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
I didn't realize you were such a libertarian. I'd be curious to know your positions on the following:
1) Do you support laws banning sexual harassment in the workplace?
2) Should corporations be able to place cameras in workplace bathrooms?
3) Are governments wrongly infringing upon private property rights by having laws against booby trapping your windows and doors (these laws exist to protect firefighters and other emergency personnel)?
4) Are governments wrongly infringing upon private property rights by making it illegal to enter into alliance with a foreign power on your private property? Asked another way, what is the moral principle why private property owner should/should not be able to have, say, a Russian LP/OP (listening post/ observation post) on their property?
5) Do you really belive all the legislators voting for this piece of legislation, and posters here supporting it, are "socialists"?
6) Should corporations be able to make voting for candidate "A" a condition for employment?
7) Do you support the repeal of all federal and state firearm laws dealing with the manufacture, possession, and use or firearms on one's private property?
I'd like to know if you're a real libertarian or just an anti-gun chump.
You are wrong.
The flaw in your "logic" boils right down to the basic concept of property.
Where are these things happening?
They CAN rifle through vehicles if the employee knew (and accepted) that the employer retained the right to rifle through the vehicle as a condition of employment and as a condition of use of the parking lot.
They may not tell you who to sleep with, but they CAN tell you that you can't do it in your office, on the assembly line, and during work hours while being paid to perform a work function.
And while they can't tell you who to vote for, they CAN tell you not to campaign while you are working.
"You cannot contract away your basic Rights"
How consistent...now you've decided that you make the rules for how I conduct myself in respect to my individual rights.
This is an oversimplification, and I'd wager you know it, Luis.
Using my previous example of Qualcomm -- there was no other place to park. At all. Anywhere.
Is the government the answer to the problem, or is the government the problem?
This varies from state to state. Under common law, the property owner is only liable in cases of extreme negligence.
The courts and legislatures have expanded the scope of liability, resulting in some people enacting anti-gun policies. That is a de facto gun ban by the state.
I'm merely pointing out that there is probably a lawyer or two out there who could use this to make your life unpleasant and unprofitable.
Reminds me of the old adage,"t'is better to be judged by twelve than carried by six". I agree, the legislation could use some work.
5.56mm
I paid for my car. When you start making my payments for me, then you can tell me what I can and cannot have inside it.
I think FR got infested with an "anti-gun" chump.
UNLESS they employer provides OFF-site parking, he/she is violating a BASIC right.
free dixie,sw
Park elsewhere.
--- 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. --"?
That Constitution does not give you the right to violate my rights as a property owner,
I'm not 'violating' anything. -- See #117. You required employees & invited customers to park on your lot. Deal with it.
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.
Yes luis, we are. Why do you want to infringe on your employees liberty to carry a gun in their car?
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)?
What 'right' of yours is violated by employees guns locked in their cars?
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.
Babble on luis. You have no constitutional position to infringe on your peers RKBA's.
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. --"?
You think that the government needs to enact legislation so that you will not have to walk an extra few hundred feet from your car to the front door.
And you are willing to assist the government in violating the rights of property owners to lessen your inconvenience.
Also, seeing as how work place shootings still happen despite hoplophobic gun laws, I will also hold you responsible for my safety if you insist on me being disarmed on your property as a condition of employment without providing an adaquate safety replacement.
I'm not.
You have no right to impose your will on my property.
"You required employees & invited customers to park on your lot. Deal with it."
You are not required to accept my job!
You are not required to drive to work, let alone park someplace.
You are not "invited" in my parking lot, you are allowed access.
Your car is on my property.
Let's test this, shall we?
Park your car in my drive way against my wishes, and let's see what "Constitutional" argument you have to stop me from having it impounded.
They don't have to accept my job and the wages that come with the job if they don't like my workplace rules.
You have a basic right to parking?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
If you are going to come up with a BS analogy, at least make it consistant.
Your property claim to the lot ends at my tires. You cannot have a property claim to the car itself, or its contents. That is like saying you bought me lunch and so now own my stomach.
There isn't a more pro-Second individual in FR than Jeff Head.
Care to comment Jeff?
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