BS is to take that right away, because the grabbers failed in the legislatures. They don't get to violate the rights of their employees, by intimidation. Intimidation is the tool of a criminal, a petty tyrant.

A parking lot is a friggin' parking lot. It's to park cars. The employer's got no business going through the employees cars whatsoever.

[VanDeKoik]

Sigh.

Again, The parking lot is private property, it is not a public realm. If the employer makes it clear up front that they do not want firearms on their property, and reserves the right to search employees cars when they enter their facility, then they are well within their right as the property owners to do so. Their are many places that do this now. Whatever the reasons are as to why is their own.

[tpaine]

joanie-f wrote:

-- our Second Amendment RKBA does not trump the right of others to define what they are willing to abide on their own private property.

The 2nd is part of our "Law of the Land", -- as are property rights, -- neither of which 'trump' the other.
Reason dictates that a right to bear must include traveling to and from work.

-- the Florida Chamber of Commerce vs. the NRA is yet another example (albeit significantly less offensive) of encroachment on that same [private property] right.

A mandated customer/employee parking lot is not private property in a constitutional sense; it is part of doing business, -- forced on companies and employees alike by the way we commute.

The NRA may view its bill as noble, but its concept of nobility, in this case, is misplaced.

Defending our RKBA's to & from work is the correct thing to do.

A business has every right to decide whether its employees may bring potentially dangerous items onto its property – especially, but not only, due to safety and insurance concerns.

This 'dangerous' excuse is being used to bring about defacto gun control.
Business has no 'right' to ignore our public policy, our law of the land, our 2nd Amendment.

A good business, similarly, would view ensuring the safety of its employees as an obligation. If mandating that guns be disallowed on its property falls under that umbrella, then any employee who insists on carrying a gun to that place of employment is free to find employment elsewhere.
Such a business is not infringing on its employees' RKBA. It is merely defining the employees' RKBA on private property.

The employee is required to use the company lot by local ordinance. -- The employees RKBA's to & from work is being infringed.

What is the advantage of private property over public, if not the inherent ability to define the conditions under which it exists or is disposed of?

What advantage does business gain by banning guns?

Among other carefully enumerated rights, the Constitution also guarantees us the rights to free speech and free assembly. But I have the right to curb your speech on my property, simply by telling you that, if you take the name of the Lord in vain in my home, I am going to ask you to leave. And, if you decide that you want to assemble a group of people in my front yard before marching down to picket in support of a nearby abortion clinic, I have a right to tell you that your freedom of such assembling ends at my property line.

Of course you do. -- This is not at issue.

With the exception of the right to life, your individual rights end where my private property begins.

This is simply not constitutionally true when you set up your private property as a business. -- Employees have human rights that are equal to your human rights as the owner.

-- snip --

IMO, the bottom line is: If there is no inherent government coercion or legal extortion involved in the decision, a business (just as would a private individual) has every right to tell you that your gun is not allowed on its/his property.

Buildings, yes. Parking lots no. -- The people of quite a few States, [and more to come] can see through the 'dangerous item' excuse. -- Our RKBA's shall not be infringed by 'business'.

[Beagle8U]

"If I dont want guns on my property, why shouldnt you respect my rights?"

Just because you are an employer doesn't give you permission to change other peoples rights under the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

You don't get to exclude blacks and women based on race or gender.

You don't get to exclude gun owners cars from your parking lot based on their legal gun ownership.

You do have the right to exclude everyones car from your parking lot, that wouldn't be discrimination.

Try firing all your black employees because you think they might cause a problem some day, or just say they must walk to work, because you don't trust them with something they have a legal right to have in their car.

Let us know how you make out, OK ?

[Jeff Head]

Joe...we are in ageement on what we have posted, the both of us.

My only additional point is that I do not believe we should use the force of law and the government to compel a property owner, who has expressly stated they do not want fireamrs on their property, to allow those who come on that private property to do so, whether in their car or on their person...again, short of invasion or insurrection.

In essence, that would force private property to become public property (which slippery slope we are already well down) and that opens up a can of worms and set of circumstances that are just as dangerous to liberty as any other. On public property, or my own, or that of liberty minded people who feel as I do, I believe any person can and should be armed at all times at their own discretion.

I do not necessarily agree with a private property owner who establishes conditions prohibiting fire arms on their property...but I will support their right to do so on that private property. To not support that right, will mean the creation of laws that will ultimately be a two edged sword and be used to infringe on my property rights and compel me thereon.

[VanDeKoik]

If thats the case then If owned a gun shop and one of my employees brought a huge sign in his car that said "Gun owners are racist Nazis rednecks!" are you telling me that I cant tell him to take it down because it is in his car(private property) but on my parking lot? His first admendment RIGHTS go over what I choose to have on my property?

[yarddog]

I think your analogy is not an accurate one. Here is a closer one.

My Father is a hidebound Southern Baptist. His Daddy was a preacher and they grew up hating Catholics. My Father was so strong in his beliefs that he refused to go to his daughter's wedding when she married a Catholic. (His Son-in-Law is now one of his favorites).

