Posted on 12/16/2004 6:17:56 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
I jumped in on a discussion at TCF regarding this news item. Companies that ban guns put on defensive.
Ronald Honeycutt didn't hesitate. The Pizza Hut driver had just finished dropping off a delivery when a man holding a gun approached him.What happens in these arguments is that most people wind up focusing solely on guns, with all the attendant concern about fear, violence, hostility, etc. that comes with them. In that context, both sides can point to anecdotes of either workplace violence (see "going postal") or parking lot attacks where the victim either was able or unable to defend herself late at night in a parking garage or dimly lit parking lot in a bad section of town. This is becoming more of a concern in recent years as states pass less restrictive concealed carry legislation. Two states, Oklahoma and Kentucky, have laws specifically protecting keeping guns inside a locked vehicle in workplace parking lots. (Note that Whirlpool has backed off.)
Honeycutt wasn't about to become another robbery statistic. He grabbed the 9 mm handgun he always carries in his belt and shot the man more than 10 times, killing him.
Honeycutt faced no criminal charges, because prosecutors decided that he acted in self-defense. But the 39-year-old did lose his job: Carrying a gun violated Pizza Hut's no-weapons rule.
"It's not fair," says Honeycutt of Carmel, Ind., who has found another pizza-delivery job and continues to carry a gun. "There is a constitutional right to bear arms. If I'm going to die, I'd rather be killed defending myself."
Employers have long banned guns from the workplace as part of a violence-prevention strategy, but those policies are being tested as states pass laws making it easier for residents to carry concealed guns - in some cases, crafting legislation that strikes down employers' attempts to keep guns off company property.
But unlike a number of gun rights activists I believe property rights trump all.And this is the springboard for the discussion which seems, to me, sadly lacking from the coverage of the issue. The following is a restatement and expansion of my comments at TCF.
Indeed, John.
Your right to defend yourself, i.e. your life, is a property right. What is the most dear thing you possess? Your own self. Your own body. Your own life. Just as it is your right to prevent someone from stealing your tangible property (e.g. land, a car, etc.) it is also your right to prevent someone from taking your life from you. Do you think the the term "taking your life" as a synonym for murder is a coincidence? Rights inhere to possession. A fundamental right from possession is control over how a possesion may be used.
This issue is a really good one for understanding rights. It regrettably gets lost in the hollering from both sides, and so a really good airing of the philosophical questions doesn't happen. Instead, we get complaints such as Honeycutt's "It's not fair". How is it not fair, sir? Did someone coerce you into entering into an employment agreement?
Everybody understands that "my right to swing my fist ends where your nose starts". This is a statement of balancing rights based on burden. Is it a greater burden for me to accomodate your rights, or the other way around? Is it easier for you to deal with a broken nose, or for me to not swing my fist?
The parking lot question is a little more difficult, because there's an economic burden in having difficulty finding a job with an accomodating employer. The burden a company would bear in accomodating gun-carrying employees (or customers for that matter) is more difficult to define, but it includes such things as a risk of violence, and all the liabilities which could come from that. Note that some gun-rights advocates are arguing for a law which makes a company liable for damages resulting from an inability to defend one's self, if a company has a no-guns policy.
But the person who is entering the property carrying a gun is the active party, and thus I think that from a philosophical point of view, it's less burdensome for that person to cease the activity than it is for the passive party (in this case the company owning the property) to accede.
Let's assume that the state steps in and passes a law which states that business owners may not prohibit carrying of weapons onto their property. The businesses' property rights have been diluted with no recourse other than the courts for restoration of their rights (in the eyes of the law #&151; I stipulate that the law may never actually take away a right, so there's no need to argue the point). This is a significant burden upon the right to control the use of their own property.
By contrast, the burden on the individual for restoring full exercise of his right to self preservation (via carrying a gun) is to simply leave the property, or not enter in the first place. This is really the same as saying that his rights have never been diluted in the first place, since it is a personal choice to enter such a property (where the owner states guns may not be carried). There is no coercion on the part of the state, or either party, in what is, in effect, a contract between two parties, the terms of which specify under what conditions a person may enter the property. By the act of entering the property, the individual implicitly consents to the terms of the property owner. If you don't consent, don't enter, or leave when you are informed of the terms.
So there are really two rights at work here. Right in property, and right of self-defense. By passing a law restricting businesses' ability to make policy, the state infringes on both.
So in the end, I wind up not liking it when I see gun-rights advocates arguing in favor of infringing on other rights. For when you argue that under some set of circumstances, the state may burden a particular right, you put the others in jeapordy of similar reasoning.
IMHO,I'd rather be fired than dead.
Then you would decline a job with workplace rules that you do not agree with.
Correct?
My spouse used to be a work comp underwriter. One client had a guy who did not like his job review, got a gun, and proceeded to pop a cap in his boss & the bosses boss. Guess of those three who was the first to fire a work comp claim AND GET PAID! The guy with the gun.
