Posted on 12/11/2004 6:07:04 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
Gun-toting, tough-talking, and anti-establishment to his muddy boot straps, Larry Mullens is an Oklahoman "good ole boy" personified.
He is also fast becoming a classic American folk hero as he takes centre stage in a revolt of gun owners that is reverberating in boardrooms across the United States. The son of one of the last of the old-style Wild West ranchers, he first fired a gun as a boy.
Now he carries his trusty Winchester in his pick-up on his way to work at a sawmill in case he comes across a coyote, a wild dog or even a wolf attacking his small herd of steers. Last year he lost five calves to wild dogs.
So it was perhaps not surprising that he was enraged when his previous employer fired him for breaking company security rules that banned guns from the company car park after they found a .38 pistol stashed behind the seat of his pick-up.
No one could have predicted that two years later he and his backers would claim an extraordinary revenge - a law allowing employees to keep guns in locked cars on company property.
Just two days after a gunman jumped on to a stage in Columbus, Ohio, and shot dead a heavy metal guitarist and three others before himself being shot dead, it might seem surprising to hear that elsewhere a state is extending gun owners' rights.
But in Oklahoma, as across much of rural America, gun control is seen as the work of naive and meddling minds.
"Having a gun is no different from having a hammer. It is just a tool," said Jerry Ellis, a Democratic representative in the state legislature who drafted and pushed through the law.
"Here, gun control is when you hit what you shoot at."
The passage of the law resounded like one of Larry Mullens's Winchester rifle shots through the boardrooms of America.
In recent years companies have been implementing anti-gun policies in an attempt to cut down on violence at the work place.
Now they fear the Oklahoman ruling will encourage the powerful gun lobby all over America to try to roll back the reforms.
Paul Viollis, the president of Risk Control Strategies, is appalled at the new law. Every week there are 17 murders at the work place across America, and most of them involve guns, he says.
"It's the most irresponsible piece of legislation I've seen in my 25 years in the business," he said. "I would invite anyone who'd allow people to bring firearms to work to write the first death notice.
"The argument that emp-loyees should be allowed to bring firearms to work because they'll be locked in the car is so absurd it barely merits a response."
Several companies are trying to block the law. Two days before it was due to come into force last month, a judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing it from taking effect. The next hearing is on Tuesday.
But the firms are fighting on unfavourable terrain. Contrary to the widespread impression that the nation is polarised between gun-loving Republicans and more liberal Democrats, in the heartland gun control spans party lines. The law passed unanimously in Oklahoma's Senate and by 92 votes to four in the House.
Mike Wilt, a Republican, voted against the law, not on security grounds but because he believes the state should not dictate gun policies to property owners. "Here in Oklahoma the issue of guns is not a wedge issue," he said. "We all go hunting together and we all tend to have the same beliefs."
Two weeks ago one of the principal plaintiffs, Whirlpool, a prominent supplier of white goods, withdrew from the case. It said it was satisfied that its ban on guns on its property was not affected. The gun lobby suspects that the decision had more to do with talk of a boycott of the firm.
Nowhere do feelings run more strongly than in Valliant, a small town where, on Oct 1, 2002, at the Weyerhaeuser paper mill, the row began.
Mr Mullens was one of four on-site employees who were sacked after guns were found in their vehicles in contravention of a new company ruling. They are convinced it was just an excuse to lay off workers and insist they did not know about the new security laws.
The firm, which is locked in litigation with the fired employees, rejects the charges and says everyone knew it had a zero-tolerance approach to security. "You don't need a gun to be safe at Weyerhaeuser," said Jim Keller, the firm's senior vice-president. "Safety is our number one priority.
"It's more important to tell someone they don't have a job than to have to tell a family that their loved one is not coming home from work. This is about safety; it's not about guns."
But the people of Valliant, where the high school closes down during the prime week in the deer-hunting season to allow pupils to shoot, will not be easily assuaged.
James Burrell, an assistant at the local gun shop, said: "Most people around here think the new law is already a right."
Mr Mullens has now found a new job, where his employer is less pernickety.
"People tell me to 'stick to my guns' because they are all carrying one too," he said. "The bottom line is that it is our constitutional right to have a gun in the car."
You have metal detectors in your private business? What field are you in if you don't mind me asking?