Now suppose my Father owned a large factory. He issues an order than no St. Christopher's medals can be left in the employee's private vehicles in his parking lot. The Catholic employees don't like it but decide to not cause trouble and just put them in their glove compartments prior to parking.

Now Daddy finds out they still have them in their glove boxes and fires them all.

A legislator finds out about my Father's outrageous demands and passes a bill that they can keep them in their cars if they want.

That is an almost exact analogy. The only difference is the right to keep arms is potentially life saving. While I doubt even the most devout Catholics think the medal itself actually protects them.

[Beagle8U]

That might infringe on your rights because it may drive customers away.

It would seem that you wouldn't want that employee anyway, let him keep his sign, he likely wouldn't last long after he left work for the day.

But that is a great strawman, using a case of and employee that is causing great harm to your company, to counter one that causes you no harm at all.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Why are you afraid of your employees?"

That's bulls#it.

Defending my rights as a property owner from being infringed on by the government at the bequest of the mob is not being afraid of anyone.

I stand on the side of property rights with people in this like Jeff Head, joannief, and B4Ranch...hardly a crowd who is associated with big government statists and gun grabbers.

When you reach the edge of my property, be that my home, my parking lot, or my place of business you have choice; enter my property under my terms, or don't accept them and not enter; your rights have not been infringed.

When you reach the edge of my property, receive my terms, and decide to use the force of government to impose your terms on my property, my rights have been violated, AS HAVE YOURS.

If a right is violated for one, it is violated for all.

If I fear something, I fear the notion from some, who believe themselves to be conservatives, who claim that we live in a democracy, and advocate the force of government being utilized to violate the individual rights of the few, at the bequest of the mob.

On the debate over who is right and who is wrong here, one side is standing on one of the most basic traditional of conservative values...the right to what is mine own.

"The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." -- Karl Marx

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence." -- John Adams

These two quotes, from the father of Communism and a Founding Father, summarize the conflict between competing ideologies. Private property rights are the cornerstone of liberty and freedom, and the forces of socialism and collectivism seek to crack that foundation. -- Source

Who is using the pen to abrogate a right here?

Is it me who is giving you the choice of entering my property on my terms, or not entering my property on yours, or is it you who is using the force of government to enter my property on your terms, and against my expressed wishes?

You want to infiringe on my right to property in the name of your right to park conveniently.

I stand on the side of individual rights, you are standing on the side of collectivism.

[tpaine]

Jeff Head wrote:

I do not believe we should use the force of law and the government to compel a property owner, who has expressly stated they do not want firearms on their property, to allow those who come on that private property to do so, whether in their car or on their person..

Jeff, business property owners are required to honor the US Constitution, just like the rest of us. We have a right to bear arms to & from work.
Business property owners are trying to infringe upon that right by using the excuse that safety concerns gives them the right to ban dangerous weapons from employees cars.

It is Constitutional to use the force of law and the government to require that parking lot property owners allow guns in parked cars -- as this complies with our Law of the Land, the 2nd Amendment.

[joanie-f]

When I refer to ‘private property’ (and specifically in the case of this argument), I define it as owned by individuals (whether it be a single individual, a family, a large group of stockholders represented by an elected board of directors, etc.) as opposed to government-regulated 'public property'.

And allowing the government to make rules as to how I determine my private property will be used (whether ‘I’ be a single individual, a family, or a large group of stockholders) is as foreign to the blueprint for this republic as allowing the government to tell me what color I must paint my house or my business.

Assuming that Business has no 'right' to ignore our public policy …

Just what do you include in the vague term ‘our public policy’? Do you also include the New London ‘public policy’ that the New London Development Corporation has a right to seize Susette Kelo’s property for development purposes? (I’m sure you don’t, being that the largest portion of your post simply reeks (pleasantly :) of a belief in conservative ideology). My point is, why the adulation of ‘public policy’? Especially when it infringes on property rights?

If I build a small business in town, and logically construct a small parking lot for my prospective employees, that lot is my private property. The fact that I do business on that private property does not diminish the fact that it is mine. If I am an extraordinarily eccentric person, I have the Constitutional right to tell my employees that they are not allowed to wear pink shirts to work, or park non-American-made cars on my lot (unconstitutional civil rights laws notwithstanding).

What advantage does business gain by banning guns?

That’s a very good question for which I myself do not believe there is a reasonable answer. (As squantos wrote in a post above, and I share his sentiments: I won't work where I can't carry, and I won't spend my money where I can't carry). But neither is it my constitutional right to second-guess a business’s decisions as to how it manages its property. I simply would not choose to work for such a business.

I am an elected official in my township and I often do work in my office at night, when the building is empty, except for the occasional police officer doing paperwork on a lower floor. I now carry my .38 with me during those hours. If all of the above were the same, but I worked for a privately-owned company, and that company handed down a regulation that disallowed me from carrying on company property (whether it be in the company building or parking lot), I would think the company extremely foolish and no doubt buckling under the pressures of political correctness, and I would look for work elsewhere. I most definitely would not seek to stifle, through government regulation, the company’s ability to make such decisions.

