Posted on 10/09/2005 9:09:28 AM PDT by RightDemocrat
TALLAHASSEE -- A rare and spectacular showdown may be coming in Florida's Republican Party: Big Business vs. Big Guns. And the stakes couldn't be higher. To critics, it's about the safety of workplaces, including hospitals and churches, throughout the Sunshine State. To supporters, it's about the safety of employees who travel to and from those workplaces.
The dust-up is over the "guns-at-work" bill, which the National Rifle Association began pushing last month in Tallahassee to force all Florida businesses to allow firearms in the vehicles of any employee or visitor. Companies could keep policies banning guns from their buildings themselves but could no longer apply those policies to their parking lots.
Many businesses are either wary of or leaning against the proposal, including heavy-hitters such as Disney and local giants such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, CSX and Baptist Health System.
But the NRA is insistent. The group, which has donated nearly $1 million in Florida over the past decade, mostly to Republicans, is led in Tallahassee by former national President Marion Hammer. Hammer said the rights of gun owners should be intact in their vehicles, and the proposed law already gives businesses immunity from liability lawsuits in cases of workplace shootings.
"Your home is a slam dunk, but bridging that into the private property of an organization doesn't hold," said Mike Hightower, chairman of the Duval County Republican Party and lobbyist for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. "I don't think people are going to want to cross that line."
In a telling sign of wariness, neither Gov. Jeb Bush, Senate President Tom Lee nor House Speaker Allan Bense are taking positions on the bill yet.
(Excerpt) Read more at jacksonville.com ...
I agree with your sentiments strongly, I just don't agree that we have a constitutional right to carry weapons on other people's property when they don't want us to. On public property, yes, of course, not that too many local governments respect even that.
I'll take my chances. I have a lockable gunsafe mounted in my truck. That's where my gun is when I am inside. I won't open it for anyone. If they want to try they are welcome too, but it's gonna take a torch.
First of all, subs have about the toughest job in the system. My hat is off to you but I wonder about your judgment. Subs tend to make early burnout cases as regular teachers. Yeah, it MIGHT be good preparation, but it can wear you down, too. But then, I've taught in some very literal trenches over the years. If you're in a good environment, it might be great. What did you get your degree in? What level do you wish to teach? Subject?
IIRC you're correct about the federal law concerning guns on campus. No wait a minute....it's IN SCHOOL, not on the grounds because parents with a CCW can drive up the front drive and pick up their kids but they can't go into a conference armed. Also there may once have been such a law but it was invalidated by the USSC under the commerce clause of the 14th Amendment.
Cool. I imagine it is anchored well. I should look into something like that for my own truck. I don't usually carry, but on road trips I have generally had something aboard.
It is welded to a piece of 1/4 plate that is welded to the floorboard. Like I said it'll take a torch to either get it open or get it out. I just want to make it as much trouble as I can for anyone trying to get to it.
Well, it might not be that simple.
Corporations are not PEOPLE. For many legal purposes, they are treated like people. That is one of the advantages of incorporation.
Corporations are business entities created through the operation of state law. Such laws exist to ENCOURAGE business activity, mainly by limiting the liability of the corporation to the assets of the corporations. The stockholders cannot be held liable for the corporations debts.
This state-sponsored limitation of liability has become an essential element of business success. There are few large companies which are not incorporated. Unfortunately, corporations have no sensitivity to human rights. They are not PEOPLE, so one shouldn't expect such sensitivity. Corporations were not endowed by their creators with unalienable rights.
However, the tremendous success of corporations creates a situation in which corporations have tremendous impact on people's lives. It is absolutely unreasonable to believe that EVERYONE could chose not to work for a corporation. Some could, but if everyone tried, the entire economy would fail.
An unintended consequence of corporate success, is that many aspects of our lives are controlled by such corporations. Many corporations are multi-national. There is no reason to believe that such corporations will have any respect for human righs whatever, given that they might be able to operate more profitably in countries with no human rights guarantees.
