I never said they were.
"The agreement doesn't extort you, because you have no right to park on their property. "
The agreement doesn't extort you, because you have no right to park on their property."
That's right, there is no right to park on someone else's private property. I listed the rights involved and you ignored them. You are also addressing the private property right of the employer as some sort of absolute that exists in a vacuum.
" in many places, it's illegal to keep a gun in your car when you aren't in it, so there is no nationally-recognized "right" to keep a gun in your car"
I've never known any. McClure-Volkmer, or the firearms protection act acknowledges the right to transport personal firearms and requires govm'ts at all levels to provide for it. Infringement of transport of unloaded, cased firearms out of reach is not allowed according to that law. It is certainly expected that during travelling the driver will exit and leave the vehicle unattended.
"Because that is the choice always open to you: not to park on the employer's property."
Most large businesses and many smaller ones have lots that were required by zoning to keep the employees from taking up all the area's parking spaces. Employees parking off site will cause residential only parking signs to be posted in some cases. Otherwise simple no parking signs.
" What about if you conceal it in your heavy overcoat? Your overcoat is also your property. "
The difference is between storage and use. If it's on your person and not in storage, it's being used and has entered the workplace.
"employment at-will"
A single mom has a work has a good work and attendance history. She calls in and tells the boss that she doesn't have a babysitter for that day. The boss demands that she comes in, or she's fired. She stays home and is fired. Does she have a tort case for being fired w/o just cause?
FBI says the usual postal happens 9 months after dismissal. The early ones are 3 months after dismissed.
I'd say no. In 49 of 50 states, an employer does not need 'just cause' to fire you.
Dear spunkets,
There's a lot of stuff in your post. I think I'm going to respond through a couple of replies.
"That's right, there is no right to park on someone else's private property. I listed the rights involved and you ignored them."
I haven't ignored them. I've merely said that you don't have a right to park your car on someone else's property if you're unwilling to comply with their terms for doing so. The solution for the person unwilling to comply with the terms is not to park there. That's all.
"You are also addressing the private property right of the employer as some sort of absolute that exists in a vacuum."
No, not really. I've actually acknowledged that the private property right isn't absolute, in that it can be legally abridged by legislatures. I've actually said the Oklahoma state legislature has the legal authority to prevent property owners and employers from enforcing a rule like this.
I've only said that, failing such abridgement, the property owner has the right to set the terms of your coming on to his property with regard to the possession of firearms.
sitetest
Dear spunkets,
"She calls in and tells the boss that she doesn't have a babysitter for that day. The boss demands that she comes in, or she's fired. She stays home and is fired. Does she have a tort case for being fired w/o just cause?"
It depends.
Prior to the passage of the Family and Maternal Leave Act, pretty much, yeah, you could. Why? Because an employer can easily state that showing up for work is needed to get the job done. The dismissal is justified on the fact that the job may intrinsically require showing up to get it done.
However, with the passage of the FMLA, employers with over, I think, 15 employees (I'm working from memory, here), must provide a limited amount of unpaid leave to deal with certain sorts of family problems.
Nevertheless, should the single mom use up all her FMLA-mandated time, and the employer has properly tracked the usage of this time, and otherwise obeyed the requirements of the law, yeah, he can fire her for not coming to work because she couldn't get a babysitter.
Even under the assinine FMLA, the government has not yet given anyone a right to a job for which they fail to ever show up. But we're getting close.
It is ironic, though, that you use this act to defend against companies with the firearms policies which we have been discussing. Bottom line, a lot of conservatives disagreed with the FMLA (myself included) because it is one more instance of the government telling the business owner how to run his business.
Can the government do that? Yup. At least according to the way case law and constitutional law work in the present day in our country. Is the government required to do that? No. Would this "right" to miss work exist without this specific law or something like it? Nope.
You are pointing out another case where the pre-existing rights of businesses have been curtailed through intrusive legislation.
In this case, the government tells businesses of a certain size or greater that they can do without employees, even if they are critical (when you have only 20 workers, probably everyone is critical or nearly so), for up to 12 weeks in a given one-year period.
Just as it is not illegal or unconstitutional for companies to have employment policies that you think are foolish, stupid, or inane, it is not unconstitutional for legislatures to pass foolish, stupid, inane, and even unduly burdensome laws.
Otherwise, the entire tax code would have been ruled unconstitutional some decades ago.
sitetest
Dear spunkets,
"'in many places, it's illegal to keep a gun in your car when you aren't in it, so there is no nationally-recognized "right" to keep a gun in your car'
"I've never known any."
Yes, well, I should have been more specific. As we have been talking about loaded firearms (look at all the references thereto by defenders of the right to bear arms, even on another's property), I was not referring to firearms that are unloaded, cased, and locked away strictly for the purposes of transportation.
Try putting your loaded gun in your car and driving through Washington, DC. Stop a cop, pop the trunk, and show it to him. Unless you have a permit specifically to carry that gun around specifically in Washington, DC (nearly impossible to get for a private citizen), you will be arrested and prosecuted. The law has been upheld many times, all the way to the Supreme Court.
However, I'm unfamiliar with the case law with reference to this statute, and a little googling from at least one pro-RKBA website indicates that some localities seem to fail to honor this statute, and that there is some legal question as to how it applies within localities.
Nevertheless, even here, there are several pertinent issues to address. First, I will remind you that posters have been referring to loaded weapons. These aren't covered by this legislation.
Second, you're interpreting the statute in a way that overrides a property owner's right to restrict firearms on his property. But the statute applies to a gun owner's right to transport. I think you might need to make the case that because the property owner forbade your unloaded and cased firearm from entering his property, you could not then transport it. The property owner's response is, I'm not preventing you from transporting your firearm, I'm just preventing you from transporting your firearm THROUGH MY PROPERTY.
You might say that you have an absolute right to transport it wherever you wish, even to the property owner's property, but that is the equivalent of saying that you may transport it even to places where you may be legally prevented from entering yourself. In this case, it seems that perhaps your firearm has more rights than you do. ;-)
The right to free movement is actually constitutionally-protected. No one, generally speaking, may forbid you from traveling generally from one place to another. But your constitutionally-protected right to free movement does not include a proviso that you may exercise that right through my property without my permission.
And even if I grant you permission, there are all manner of restrictions I may place on you.
I may allow you to walk on or through my property, but not bring a vehicle.
I may permit you to ride in a vehicle, but not a foreign-made vehicle.
I may permit you to bring a vehicle, but not to ride a horse onto my property.
I may require you to remove your shoes while on my property.
I may require you not to bring articles that violate my religious or moral tenets.
I may require you not to speak as you pass onto or through my property.
I may require you not to engage in certain types of speech as you pass onto or through my property.
That's because, you generally have no right to be on my property. Having no right to be there, you have little right to dictate the terms of your presence.
If you may not even exercise a more basic right of free movement by traversing onto or across my property without my permission, why do you now have a subsidiary right of traversing across my property with your gun in tow?
"The difference is between storage and use. If it's on your person and not in storage, it's being used and has entered the workplace."
First, the employer is responsible for what happens on his premises. The company-owned parking lot is, indeed, the workplace, from the employer's legal perspective.
"Infringement of transport of unloaded, cased firearms out of reach is not allowed according to that law."
As I've said, I've seen some quibbling about the specifics about that. But you'd need to show that you cannot transport your firearm without coming on to my private property with it.
sitetest