If we, as citizens, attempt to force other citizens to justify their personal property decisions, because we ourselves vehemently disagree with them, then we are no better than our ever-more-tyrannical government that seeks to regulate (and often succeeds) every decision that business makes.

The Constitution clearly delineates the limited powers of government. Conservative ideology seeks to reflect that belief in our state and local governments as well. The power to tell individual people, or the businesses they own, what they can and cannot allow on their property (short of items that disrupt domestic tranquility and threaten general welfare) plays no part in the Founders’ vision of the role of any government based on republican principles.

~ joanie ....

[VanDeKoik]

Its not about who causes harm. It is about two examples constitutional rights and the right of private property owners to regulate what takes place on their property. I could not fire the guy with the sign because of what he believes, I would make it clear that he cannot have a sign saying it on my property though. The same goes with the gun owner. He can keep and bear arms if he wishes, but on MY property I can have a no gun policy.

Here is another example. What if one of your kids decides to date a person that comes to your house with a "Bush is Hitler" or "Death to the 2nd Amendment" T-shirt on all the time. As the owner of the home are you telling me that you cannot tell this person that he cannot have that shirt on in your home because of his right to free speech? This isn't a strawman argument. It is a logical question that follows the view of some here that private property rules do not trump your constitional rights.

[tpaine]

Luis claims:

I stand on the side of individual rights, you are standing on the side of collectivism.

You stand on the side of banning employees guns from parking lots luis.

There is no Constitutional right to park tommy...I don't care how much you try to twist this into a Second Amendment issue, it isn't, it's a parking issue.

It's both. Most all of us commute to work in cars and you want to stop employees from having a gun in that car.

My employee absolutely retains his right to bear arms, until the moment that he enters my property,

See? You claim he's lost his RKBA's by entering. Rational States like Alaska, Oklahoma and Utah differ, as well may the USSC, if the issue ever comes before them.

at that moment, my property rights take over and he is allowed on my property only with my approval.

In the real world employees are required to park on your property, by local ordinance.

Bull hockers...I live in the real world, and employees are not required to drive to work, let alone park some place specifically.

Deny reality if you must luis, but in most of the USA, mandated company parking is a fact of local law.

[stuartcr]

As it should be. It's just unfortunate for those of us that work on military bases, that we can't carry our personal weapons with us during the work week.

[Beagle8U]

"Here is another example. What if one of your kids decides to date a person that comes to your house with a "Bush is Hitler" or "Death to the 2nd Amendment" T-shirt on all the time. As the owner of the home are you telling me that you cannot tell this person that he cannot have that shirt on in your home because of his right to free speech? This isn't a strawman argument. It is a logical question that follows the view of some here that private property rules do not trump your constitional rights."

Great point. You have the right to exclude persons that are morons from your home, and from searching you private auto.

Thanks for playing, we have some parting gifts for you off stage.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"You stand on the side of banning employees guns from parking lots luis."

I stand on my individual rights as a property owner to make a choice in whether or not I want to allow guns on my property, you want to use the government to abrogate my right to make that decision, and force your will on me via the force of government.

You stand for collectivism.

It isn't a Second Amendment issue at all, it's a convenient parking issue. If you have no car, you have no issue, and your RKBA's are left untouched.

Yet, my property rights are violated in the nae of the mob with cars wishing to avoid the inconvenience of parking elsewhere, or finding other work.

That's collectivism attacking individualism, and you stand on the side of collectivism.

"You claim he's lost his RKBA's by entering."

That's right, I am not bound to grant him entrance to my property against my wishes, so I define his RKBA inside my property.

You want to take my right away as a property owner to make the decision.

You stand for collectivism and abrogation of rights via force of government.

"You claim he's lost his RKBA's by entering. Rational States like Alaska, Oklahoma and Utah differ"

You claim that your rights supersede my rights on my own property.

Those States caved in under pressure from the mob and acted to abrogate property rights in the name of collectivism.

Florida now wants to expand their assault on property rights, which began with decisions to take property away from property owners NOT for public use, but for private use in order to benefit the community via increased tax revenues...A.K.A. collectivism.

"Deny reality"

Your unsupported allegation is not a reality, post the regulations and ordinances confining employees to strictly park on a company-owned lot.

[Luis Gonzalez]

So, if you suspect that this same kid is bringing pornography into your house in his computer laptop to give to your kids, do you have the right to require him to allow you to search his bag and his person as a condition of entering your house?

If he refuses, does he still have the right to enter your house?

[Luis Gonzalez]

You have been arguing in defense of the right to smuggle on this entire thread.

[Beagle8U]

"If he refuses, does he still have the right to enter your house?"

Both your home and your car are private property, you get to choose who is allowed to enter in both cases.

[Squantos]

I retired before that happened ....used to carry my own 1911A1 every day up till 96 When I retired. Never an issue back then........