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.
I guess you want to differentiate between the amount of power the government exerts over a "person" and the amount it exerts over a business entity, specifically the corporation. Aside from the weird parallel here (on a conservative forum) in the way leftists view corporations, I have a couple points of disagreement.
First, increase government power over business entities and you risk government taking that same power for use over individuals.
Second, while a corporation may not be a "person," it most certainly is "people," or a group of persons, a group of individuals, the officers and the stockholders. I don't think you can justify saying that just because people band together in an organization, be it business or otherwise, it is OK to grant government more power over them than you would grant it over an individual. I think that's unAmerican.
"It is absolutely unreasonable to believe that EVERYONE could choose not to work for a corporation. Some could, but if everyone tried, the entire economy would fail.
Well, you have just illustrated rather clearly the power ordinary citizens can exert over corporations without resorting to increasing the power of their rulers, should they so decide.
"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."
As Exsoldier so eloquently pointed out, your freedom to swing your fist stops when it reaches my nose. In this case when you enter the property of others. RKBA is not being infringed since it doesn't extend to private property of someone else without their consent. However, I agree with you that a law such as the one this thread discusses would have no adverse effect on economic success. It does, IMO constitute an adverse effect on our freedom.
BTW, the limit to liability for corporations is proper IMO. You can go after the corporation's complete assets in a suit. Remember, that means that you are not going after the assets of an inanimate "entity," but the shares in that company of all the stockholders who have risked their money in investment. A risk that provides those jobs that we were talking about. The limit to liability in suing corporations is that you cannot also sue for assets belonging to the stockholders that are held outside the corporation, such as their shares in other corporations, their homes, etc. Seems pretty reasonable to me. However, there is one way in which corporations are less protected than individuals, that's taxation. Profits made by corporations are taxed 3 times: first, by taxing corporate profits, secondly by taxing those profits again when they are paid out to shareholders as dividends, and thirdly, as capital gains when the shares are sold.