Posted on 02/08/2006 7:13:35 AM PST by neverdem
TALLAHASSEE
A bill being pushed by the NRA to allow people to keep guns in their cars on workplace parking lots faces a tough challenge from the powerful Florida Chamber of Commerce.
TALLAHASSEE - The National Rifle Association is pushing a bill that would penalize Florida employers with prison time and lawsuits if they prohibit people from keeping guns in their cars at workplace parking lots.
But the proposal is facing stiff opposition from a group just as powerful in the state capital as the NRA: Florida's biggest business lobby.
Mark Wilson, a vice president of Florida's Chamber of Commerce, which represents 136,000 businesses, said the proposal, to be voted on today in a House committee, is ''an all-out assault'' on employer-employee relations that intrudes on private property rights.
With other business groups expected to join in, the widespread opposition to the NRA bill sets the stage for a rare power struggle between two of the Legislature's mightiest lobbies. And some political observers predict that, for one of the first times in recent history, the NRA will lose in the Legislature of a state where one of every 49 people has a concealed weapons permit and an estimated six million own firearms.
Bill sponsor Rep. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican, said he filed the legislation to prevent ''back-door gun control.'' In the past two years, he has successfully sponsored bills limiting lawsuits against gun ranges, preventing cops from compiling electronic lists of gun owners and expanding people's rights to use deadly force if they feel threatened outside their homes.
''We just disagree that the business community's private property rights trumps my Second Amendment rights,'' Baxley said, noting he doesn't personally support carrying firearms in the workplace.
Under the bill, if business owners ban guns in cars on workplace parking lots, they could get sued and charged with a third-degree felony, punishable by a maximum five-year prison sentence and a $5,000 fine. The bill has an exception for places like schools, where guns are banned by law.
Gov. Jeb Bush, who noted he helped reshape the controversial gun-range bill, said he's uncommitted right now and wants to ``let things develop a little bit.''
The measure was inspired by a case out of Oklahoma in 2002, when a dozen paper mill workers were fired after bosses found out they had guns in their cars. Oklahoma lawmakers passed a law similar to the Florida proposal, and business owners sued in federal court. Among them: ConocoPhillips. The NRA then launched a boycott, replete with billboards saying, ''ConocoPhillips is no friend of the Second Amendment.'' Since then, four states have passed laws like Oklahoma's, seven are considering them, and five killed the idea with relatively little debate, said Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
He said the Florida legislation is faring badly because it tells big business what to do.
''I don't know what the NRA is smoking,'' Hamm said. ``They're taking on the business lobby, which is just foolish.''
Wilson, the Florida chamber executive, said employers have the right to regulate what happens on their property ``just like we have dress codes, just like we have all kinds of things. As soon as we allow a national organization to decide employment terms between an employee and an employer, we've gone too far.''
Wilson added that ``this seems to be a collision between the Second Amendment rights and property rights of homeowners and businesses.''
But the NRA's Florida lobbyist, Marion Hammer, said the federal and state constitutions don't expressly recognize employer rights to regulate behavior.
''The Constitution gives you the right to bear arms,'' she said. ``It doesn't say you have a right to come to work nude or come to work wearing a bathing suit, or how long your hair can be or whether you have facial hair or whether you come to work smelling because you haven't taken a bath.''
Hammer said she's not worried about taking on the chamber of commerce: ``The chamber represents self-interests. NRA represents the people. I fear nothing, except losing freedom and losing rights.''
Miami Herald staff writer Mary Ellen Klas contributed to this report. mcaputo@MiamiHerald.com
The liability falls on the owner of the property, and it comes down to the property owner to make the decision as to what may serve him best.
While I disagree with the idea, the property owner may believe that no guns protects his interests better than guns do, and since all liability falls on him, it is on him that the decision should rest on how to best address the possibility of liability.
You still don't own that property, whoever pays taxes on it gets to set rules for access, not you.
So as I said before, decisions would best be made on the side of individual liberty. Decisions made by the business owner, preferably.
That's not true at all, you are not impeded from carrying to and from, you are inconvenienced by having to park elsewhere, that's all.
There is no Constitutional right guaranteeing you to be free from being inconvenienced by your insistence on exercising your Constitutional rights.
You can enter my property according to my rules, or you can park elsewhere. How I chose to exercise my rights as a property owner is none of YOUR business.
I pay taxes on my property, you don't.
Individual liberty is enforced when the owner freely decides to not allow anyone to park on his lot if they carry a gun, and the person carrying the gun choses to park elsewhere.
Individual liberties are lost when one of the two individuals involved are forced, via force of government, to act against their wishes when it comes to their individual rights.
