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
Where is the (law-abiding) employee suppose to keep his lawful gun/weapon??? Leaving it at home violates his right to carry a weapon.
The employer parking lot is only for the convenience of the employer. Where else does a large company house their employee's vehicles? It's true that the parking lot is private property, but it is not for the production of the company's products.
Absolutely. In theory, the government should only be able to usurp your property rights for the sole reason of protecting another citizen's basic Rights. For example, if you build a Russian military base on your property, the state would have the power to usurp your property Rights since the exercise of your rights infringed upon other citizens. Likewise, if I insisted on playing my radio too loud at 3:00 AM every morning, the state would seize my property if I didn't stop.
And if an employer starts using his property rights (parking lot) to infringe upon his worker's property rights (vehicle and weapon), then once again the state is justified in taking action to prevent it.
Your eminent domain comparison is silly since nobody would lose their property unless the employer insisted on conducting soviet-style searches of his employees private property in violation of the law. That's not an unreasonable request; no more than me not playing loud music at 3:00 in the morning and disturbing my neighbors.
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.
Your rules cannot trump another persons basic rights.
Please answer the following: should an employer be able to fire or hire anybody at any time for any reason? (Please don't cite existing laws.... I simply want to know if you think this should be the case in your perfect world.) Yes or No.
There was a similar thread here awhile back and we had a couple of those folks posting here (I haven't seen them on this thread however). They referred to anyone else who wanted to carry on gun on their business property (open to the public), as "redneck yahoos" and the like.
Some people are just control freaks and can't stand the fact that others can carry a gun, drink, smoke, etc... without getting their permission first.
LOL. Surely you will recall that many of our Founding Fathers were smugglers. John Hancock was probably the biggest. I even believe that your friend, Mr. Williams, mentioned this fact in one of his articles.
They were honest and good men, and remained so by disobeying illegitimate oppression from the corporate and state based tyranny.
As an employer you do not have the right to search private property. A car is private property. If you own the parking lot it means that is what you own. You do not own the cars on it and have no rights pertaining to those cars. If you provide cars to your employees ,then you do have that right.
Even within the workplace you do not have the right to search my private person ,pockets purse or wallet
Not really, if you own the lot then allow customers and employees to park on then you have allowed them to bring their private property on your property. You do not have the right to say what private belongings they may have in their car as long as those items are not prohibited by law. You do not have the right of search and siezure even on your property since that conflicts with the right of a person to be secure from assault. Tecnically search can be assault. As a business owner many property rights are circumscribed by common law.
Employers do not have the right to search private property. Please show what statute gives them that power.
How about this...you know how the chow wagon come around to various businesses for lunch?, well why not purchase a used armored car and for a fee collect employees guns and put them all in an individual lock box as the employee arrives for work. After work the employee pays his gun baby sitting fee, and get s his gun back, this way the employee can still have his gun to and from work.
Really? try smoking while in your car, when your car is parked at Manatee Memorial Hospital in Bradenton, Florida, and you will be asked to not smoke or leave...if you continue to smoke, and not leave the parking lot, the Bradenton police will be happy to arrest you for trespassing.
Parks are open to the public too, and they set all kinds of restrictions, such as no pets, no alcohol, no loud music, no overnight camping, oh and NO FIREARMS!
No statute needed, the employer can search your car or your person, provided you allow him to...but if you do not allow him the employer may remove you from his property. It's done everyday all over the nation. The sign usually reads "all motor vehicles subect to search"....you don't like it , don't come onto the property.
The hospital has no right to search your car for smoking materials. As a licenced hospital they can not exclude emergency patiens that smoke. They can not exclude hospital visitors that smoke.
The question of this thread seems to be, which do I prefer? A government tyrant, or a corporate tyrant?
Neither is acceptable.
But we will see how closely government and corporate agree on this issue very soon. And then we will see that a tyrant is a tyrant, is a tyrant.
I like the BBQ invite scenario. I think it would be reasonable if I asked that you not bring your weapons on your person to my BBQ. but I do not think it would be reasonable if I said you could not bring them on the trip to my BBQ, even if they were locked in YOUR car upon your arrival.
That might put you at too much risk out of my jurisdiction.
Within my jurisdiction, your safety becomes my responsibility. Outside it, it's none of my business.
A cowboy rides up to your place with a gun strapped to his horse. He dismounts and approaches you. Are you afraid? Probably not. If he was intending on harming you he'd grap that gun off of his horse.
Well I own a parking lot. I can do anything I want. I can kill anyone anytime for any reason as long as they are on my property. I can require every girl to disrobe upon entering my property. Every person who enters my property must worship Zod. If you park in my parking lot, your car belongs to me plus you have to pay me ten million dollars for the priviledge of giving me your car.
Every person who parks in my employee parking lot has to remove all seats and radios from their vehicles. Everyone who parks in my lot is automatically my slave for life.
It is my lot and I make the rules. You have to obey them.
I think you're on the right track. There are diffences between employer and employee which will have to be resolved.
And it should be reasonable to both.
How about the Clinton solution... Don't ask...don't tell.
That's what saddlebags are for, so you don't scare them city folks.
I AM a military Freeper and the last base I was on definately required people who were living in the barracks to keep firearms in the armory. I wasn't living in family housing so I can't speak to that. This was in Texas in 2004.
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