I am in retail furniture, and found a great deal on a metal detector, full door for about $1,800...a very good investment, considering what happened to that "Dime bag" character in Ohio.
Oh, so that's how you ensure you are the only one armed at your place of business, you have all your customers and employees pass through a metal detector before entering your furniture store.
OOK.
So when they enter your furniture store, is it like the airport where they empty their pockets, belts, shoes, and purses?
I wonder what they do when he demands a stomach pump & enema? [No dime bags allowed you know]
You left out a description of the employer/employee relationship.
I'd rather not change the topic and comment before I've read and considered it.
"In other words, don't force your employer to enable your rights."
The right exists w/o either the govm't, or the employer enabling any decision, or action on the part of the employee. The right is enabled by the employee's recognition and decisions. IOWs the enabling and consequences for the decision are his responsibility. When an employer refrains from interfering with the decision, because it's not his to make, he's not enabling-He's honoring the employee's right.
"It happens. "
Rarely. I posted the FBI findings.
Usual-9 months before return for postal
3 months-earliest. Now I'll show that this nut should have been dismissed at least a year prior to the postal. From Yahoo:
" "When I first heard about it, he was the first thing that came to my mind," said Jim Payton, a retired plant employee who worked with Williams for about a year.
He said Williams had talked about wanting to kill people. "I'm capable of doing it," Payton quoted Williams as saying.Yahoo link.
The article has some fastinating comments from the killer made to several folks at the plant prior to the postal. Sound like a hard working loyal employee, or a head case? Lockhead-Martin's HR dept sucks. They should have IDed this guy. It's not any gun policy that's important, it's the homicidal maniac poicy. LM was content with them.
"Hmm... If the ne'er-do-wells figure the guns are in the vehicles parked off-site, what will happen when you force companies to let these folks park on-site?
Eenie, meanie, miney, moe... There's nothing distinguishing, or remarkable about them to betray what they contain.
"Of course, the first time someone breaks into a vehicle and steals a firearm from the company lot, the company will be held legally responsible for the consequential damages, unless it can prove it took every precaution possible to prevent that. "
Park at your own risk. Who's your enemy, your employees, or the trial lawyers?
"Seems to me that some folks just want the freedom to decide who can bring what onto their property, free from dictates of do-gooders of the left or the right."
The employees agree to keep the firearms out of the workplace and in their vehicles. They otherwise stick to business.
From the Yahoo article:
"Paul Viollis, president of Risk Control Strategies in New York. "For legislation to permit employees and contractors to bring loaded firearms to work in vehicles is blatantly irresponsible."
As I said, the employees have been doing this for a long time before CCW was ever enacted. Target shooting and hunting were the primary after work activities. Kids used to carry guns and ammo on city busses. Viollis isn't an expert. He's a control freak trying to drum up business and vanquish citizen's rights. A VPC nut and propagandist.
"Quite insulting. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. "
I've addressed the facts of the matter and the relevant points. If the find the analogies presented are improper then point out how that is so. The employees here are deamonized as incapable of civil behavior, self control, and postals ready to go off at any time. They are considered statistical event generators. Still no concern is shown for how they've been maligned, just how you've been offended by having certain points brought to light. The focus is on those arguments and points.
The fundamental argument of the folks contained within the analogies is that they all justified their decisions and actions solely on their singular claim of superior right, ignored, or dismissed the rights of their fellows and were motivated to maximize their personal gain. They treated their employees as the equivalent of serfs, or property.
Good will does not consist of acknowledging perspective, it consists of honoring their rights and allowing them to exercise them. The right to life and the right to self defense, trumps the property right claimed by the employer. The employer is attempting to usurp the employee's significant rights by prior restraint. The employees kept their guns in the car, they did not bring them into the workplace. They're used off hours.
The employer's not happy with that, nor the legislature's failure to eliminate them everywhere.
I posted what is.
" Your right to defend yourself, i.e. your life, is a property right."
It is not. The right to self defense is a sovereignty right. It is based on your right to life which is the most fundamental right and the coequal right of sovereignty over that life's will. The right to sovereignty over one's own will defines Freedom. Freedom exists when the right is honored. Property is external tangible, or intangible objects which are owned. They are under the control of the person who owns them. The person who owns them is the being that has the right to life and the right of sovereignty over that life and all rights that derive from that.