We really don't have a free market. The state controls about 40% to 60% of our economy depending on what you count (direct and indirect taxation, regulation, and so on).
Many, if not most, large corporations receive some sort of federal aid or subsidy (sometimes this "aid" is in the form of making it difficult for smaller competitors to compete, but it is still aid). If the government gives assistance to a corporation, then that corporation enacts an anti-gun policy, isn't the government de facto infringing upon the 2nd amendment?
The government does this all the time. There are all sorts of laws regulating what you can and cannot do on "your" (stop paying your taxes and find out who really owns it) property. If you conduct a business open to the public or have employees on your own property, there are even more rules to follow. Do you support the repeal of ALL of these laws? If not, you're just being a chump to allow big corporations to run over the Rights of individual citizens.
If forcing me via legislation to allow you to enter my property bearing arms against my wishes is conservative, then imminent domain is as well.
No comparison whatsoever.
Now, list some of those laws you're making reference to and we can discuss them...I'm not about to have some global, vague "they already do all these things, why not this" bullsh#t session that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
You're dreaming.
They are both a violation of the individual's property rights by other people via the force of government.
We're not talking about your private residence here, we're talking about a place of employment. As you are aware, there are all sorts of rules and laws that apply at the latter.
You can't demand that your workers all be a certain skin color or religion. You can't demand that your workers surrender their jobs one day before they are vested in the company pension plan. You can't pay them in company script. You can't dictate who they vote for. You can't dicate who they sleep with. And so on.
And you shouldn't be able to dicate what they have in their privately owned vehicle, unless you pay for that vehicle, and pay the employee for time to and from work.
The government may not abridge a citizen's right to bear arms, I, on the other hand, as a private citizen, am not bound by the Constitution.
Perfect example...if you come on my property and start conducting Islamic prayer services in my yard, I'll have you removed, by force if necessary, because your right of freedom of religion does not supersede my rights as a property owner.
Your rights end where mine begin. -72-
Luis Gonzalez argued recently:
--- we govern according to what the Constitution says.
It says that Amendments apply to the States, and that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Luis, Article VI goes on to say that all officials "-- shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this Constitution; --"
Do you disagree with this principle?
Have you ever served in any official capacity, been a member of the armed forces, or a naturalized citizen?
-- All of us have sworn that oath.. -- Would you refuse on the basis that "-- I, on the other hand, as a private citizen, am not bound by the Constitution. --"?
All this started when a large corporation in Oklahoma brought in dogs to sniff through their workers vehicles. They "hit" on several vehicles, and the company then conducted a search of those vehicles. They found some guns and fired the workers that had them in their vehicles. The OK legislature then acted to put an end to this nonsense.
Does being a "conservative" now mean supporting multinational corporations conducting Soviet-style invasions of privacy against their workers?
The truth is that this is NOT something that should happen in America. Corporations shouldn't be able to rifle through their workers vehicles any more than they should be able to dictate who they vote for, or who they sleep with. Of course, you could argue "contract law" to defend any of the above. But when contract law unduly infringes upon individual Rights, the state has the power and the obligation to step in and stop it.
You cannot contract away your basic Rights. Period.
That Constitution does not give you the right to violate my rights as a property owner, and my right as an individual to my property and my person is as inviolate as your right to be protected from the government disallowing you to bear arms.
We are discussing individual liberties here.
The right of the individual who owns the parking lot, and the right of the individual who owns the gun.
When are the individual rights of all best served?
Are they better served when the individual who owns the property makes the free decision not to allow guns in his property, and the individual who owns the gun makes the decision to not enter the property without his gun, or are individual rights better served when the many (those not owning that parking lot) use the force of government to violate the individual rights of the few (parking lot owners)?
You best defend that Constitution when you disallow the government from violating the individual rights of the citizens, not when you facilitate the violation of those rights by the many acting in concert with the government.
Why does the liability fall on the property owner? Is this not a result of actions by the state (judicial and legislative)?
Therefore, if state action (placing all liability on the property owner) is the reason for banning guns, is this not a de facto infringement on the 2nd amendment by the state?
You can also list your business at anticcw.com.
Come on man, you can't be this thick and actually believe yourself a conservative.
If I fall down on your drive way, you are liable for my injuries. If I am attacked on your property, you are liable for my injuries.
The reason for "banning" guns is that the property owner has the right AS A PROPERTY OWNER to set rules and conditions for your access and continued presence in his property.
Your right to free speech does not exist in my property, and should you decide to exercise that right in a manner not consistent with my beliefs, I can (and will) have you thrown out...by force if need be.
How about if my skin is black, and you require that people have white skin before entering your parking lot?
Your arguments sound a lot like the segregationists in the South. By chance are you a former Dixiecrat?
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