For the reasons I described above, I find no compelling reason to spare corporations from legal constraints on their abilities to reduce the freedom of the people. If corporations were forbidden to infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms, I see no reason to believe that the economic success of corporations would in any way be negatively impacted.
At least this folk from the Peoples Republic of New York (I can't speak for those folk who live in Kalifornia) understands that the Constitution only prohibits the government from infringing upon individual rights such as the right to bear arms, free speach and assembly, etc., and that the Constitution, in general, and the 2nd Amendment in particular, has absolutely nothing to do with the relationship between private employers and employees. As a private employer, I have the right to prohibit you from carrying a firearm on my property, just as I have the right to require you to carry a firearm on my property as a condition of your employment. If you don't like it, then go find a job someplace else. And stop being such an idiot about the what the Constitution does and doesn't do. Your lack of knowledge is embarrassing and makes the rest of us look really stupid.
Can you also tell your employees that they can't have religious or political material in their cars? Can you tell them how they should vote if they want to work for you?
If you are scientologist, can you forbid employees having medications on them or in their cars?
At what point do your private property rights become more important than other citizens' Constitutional rights?
That's the same analogy that I've been using. What if your company can prohibit religious items on their property. Not just bibles, but crosses, religious pamphlets, St Christopher statues and medals, US Currency, etc. You can't bring anything with the Words "God", "Allah", "Jehova", etc., onto the companies property.
Suppose they decide that they don't like certain news papers or magazines? In fact, maybe the only newspaper you can bring to work is USA Today.
I like the ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court that declared your car an extension of your home.
I've heard this argument several times, and it isn't really germaine. Your property expectations as a homeowner are different that the expectations of a corporation which does business with the public. If you had a business where the public and your employees came and went in your driveway at will I would expect that you would have no right to say what they had in their cars.
I think that bosses aren't concerned that if they confront a worker for his poor performance, substance abuse, etc. and fire him that he won't go out to his car, get his Bible, and take it back into the office to use against his coworkers.
Parking lots are private property belonging to companies or real estate managers. If they want to ban weapons from those locations, they have the right to do so. Gun-owners who want to keep guns in their cars can quit and find companies that allow it or look the other way. That's the American way--not this state-enforced tolerance.
The First Amendment stops at the boundary of company property. Why should the Second Amendment be any different?
I'll carry my gun where I damned well please. If it's in my car, Disney and the rest of those whining Jackass lovers can KMA.
As opposed to going home and getting a firearm and going back into the office etc? Your argument is specious.
You have Zero right to tell a person what they can or cannot carry in their car so long as that item, whatever it is, is a lawful product.
You don't want someone parking their car in your lot, that's fine. But YOUR rights end at my bumper bud.
when it involves the safety and well being of their
employees..
Case law would seem to hold otherwize..
This statement is typical of the arrogance of some posters who are so positive that they're right that they consider their opinion to be gospel. I got news fer ya Jack. Your opinion is no better than anyone else's on this matter, but it does reflect your cultural upbringing in New York where neo-nazi statists, upChuckie Schemer and Hitlery reflect the viwpoints of about 75% of the electorate.
Sorry, it's true--people can freak out and make a lifetime mistake in five minutes that they would never do if they had to drive 20 minutes home and back to the office in which to calm down and think it over.
Companies are TERRIFIED of recently-fired workers going postal. That's why they don't want guns anywhere near the property. Security is good for keeping civilized people out, but the kind of rent-a-cop you find in an office park isn't up for a gunfight with a depressed psycho.
Call my argument "specious" if you want, but it's what's on the minds of every HR manager and property manager on every Interstate.
If you don't think proximity matters, imagine what firings would be like if there was a gun in the hallway outside the HR director's office. Oh, and an open bar. Do you think that would increase violence, or have no effect?
The problem is a Corporate is a created person under the laws of the Government. By that definition they are LESS than the government while the Citizens of this country are GREATER than the government.
That which is created can never be greater than the creator. Simple law of nature.
By that definition, a created person should never have rights that outweigh those of a sovereign citizen of this country which created the government that created the corporation.
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