NRA bill would OK guns in cars at work

MiamiHerald.com ^ | Feb. 08, 2006 | MARC CAPUTO

[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

[tpaine]

Bogus rights
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1574226/posts

Walter Williams wrote:

"--- we have to decide what is a right.

The way our Constitution's framers used the term, a right is something that exists simultaneously among people and imposes no obligation on another.

For example, the right to free speech, or freedom to travel, is something we all simultaneously possess. My right to free speech or freedom to travel imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference.
In other words, my exercising my right to speech or travel requires absolutely nothing from you and in no way diminishes any of your rights. --"


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In other words, my right to carry a gun in my car imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference; -- it requires absolutely nothing from you and in no way diminishes any of your rights.

Thus, you have no natural right to insist that I have no gun in my car; -- nor do our governments have the power to help you prohibit guns from your parking lot.
117 tpaine

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Luis diverts:

"-- 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. --"
119


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There you go luis, you want the government to use force to back up your infringements. My my..

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Invite me to park in your driveway and then have it impounded without cause."

Employers don't'Invite", they allow IF you follw their rules.

You are invited IF you follow my rules, if you don't, I'll impound it.

[Luis Gonzalez]

So, I have the right to conduct Muslim religious services in your front yard?

First Amendment.

[Luis Gonzalez]

YOUR infringement, not mine.

[Dead Corpse]

You can either allow me access to park, or you can just decide not to have a parking lot.

Try and steal my property and you'll find out quickly why I am armed.

[Mini-14]

You (Luis) are the anti-gun chump to which I referred, not Jeff Head.

[Luis Gonzalez]

I've spoken with Jeff on this subject before, and as of our last conversation, he was in complete agreement with me on this.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"You can either allow me access to park, or you can just decide not to have a parking lot."

I can have the parking lot, and not give you access to it.

Happens all the time.

[Luis Gonzalez]

As a matter of fact, I can turn my property into a parking lot and not give anyone at all access to it.

It is after all, my property.

[Luis Gonzalez]

The Second Amendment is a constraint on government, not an imposition on the individual.

[Mulder]

I believe the difference of opinion here comes down to the origin of Rights, and the extent of property rights and contract law.

Luis and others apparently believe that men have no Rights except those granted by the state (i.e, "Constitutional Rights"), and no man's Rights can be violated by someone other than an agent of the state.

I believe that men have many Rights, and that only a few of them are enumerated in our Constitution. As Jefferson, stated, governments are instituted by men to secure these Rights. If a foreign government is attempting to steal your land, the government has the power and the obligation to stop it. If another citizen is attempting to kill you, the government has the power and obligation to stop it. If another entity, such as a corporation, is attempting to dictate your vote or control what you have in your vehicle, the goverment again has the power and obligation to stop it.

Many people forget that the colonists rebelled not only against the British crown, but also British corporations, such as the East India Tea Company. (I suppose in the mind of some folks, that makes Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson "socialists").

Ultimately, Rights are something that you are willing to fight for and die for, which many men have. Free speech, jury trials, Right to bear arms, and the like all meet this criteria. Men have died for and killed for these concepts. How many men do you know that have fought for the "right" for a multinational corporation to conduct Soviet-style searches through their workers privately owned vehicles? To suggest that this is a "right" is absurd and a perversion.

As to property rights, these should be held highly in a Free society. However, I cannot use my property to infringe upon the Rights of other citizens. I can't play music at 3:00 AM that disturbs my neighbors even though it's *my* property, since that infringes upon their Right to peace and quiet (yes, they have that Right, even though it is not in the Constitution).

I do not have the "right" to allow the Russian Air Force to build an airstrip on my property since the presence of said airbase would threaten the Rights of my fellow citizens, even though it's *my* property.

Additional examples are legion, but the point here is that you cannot use your property to deprive other citizens of their Rights. Corporations should not be able to use their property to deprive citizens of their Right to self-defense, their right to be secure in their possessions, and their right to keep and bear arms.

