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
My employer prohibits guns on company property (work rule) but what he doesn't know won't hurt me!
South Carolina needs to pass this law too.
So your choice then revolves around what's most important to you...not walking, or not carrying.
Your choice does NOT include using the force of government to violate the property rights of the owners of the company who set the rules for access in place.
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 parking lot to be gun-free, it is his right.
Whether a gun owning employee is harmed or inconvenienced by not being allowed to have a gun in his car is irrelevant.
Similarly, if a lot owner wishes to permit guns, it is his right, and whether a gun prohibitionist is harmed or annoyed is also irrelevant.
In the interest of minimizing possible harm either way, it might be appropriate for parking lot owners, by way of a sign or other notice, to inform prospective customers & employees of their respective gun policies. That way, customers can decide whether to enter upon the premises.
So luis; -- in your opinion is this a fair comparison?
"-- Whether a gun owning employee is harmed or inconvenienced by not being allowed to have a gun in his car is irrelevant. --"?
-- Is smoking really comparable to our right to keep arms? Is our RKBA's "irrelevant" to you?
I doubt that it is to Walter Williams, - and his "Bogus Rights" article backs me up, not you.
Other options do exist...they can either find a place to park that will allow it (and there may be a business opportunity wrapped up in that), or, they find another employer (and despite what people may think, for such principles this is a very real possibility...it's how the market speaks), or they carry anyway and should then be willing to take responsibility for those actions.
In all cases, the right to bear arms has not been infringed. The decision still rests with the bearer.
Just my thoughts.
As I said...convenience versus rights.
You don't have the right to violate a property owner's rights to his property for the sake of your convenience.
Good discussion on this thread about RKBA and property rights. Please read my take in post 174. Thoughts?
No, I was merely demonstrating that activity "A" (koran in car) is protected, while "B" (reciting koran in your front yard at midnight) is not; and stating that "A" does not equal "B", which is obvious to anyone but you.
What you (and the NRA) are doing is the start of the slippery slope which can lead to Korans and Bibles being banned form the workplace.
Yeah, all those legislators in Oklahoma that voted for a similar bill are going to ban Bibles next. Get real.
You are advocating the will of the majority imposed on the minority via the use of legislation (force of government).
I'm advocating the protection of individual Rights. I suppose that is how you characterize, but the same can be said pertaining to laws against murder. Is not a law against murder "the will of the majority imposed on the minority via the use of legislation (force of government)?"
Corporations may someday be forced to fire people bringing Korans and Bibles into the workplace because the weight of popular opinion, backed by the force of government, and financed by special interest groups forced legislation into existence which decreed both inflammatory or even hate speech.
So maybe they will amend this bill to protect EVERYTHING in your car, not just weapons.
Again, you are not making any sense. A corporation had a policy banning X. The legislature is stepping in to stop that since the possesion of X is an individual Right. And you think this actually makes banning Y easier?
Using your logic, there should be no laws against rape since the state could then turn around and make rape mandatory!
By your same argument, allowing people to bring Bibles and Korans into a workplace were Federal (or State) monies are being spent violates (according to a large number of Americans) the Establishment clause of the Constitution.
Get serious. Have a Bible in your car isn't an "establishment of a religion".
Although I have no doubt that some multinational corporation will at some point in the future conduct searches of their workers vehicles, and fire those with hate speech (Bibles) in them. And I have no doubt that you will be posting here defending the actions of the company.
My property rights are more relevant than your notion of RKPA is to you.
I am not seeking to violate your rigts, you don't have to come t my house or accept my job.
You, on the other hand, are seeking to violate my rights to what is mine.
The right to park where you deem convenient is not a Constitutional right. But you're sure making that argument.
This is NOT about your right to carry a weapon, it's about yout right to park your car where you want to...on someone else's property, and against their wishes.
Three local bases have prohibitions against firearms and ammo posted at the gates.
No employer has the right to infringe on the rights of their employees in a non work related fashion. This case involves both the private space of the vehicle's interior and the employee's right ot effective self defense while traveling to and from work. McClure-Volkman and the 14th Amend. probits infringement of that right by anyone.
It's well established in American law that an an employer can not put the lives of their employees at risk, either on the job, or off. That is a fact regardless of of whether, or not they own the damn parking lot.
But they, in turn, DO NOT Have the right or option, at least not morally or within any common law principle, to force the owner of that lot to allow people to park there whom he does not want there. Otherwise his property rights are meaningless and liberty is finished...and we are already very close to that in any case, IMHO.
"...You drive your car to my private business as my employee, I can have your car searched. Don't want it searched? Walk to work or park on the street..."
You're not going to be real popular around here with those kind of posts, newbie. Well, I take that back. Perhaps you're one of those Big GovernmentTM statist conservatives. Many of the folks you'll encounter on Free Republic are conservative with a distinct libertarian (lower-case "L") attitude towards life. Don't fall for the absurd "security" excuse hook, line, and sinker.
~ Blue Jays ~
The employer has no say within the boundaries of the vehicle. He does not own that vehicle. He has a say over that vehicle itself, nothing more. Also, such rules as OSHA exist, that encompass the rights of workers, regardless of the employer's demands.
What got this thing started was a big multinational corporation decided one day to bring in some German Shepards to sniff around the vehicles of their workers. They "hit" on some of them, and those that had guns in them were fired. The Oklahoma legislature then (nearly unanimously) passed a bill saying that a company can't fire workers for having a gun in their private vehicle on company property. Other states legislatures are following their lead. (After all, isn't is the primary purpose of government to protect individual Rights?).
In my mind, it is no different than a company trying to put cameras in employee restrooms and the legislature trying to stop them.
In theory, the "free market" would take care of this, but we don't have a free market. We have a quasi-controlled economy (40%-60%) run by bueacratic planners in the govt and in big multinational corporations. (If you doubt this, look at the advancement of "political correctness" in major corporations).
Corporations have a terrible history in this country of abusing their power. They will certainly do so in the future if there are not basic protections afforded by the legislature.
Sadly, that's becoming the case in most places, but that's the employer's right as long as you are on company property. If you don't like it, go work somewhere else.
The parking lot is there for whatever purpose the owner wants to assign to it.
Funny stuff...it not him that's arguing in favor of more legislation and more intrusion into individual rights.
They don't have the "right" to strip search you. Although the bootlicking contigent here will try to convince you otherwise.
If you don't like it, go work somewhere else.
Better yet, get your state legislature to do their job and actually protect individual Rights for a change. Stop being a chump and stand up for your Rights.
I don't want to live in a corporate police state, which is where we are headed.
Really? Can he build a Russian Air Force base on it?
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