Rockchucker, from TCF claimed:
"So in the end, I wind up not liking it when I see gun-rights advocates arguing in favor of infringing on other rights.
For when you argue that under some set of circumstances, the state may burden a particular right, you put the others in jeapordy of similar reasoning."
When just above that he correctly argued:
"Your right to defend yourself, i.e. your life, is a property right.
What is the most dear thing you possess? Your own self. Your own body. Your own life."
He has trapped himself in his own logic.
He agrees that mans most primary right is to defend himself. -- Indeed, - the State is charged in our Constitution to prevent infringements on that precise individual right.
Parking lot property rights do not trump our RKBA's, and it is specious to claim that defending an individuals gun rights would somehow -- "put the others in jeopardy of similar reasoning".
No, I'd still carry (as I do now) at my place of work. That's the whole idea behind concealed carry. You do not advertise.
When I was a delivery driver, I carried a gun. Of course, I wasn't asked and I didn't tell.
That said, I cannot think of an arguement that could convince me to believe that employers should be forced by the government to allow anything on their private property that they don't want. If I don't like it, I can carry my "personal propery" self somewhere else to work.
So, you advocate a right to lie to your employer.
The Texas Concealed Carry Law protects a business owner's right to ban guns from their property.
So, if you reside in Texas, you would be an advocate for the violation of the very law that you claim gives you the right to carry a concealed weapon?
The state of Texas did not give me that right.... the Constitution did.
You can do as you please, I choose otherwise.
BTW, have you ever called in sick when you really weren't?
He is right, you are willing to concede the ability to set rules for everyone to the legislature.
Right now, another legislature is considering doing the same exact thing, telling property owners what the best course of action is to defend themselves, with strikingly dissimilar results.
San Francisco Fails to Learn from D.C.
San Francisco supervisors propose sweeping gun ban
San Francisco supervisors want voters to approve a sweeping handgun ban that would prohibit almost everyone except law enforcement officers, security guards and military members from possessing firearms in the city.
The measure, which will appear on the municipal ballot next year, would bar residents from keeping guns in their homes or businesses, Bill Barnes, an aide to Supervisor Chris Daly, said Wednesday. It would also prohibit the sale, manufacturing and distribution of handguns and ammunition in San Francisco, as well as the transfer of gun licenses.
Barnes said the initiative is a response to San Francisco's skyrocketing homicide rate, as well as other social ills. There have been 86 murders in the city so far this year compared to 70 in all of 2003.
"The hope is twofold, that officers will have an opportunity to interact with folks and if they have a handgun, that will be reason enough to confiscate it," -- SourceDo legislative bodies have the right to violate property rights in the name of what they believe is the best course of action for the people to defend themselves when it comes to gun possession?
According to you, they do, so if you're arguing in support of the Oklahoma State legislature's right to set policy for property owners there, then you must be equally in support of the California State legislature doing the same thing here.
In a nutshell jonesy, when you involve government, they will screw you sooner rather than later.
When you argue that the government has the right to violate some rights, you risk all rights being violated by the government.
And if I get caught, I get fired with reason.
What I don't do, is to then engage the legislature in making it unlawful for my company to fire me for knowingly violating the work place rules, and argue that I have a right to lie, violate work rules, and enjoy continued employment.
As would I.
What I don't do, is to then engage the legislature in making it unlawful for my company to fire me for knowingly violating the work place rules
And, I said that I have or would do that WHERE in my posts?
Your right ends when you accepted the rules of employment set by the employer.
Your rights guaranteed you the ability to decline his offer.
You should have expressed your unwillingness to work under their rules, and they would have exercised their choice to not hire you, or to allow you exemption from that particular rule, what you don't have is a constitutional right to lie.
You walk away from the job offer, and your Second Amendment rights remain intact, as do the property rights of your employer.
You don't have a constitutional right to a job.
That's what the people in Oklahoma did.
"The Pizza Hut employee should file a work comp claim with Pizza Hut. PH screwed him big time by firing him."
Not saying whether I agree or disagree on principal, but Indiana is an employment-at-will state. Your employer can fire you if they don't like the color shirt you are wearing, and you basically have no recourse. The only exception would be if you could prove discrimination based on a protected class (e.g. sex or race). Pizza Hut may or may not be morally culpable depending on your perspective, but they did nothing wrong legally.
(Personally, I think Pizza Hut should give him an Employee of the Month award).
PING!
Really? The Constitution reserves rights to the states under the 10th Amendment. And the Constitution also clearly grants property rights to individuals.
And there is a further right here - requiring that an employer accept you carrying a concealed weapon on company property is little different than requiring the Boy Scouts to admit gays - it is government forcing association - which goes against that First Amendment rights. So by demanding that you could carry a weapon on an employer's property against their will, you violate both property and association rights.
Neither did Ronald Honeycutt. His employer only found out when he shot his assailant. If under attack you have to reveal -- unless you shoot, shovel, and shut up of course -- and I wouldn't advocate that approach.
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