Luis and others apparently believe that private property CAN be used to infringe upon the Rights of other people.

Finally, we get to contract law. Contract law should NOT be absolute. Contracts should be "null and void" whenever fraud is involved, or whenever force is used or implied, or under duress, and so on. Fortunately, existing law recognizes this fact most of the time. I think Luis might even agree with me on this one.

Delving further, we arrive at two more basic questions: "can a man surrender his Rights via a contract?" and "even if a man can morally surrender his Rights via a contract, does the state (whos primary purpose is to defend individual Rights) have an obligation to prevent such contracts from occurring?"

Dealing with the former question, I absolutely believe the answer to this question is "no". Luis probably disagrees. Even if you sign a contract saying you surrender the "right to self defense", this contract is NULL and VOID. Same with contracts involving slavery. Or contracts involving the surrender of your arms. You can't sign away your Liberties, and anyone, such as an anti-gun corporation, that asks you to is an enemy of Liberty.

The next question is should the state recognize such contracts? Again, my answer is "no". Since the state is charged with protecting individual Rights, does it not have a duty to nullify contracts that result in one side giving up their basic Rights? Imagine the society that would exist if in order to feed his family, a man was forced to sign a contract detailing whom he would vote for, how he would spend his money, what possessions he was "allowed" to keep in his car, and so on. It would be a quasi-feudal society, which is the antithesis of a Free Republic based on individual Rights.

[Mulder]

Check out this thread.

Some folks here have no problems with big corporations doing the "dirty work" (i.e., gun-grabbing) of the state.

[KoRn]

I'm a member of the NRA, own lots of guns, and support The Second Amendment whole heartedly. I TOTALLY disagree with this. I think a property owner, such as a business owner has a right to decide what goes on his property and what doesn't, just as people have the right to carry firearms.

To make this clear. Sure someone has the right to free speech, and can insult me, but they don't have the right to do it in my front yard.....

[Luis Gonzalez]

Rights, Rights, and Rights

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.

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.

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.)

Commenter John DeWitt frames the argument when he writes,

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.

MORE...

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 — 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.

Source

[tpaine]

Walter Williams wrote:

"--- we have to decide what is a right.

The way our Constitution's framers used the term, a right is something that exists simultaneously among people and imposes no obligation on another.

For example, the right to free speech, or freedom to travel, is something we all simultaneously possess. My right to free speech or freedom to travel imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference.
In other words, my exercising my right to speech or travel requires absolutely nothing from you and in no way diminishes any of your rights. --"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other words, my right to carry a gun in my car imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference; -- it requires absolutely nothing from you and in no way diminishes any of your rights.

Thus, you have no natural right to insist that I have no gun in my car; -- nor do our governments have the power to help you prohibit guns from your parking lot.

Luis finally admits:

The Second Amendment is a constraint on government, not an imposition on the individual.

Thanks kiddo, we can now see what you really think of individual rights.

You think you can violate inalienable rights just because employees are on your land? -- You have a lot to learn about contract law. -- And it could cost you a fortune, with your attitude.

[Mulder]

To make this clear. Sure someone has the right to free speech, and can insult me, but they don't have the right to do it in my front yard.....

That is a poor analogy.

A better one would be this: do you have the right to strip search an employee and rifle through her purse in order to determine if she has written anything insulting to you which violates your "company policy"?.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Harm's a two way street

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | The largest losers of America's anti-tobacco crusade aren't tobacco companies and smokers, it's the American people who are incrementally giving up private property rights. You say, "Hold it, Williams, I agree that people have the right to smoke and harm themselves, but they don't have the right to harm others with those noxious tobacco fumes!" Let's look at it, because harm is a two way street.

If you're allergic to tobacco smoke or just find its odor unpleasant, and I smoke in your presence, I harm and annoy you. However, if I'm prohibited from smoking a cigarette in your presence, I'm harmed because of a denial of what I find a pleasurable experience.