The person, his right to life and soveignty over it's will exist as is, and independently from the input of any other being. All beings come to the same conclusion about that. Property rights are not fixed, but depend on the input from others to define. If there's only one being that exists, everything else is his and he is sovereign over those objects. Once othes exist, they must come up with a scheme to divide those objects amonst themselves for the purpose of usage and sovereignty considerations. To make it short, personal property is owned by the person who holds sovereignty over it. Real property always has as it's ultimate sovereign some form of govm't. That's the scheme that exists.
Real property right never trumps the right to life and right to sovereignty over that life and it's will.
Your God given rights to be armed does not extend to my property!
Can you refuse to serve a black man if you own a restaurant?
Why or why not?
Can you refuse to rent a house to a Hispanic couple?
Why or why not?
Can you refuse to hire a Jew or a Christian?
Why or why not?
We know the bill of right s doesn't grant us any rights, but it would seem that some of the inalienable rights were so important that the founders went ahead and listed them.
Rights are just that ... rights ... not privileges, not "sometimes can dos" ... it's like breathing, it comes as a part of the life experience, you carry rights with you where ever you go.
Rights cannot be taken or given ... they may be exercised or not exercised, but they are always there.
If you would, please explain to me where you get the right to limit my right to protect myself, or my right to speak freely or my right to serve the creator as I see fit.
Don't know what cities you've worked in/visited, but the ones I'm familiar with (Philly, NYC, Boston, Chicago) do no such thing.
I can think of another way: quit and get a new job.
Or aren't we responsible for our own free choices anymore?
You can defend your life by refusing to work for a company that you feel does not allow you to protect it properly; your right remains intact, and the company's property rights remain intact.
Instead, you feel that you are entitled to the job, and demand that the property owner's rights to set rules of access to his property be violated in order for you to keep the job that he is paying you to do.
The property owner believes that his right to protect himself is best served by the policy of not allowing guns on his property, the Oklahoma legislature violated his right to set policies on his own property that he believes are the best options to defend himself and others whom he is accountable to, and responsible for.
The legislature in question in Oklahoma violates the business owner's property rights, and his right of self determination to self defense.
As a gun owner, your right to defend yourself remains intact in spite of the business owner's policy, because you retain the right to park elsewhere or work elsewhere with policies more to your liking.
Advocating the use of force of government to force business owners to accept unwanted weapons on their property, is a violation of the right to self defense because it violates the property owner's right to determine what he believes is the best way to protect himself.
In a further travesty of justice, the Oklahoma legislature did not absolve Oklahoma businesses from any accountability--financial, legal, or criminal--stemming from possible workplace shootings, leaving them completely liable, and unable to take preventive action to defend themselves.
Apparently, the people of Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma State legislature, believe that they have the right to establish policy for Oklahoma businesses, but they refuse to accept either accountability or liability for their policy.
That's it in a nutshell, I think. Nice find.
I think the point that's being missed here by those who advocate the establishment of legislature which removes the property owner's right to determine what may the best course of action for his own self defense, is that the right to establish that course FOR EVERYONE has now been handed over to the legislature.
That legislature now has power it did not have before, and while in this instance it found one way, it can now reverse itself and go a number of different ways.
It can in fact, decide that NO BUSINESS may set policy allowing employees to bring weapons to work, after all, the ability to determine what the best policy is in reference to self defense at the workplace has now been taken from the hands of the people--business owners and employees alike--and transfered to the government.
If the government sets the aforementioned policy in place, it will argue that it is not a violation of the Second Amendment in the fact that the employee's ability to carry a weapon in their car to and from work has not been violated in the fact that they retain the ability to park off-premises.
That would have the effect of removing the ability of the whole people of Oklahoma to find a workplace with rules more in line with their own thoughts of self defense.
"Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem." -- Ronald Wilson Reagan
Look, you're advancing a wrongheaded and foolish argument that has no merit. Of course the government dictating to a property owner the rules he may set on his own property is a burden; anyone who claims otherwise is disingenuous at best.
"Disingenuous" is jonesy's most consistent stance on this issue.
Indeed. By adamantly refusing to seriously address the private property rights issue, he's purposefully ignoring a right just as sacred as the RKBA. The only comments he's made about property rights have amounted to wishful thinking on his part.
Oh well.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.