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NRA bill would OK guns in cars at work
MiamiHerald.com ^ | Feb. 08, 2006 | MARC CAPUTO

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


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: 2a; amendment; bang; banglist; chamberofcommerce; florida; freedom; gungrabbers; hci; noguns; nra; nraistight; rkba; sarahbrady; second; secondamendment; workplace
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To: tpaine
Sorry, we disagree. On their private property, they can have the say. It's like saying that since a person has the right of free speech, you should allow them to say whatever they want on your property at work...that does not fly. Or, since you have a right to freely travel, no tresspassing signs must be taken down or not be allowed so you can get from one side of someone's property to the other. These principles do not apply on someone's private property...and we can;t have it both ways because it will lead to not havinbg those private property rights at all IMHO.

The firearms owner has his option and choices, he can go work somewhere else, park somewhere else, elect not to go armed, or even violate the policy (employee agreement) and risk taking full responsibility for that decision. HIs rights are not violated.

Like I said, I do not necessarily agree with them making such a prohibition on their proerty...but it is their property and they have the right to do so if they wish.

But now the discussion is getting circular. We are saying the same things we have already said. Folks will have to decide how they believe on their own. I have stated my own feelings.

Best freregards my friend.

301 posted on 02/11/2006 9:17:51 AM PST by Jeff Head (www.dragonsfuryseries.com)
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To: tpaine
"...none of which can refute the fact that efforts are being made to infringe on our right to bear arms while going to and from work."

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over." -- Joseph Goebbels

"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." -- Adolf Hitler

Your right to RKBA is not infringed, your ability to park where it is most convenient to you is affected.

You go Goebbels!

302 posted on 02/11/2006 9:23:35 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: Beagle8U
But some argue that I have no right to set conditions for the presence of your car on my property.

I guess you defend the right to smuggle.

303 posted on 02/11/2006 9:25:07 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: Beagle8U

If I set a drug free workplace policy in place in my business, and you accept a job from me, do I have the right to test your urine for signs of drug use before and during your tenure with my company?


304 posted on 02/11/2006 9:30:42 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: Mulder

If I set a drug free workplace policy in place in my business, and you accept a job from me, do I have the right to test your urine for signs of drug use before and during your tenure with my company?


305 posted on 02/11/2006 9:31:15 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: davidosborne

20 years ago, we made a trip to New England in a motorhome. I had a .357 magnum in the overhead for defense of my family. Those campgrounds are very isolated and dark, ya know.

As we approached the Taxachusetts state line, up popped the signs declaring that it was ILLEGAL to possess a handgun there. As our destination was my sister-in-law's place in Plymouth, I had two choices: I could run the risk of arrest and conviction of their idiotic "law" (in contravention of the 2nd Amendment) OR stop and hurl a $400.00 handgun into the weeds on the side of the road where it might be found by some state employee mowing grass that spring (and who would almost certainly KEEP it) and make the rest of the trip without that protection.

I kept driving.


306 posted on 02/11/2006 9:37:22 AM PST by Dick Bachert
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To: Luis Gonzalez
NOPE. i think you KNOW that i mean the RIGHT to self defense.

free dixie,sw

307 posted on 02/11/2006 9:42:00 AM PST by stand watie (Resistance to tyrants is OBEDIENCE to GOD. Thomas Jefferson, 1804)
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To: joanie-f
Joanie wrote:

When I refer to 'private property' (and specifically in the case of this argument), I define it as owned by individuals (whether it be a single individual, a family, a large group of stockholders represented by an elected board of directors, etc.) as opposed to government-regulated 'public property'.
And allowing the government to make rules as to how I determine my private property will be used (whether 'I' be a single individual, a family, or a large group of stockholders) is as foreign to the blueprint for this republic as allowing the government to tell me what color I must paint my house or my business.

Our Constituion is our 'rule', our Law of the Land. States can make constitutional rules about how you use your property. Upholding the RKBA's while at work is one of those rules.

Assuming that Business has no 'right' to ignore our public policy … Just what do you include in the vague term 'our public policy'?

Our US Constitution, and those of our States are 'policy'. -- They are not vague..

Do you also include the New London 'public policy' that the New London Development Corporation has a right to seize Susette Kelo's property for development purposes? (I'm sure you don't, being that the largest portion of your post simply reeks (pleasantly :) of a belief in conservative ideology).