There's an obvious conflict. One of us is harmed. How can it be resolved? There are several ways. You might consider the harm I suffer trivial compared to yours. You could organize a sufficiently large number of people and lobby lawmakers to enact smoking bans in bars, restaurants and workplaces. Alternatively, I might consider the harm you suffer trivial, and organize a bunch of people and lobby lawmakers to mandate that smoking be permitted in bars, restaurants and workplaces.

Let's think about this for a moment. If you owned a restaurant, and did not allow smoking, wouldn't you find it offensive if a law were enacted requiring you to permit smoking? I'm guessing you'd deem such a law tyranny. After all, you'd probably conclude, it's your restaurant, and if you don't want smoking it's your right. Similarly, I'd deem it just as offensive if smoking were allowed in my restaurant and a law were enacted banning smoking in restaurants.

The totalitarian method to resolve the conflict is through political power and guns. In other words, the group with the greatest power to organize government's brute force decides whether there'll be smoking or no smoking in restaurants. Totalitarians might justify their actions by claiming that bars, restaurants and workplaces deal with the public, and thus the public should decide how they'll be used. That's nonsense. Just because an establishment deals with the public doesn't make it public property.

The liberty-oriented method to resolve conflict is through the institution of private property. In fact, conflict resolution is one of the primary functions of private property, namely it decides who gets to decide how what property is used in what way. Put another way: Who may harm whom in what ways? In a nutshell, private property rights have to do with rights held by an owner to keep, acquire and use property in ways so long as he doesn't interfere with similar rights held by another. Private property rights also include the right to exclude others from use of property.

Under the liberty-oriented method of private property, as a means to conflict resolution, we'd ask the question of ownership. If the owner wishes his restaurant to be smoke-free, it is his right. Whether a smoker is harmed or inconvenienced by not being allowed to smoke in his restaurant is irrelevant. Similarly, if a restaurant owner wishes to permit smoking, it is his right, and whether a nonsmoker is harmed or annoyed is also irrelevant. In the interest of minimizing possible harm either way, it might be appropriate for restaurant owners, by way of a sign or other notice, to inform prospective customers of their respective smoking policy. That way, customers can decide whether to enter upon the premises.

In today's America, the successful anti-tobacco campaign has become a template for conflict resolution through the forceful imposition of wills through the political system. It's part of a continuing trend of attacks on private property rights. Private property rights are the bulwark for liberty, and should be jealously guarded and not be sacrificed for the sake of expediency

Walter Williams

[Luis Gonzalez]

Was the employee advised of this company policy prior to accepting the job?

If they were, then the company has the right.

The employee exercised their rights at the moment they made a decision on whether to accept the job under those conditions or not.

KoRn's is not a poor analogy at all, it is the perfect analogy.

You don't have a Second Amendment right to carry a gun on to my property against my expressed wishes anymore than I have a First Amendment right to deliver a Muslim service in your yard against your expressed wishes.

[Mulder]

Was the employee advised of this company policy prior to accepting the job?

It doesn't matter. You can't sign away a basic Right.

You don't have a Second Amendment right to carry a gun on to my property against my expressed wishes anymore than I have a First Amendment right to deliver a Muslim service in your yard against your expressed wishes.

Absurd analogy. You CANNOT fire someone who keeps a koran or Bible in his car. I know this is a big step for you, Luis, but that is NOT the same as standing in your yard at midnight delivering a sermon.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"In today's America, the successful anti-tobacco campaign has become a template for conflict resolution through the forceful imposition of wills through the political system. It's part of a continuing trend of attacks on private property rights. Private property rights are the bulwark for liberty, and should be jealously guarded and not be sacrificed for the sake of expediency." -- Walter Williams

Expediancy?

Crap...you people are willing to sacrifice the "bulwark for liberty" for the sake of convenient parking.

And you're too dense to see that the government is only too happy to assist you in the continuing erosion of our individual rights.