Reeks? -- How coy :)...

My point is, why the adulation of 'public policy'?

Straw man.. I have no "adulation", as you well know. I simply support the Constitution as written.

Especially when it infringes on property rights?

Banning a gun from my property, my car, "infringes on property rights"..

If I build a small business in town, and logically construct a small parking lot for my prospective employees, that lot is my private property.

Do you admit that the town has the power to mandate that lot be used as a condition of doing business?

The fact that I do business on that private property does not diminish the fact that it is mine. If I am an extraordinarily eccentric person, I have the Constitutional right to tell my employees that they are not allowed to wear pink shirts to work, or park non-American-made cars on my lot (unconstitutional civil rights laws notwithstanding).

So? Are you claiming eccentricity gives you the right to ban my car [w/gun inside] from your parking lot while I'm conducting business with you?

Again. -- What advantage does business gain by banning guns?

That's a very good question for which I myself do not believe there is a reasonable answer. (As squantos wrote in a post above, and I share his sentiments: I won't work where I can't carry, and I won't spend my money where I can't carry).

That's his choice. Many, if not most people, have very little choice in jobs or parking. Should this mean they lose their RKBA's while going to work?

But neither is it my constitutional right to second-guess a business's decisions as to how it manages its property.

Most of us have sworn to protect & defend our Constitution. When a business 'manages' to ban guns, I'll second guess them.

I simply would not choose to work for such a business.
I am an elected official in my township

Then you swore an oath, as I did, to protect & defend.

and I often do work in my office at night, when the building is empty, except for the occasional police officer doing paperwork on a lower floor. I now carry my .38 with me during those hours. If all of the above were the same, but I worked for a privately-owned company, and that company handed down a regulation that disallowed me from carrying on company property (whether it be in the company building or parking lot), I would think the company extremely foolish and no doubt buckling under the pressures of political correctness, and I would look for work elsewhere.

I most definitely would not seek to stifle, through government regulation, the company's ability to make such decisions.

So you would in effect surrender your right to carry to an "extremely foolish" rule -- "buckling under the pressures of political correctness" ..
What can I say? That's your choice, one which I can not approve.

If we, as citizens, attempt to force other citizens to justify their personal property decisions, because we ourselves vehemently disagree with them,

We all agreed to live under the Constitutions rule of law over two hundred years ago. Property decisions that affect my RKBA's violate that agreement.

then we are no better than our ever-more-tyrannical government that seeks to regulate (and often succeeds) every decision that business makes.
The Constitution clearly delineates the limited powers of government.

Yep, and it is clearly within the power of a State to require that parking lot owners comply with our RKBA's.

Conservative ideology seeks to reflect that belief in our state and local governments as well. The power to tell individual people, or the businesses they own, what they can and cannot allow on their property (short of items that disrupt domestic tranquility and threaten general welfare)

Attempts to ban guns from parking lots are obviously disturbing 'domestic tranquility' in some States.

plays no part in the Founders' vision of the role of any government based on republican principles.

It is not a republican principle to allow gun bans..

308 posted on 02/11/2006 9:48:08 AM PST by tpaine
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To: Luis Gonzalez
"If I set a drug free workplace policy in place in my business, and you accept a job from me, do I have the right to test your urine for signs of drug use before and during your tenure with my company?"

Sure you do. Test for all the ILLEGAL drugs you wish, fire anyone that tests positive, the courts will back you up.

Fire someone for LEGAL BP meds, and you will run into problems.

See how that works?

Legal V illegal
309 posted on 02/11/2006 9:50:08 AM PST by Beagle8U (An "Earth First" kinda guy ( when we finish logging here, we'll start on the other planets.)
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To: stand watie

The right to self-defense is served by your gun being locked in your car while you work?


310 posted on 02/11/2006 9:52:30 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: Luis Gonzalez
actually, you should be able to carry anyplace, if you are lawfully allowed to do so.

otoh, the employer has the right as the property owner to keep employees from wearing arms on his/her property.

the obvious solution to protect both rights is to allow the guns to be locked in vehicles, while at work.

the employer HERE is DUMB.

fwiw, i would NOT work for this employer. period. end of story.

free dixie,sw

311 posted on 02/11/2006 9:59:02 AM PST by stand watie (Resistance to tyrants is OBEDIENCE to GOD. Thomas Jefferson, 1804)
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To: Luis Gonzalez
in a perfect world, licensed individuals should be able to carry EVERYWHERE.

in today's society, your chances of that happening are about the same as a man has of becoming Miss America.

fwiw, i have suggested to the FAA that all LEOs of EVERY jurisdiction be allowed to carry firearms on planes.

ONE deputy sheriff/policeman/state trooper on each of the planes that flew on 9-11 would have put a SUDDEN STOP to the terrorists that awful day.

fwiw, i was ON a plane that morning. when we were told by the pilot what had happened, i was wishing that i was wearing the old, beat up,Model 10 S&W (that old .38SPL never failed me in over 30 years!),that was checked in my luggage!

free dixie,sw

312 posted on 02/11/2006 10:10:17 AM PST by stand watie (Resistance to tyrants is OBEDIENCE to GOD. Thomas Jefferson, 1804)
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To: tpaine
"States can make constitutional rules about how you use your property."

Translation: government can usurp your property rights.

You support eminent domain.

"Banning a gun from my property, my car, "infringes on property rights"...

Repeating the lie again Josef?

No one is banning your gun from your car, you just have to park it off my property.

"Are you claiming eccentricity gives you the right to ban my car [w/gun inside] from your parking lot while I'm conducting business with you?"

No, my right as the owner of the property..the individual who paid for it, pays to maintain it, and pays taxes on it, gives me the right to set rules of access.

"Attempts to ban guns from parking lots are obviously disturbing 'domestic tranquility' in some States."

Translation: mob rule force of government trump individual rights.

313 posted on 02/11/2006 10:23:41 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: stand watie
"otoh, the employer has the right as the property owner to keep employees from wearing arms on his/her property."

"the obvious solution to protect both rights is to allow the guns to be locked in vehicles, while at work."

You just contradicted yourself.

You believe that the property owner has the right, for whatever reason he may have to do so, to keep guns from being on his property, but you think that the solution is for that same property owner to acquiesce to allowing guns on his property.

314 posted on 02/11/2006 10:26:50 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: Luis Gonzalez
--- there have been many asinine arguments on this thread, none of which can refute the fact that efforts are being made to infringe on our right to bear arms while going to and from work.
Why a life long NRA member would fully support these efforts is beyond normal comprehension.

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over." -- Joseph Goebbels
"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." -- Adolf Hitler
Your right to RKBA is not infringed, your ability to park where it is most convenient to you is affected.
You go Goebbels!
302 -luis-

Thank you for confirming that you are reduced to playing the nazi namecalling card, luis..

You need rest.

315 posted on 02/11/2006 10:26:59 AM PST by tpaine
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To: Beagle8U
I can also set the same rule as a smoke-free workplace, and test you for nicotine.

The SCOTUS has already weighed in, and allowed employers the ability to discriminate against smokers in the hiring process, and by extension during their tenure as employees.

IOW...I can test you for a legal substance, and fire you if I find that you used it.

316 posted on 02/11/2006 10:34:07 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: Luis Gonzalez
NOPE, i did NOT contradict myself.

i said that the employer was violating the RIGHT unless "off-site" parking is allowed.

free dixie,sw

317 posted on 02/11/2006 10:34:12 AM PST by stand watie (Resistance to tyrants is OBEDIENCE to GOD. Thomas Jefferson, 1804)
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To: tpaine

Property owners do not have the ability to ban your gun from your vehicle, they can however, deny you access to their property because of the gun in your vehicle, forcing you to seek other parking.

It isn't about the Second Amendment at all, no matter how many times you repeat the lie.

It's about convenient parking...that's all.

Good night Josef.

Keep repeating the lie.


318 posted on 02/11/2006 10:36:33 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: stand watie
"i said that the employer was violating the RIGHT unless "off-site" parking is allowed."

How can offsite parking NOT be allowed?

Show me one instance of a company that forces people to drive to work, AND use their parking lot.

319 posted on 02/11/2006 10:37:51 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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To: stand watie

By the way...you and I are in agreement on most of this issue.

And yes, the solution would be for an employer to allow guns locked in the cars. But if the employer does not chose to do that, forcing him to accept guns on his property via force of government is an abrogation of all our property rights.


320 posted on 02/11/2006 10:40:33 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez (Some people see the world as they would want it to be, effective people see the world as it is.)
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