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

[DragonflyX]

Here is the Army Reg. Soldiers living in the barracks have to store personal firearms in their unit arms room. Soldiers living in family quarters must register them but can keep them in their quarters.

http://www.drum.army.mil/garrison/pw/pdf/Environmental/NatResources/FishAndWild/FD%20Reg%20190-6.pdf

[Luis Gonzalez]

You've seized your "build a Russian military base" garbage debate like a drowning man seizes a piece of driftwood...garbage thinking.

As a matter of fact, I CAN build a Russian military base on my property; it's my right as a property owner.

However, the government is Constitutionally charged with deciding who may enter and stay in this country, so the troops to man that base would not be allowed to be here, unless of course the government, as it is allowed to do by the Constitution, strikes a treaty with Russia allowing them to have military personnel on the ground in this country.

Do you have any more bulls#t you need me to address?

In order for your argument about a private property owner not being able to set the conditions to your access to his property to be true, you are going to have to convince me that I have to allow you on my property and in my house with a gun, against my wishes.

You can't.

The only way to do so would be for the government to cave in under pressure from the mob, and write legislation to usurp my rights as a property owner.

They normally don't have a problem with doing that, as we have seen with the notion of eminent domain, and they will be more than happy to cater to idiots who are willing to trade a little liberty in exchange for parking.

This is not about your right to bear arms, no one has impeeded your ability to carry a weapon. This is about convenient parking.

What a sad, pathetic lot you are, trading basic liberty for convenient parking.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Try excluding blacks, women, or anything else covered by the Constitution or Bill of Rights."

There used to be intelligent people in this forum who understood the basic difference between being black, being a woman, being old, and carrying something on your person as a matter of personal choice.

The reason why discrimination based on skin color, gender and age are addressed by the Constitution, and discrimination based on those traits made illegal is because people can't help being black or white or yellow or old or of one gender or another. Carrying a weapon is a choice, not a genetic trait.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"They were honest and good men, and remained so by disobeying illegitimate oppression from the corporate and state based tyranny."

And revolted as a result of actions from the Crown such as usurping their property rights, and forcing them to house armed troops on their property, against their wishes.

Right now, you're cheering for Ol' King George.

[Lancey Howard]

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.

The world is nuts. Or maybe I don't understand the necessity for this bill.
Are people's cars searched when they go to work in Florida?

[tpaine]

Lancey Howard wrote:

The world is nuts. Or maybe I don't understand the necessity for this bill.
Are people's cars searched when they go to work in Florida?


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


Yes Lancey, the world is nuts, people's cars are being searched for guns, and some misguided conservative people here are backing the searchers.
These unconstitutional searches are being made under the theory that a business's property rights trump the individual employees property & gun rights.

Here's a typical misguided self styled 'conservative' columnist spinning away at the issue, opposing the NRA and our individual right to keep and bear arms:


--- The NRA vs. the Constitution ---


How a misguided defense of gun rights undermines a free society
Jacob Sullum

The most commonly heard complaint about the National Rifle Association is that it's run by extremists who are militantly opposed to all forms of gun control and do not represent the views of the average gun owner.
The second most common complaint is that the NRA is a namby-pamby, inside-the-Beltway lobby that readily compromises principle for political advantage.

There is some truth to both of these seemingly contradictory portraits.
The NRA's single-minded determination to defend its own understanding of the right to keep and bear arms can lead it to chip away at other pillars of a free society.


Consider the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which has been one of the NRA's top priorities for several years and was recently approved by the Senate. This bill, which the House is expected to approve in the fall and President Bush has promised to sign, protects gun manufacturers and distributors from lawsuits that blame them for the harm caused by people who use firearms to commit crimes.

The NRA is correct that such lawsuits represent an unjust and dangerous expansion of tort law, potentially threatening any industry that sells products used by criminals. It is also correct that gun litigation based on "public nuisance" or "negligent distribution" theories, if successful, could bankrupt the industry, which would make it difficult for Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

To avoid the risk of ruinous judgments, gun makers might agree to new restrictions on how they advertise, promote, and sell their products, or such restrictions could be imposed by courts after trial. In that event, one state court could in effect set gun control policy for the entire country, infringing on Second Amendment rights and circumventing state legislatures and Congress, contrary to the system of government established by the Constitution.

Yet these threats to constitutional rights and principles, which have to be weighed against the clear intrusion on state sovereignty represented by the federalization of tort law, remain almost entirely theoretical. Not one of the newfangled gun lawsuits has resulted in a jury award so far, and 33 states have passed laws pre-empting them.
Of more than 30 gun lawsuits filed by state and local governments since 1998, all but a few have been nullified by such laws or dismissed by state courts that recognized them as groundless.

Given this track record, the strongest justification the NRA can offer for immediate congressional intervention is that the lawsuits are costing a small industry hundreds of millions of dollars in legal expenses it can ill afford. That may be an argument for demanding that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which has helped file most of these suits, reimburse the targets of their frivolous litigation.
But it's not a compelling argument for a law that violates the separation of powers between the states and the federal government by dictating outcomes in state civil actions.

In the case of lawsuit pre-emption, the NRA at least has some plausible, though ultimately unconvincing, constitutional arguments on its side.


Not so with its recently announced boycott of ConocoPhillips.


The NRA launched the boycott in retaliation for the energy company's participation in a federal lawsuit challenging a new Oklahoma law that prohibits companies from banning guns in vehicles parked on their property.

The Oklahoma law was passed in response to the firing of 12 employees at a Weyerhaeuser paper mill after guns were discovered in their cars during a sweep with drug-sniffing dogs.

If the NRA were simply objecting to ConocoPhillips' policy of barring guns from its parking lots, I would have no problem with the boycott.

Instead, the NRA is objecting to the company's defense of its right to determine the gun policy on its own property. "We're going to make ConocoPhillips the example of what happens when a corporation takes away your Second Amendment rights," declares NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.

That statement makes no sense, since the Second Amendment is a restraint on government.

The Second Amendment does not mean a private employer has to welcome guns in its parking lot, any more than the First Amendment means I have a right to give speeches in your living room.

LaPierre insists that "you can't say you support Second Amendment freedoms, then turn around and support anti-Second Amendment companies."

I think you can, if you support property rights and understand what the Second Amendment really means.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason and the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use

[tpaine]

More "world is nuts" material:


-- Guns At Work --

Big business and the gun lobby are going at it over workplace firearms. Will the Bush administration pick sides?

By Robert B. Reich

Web Exclusive: 08.18.05


Listen to the evening news and you're likely to hear a grizzly story about a disaffected worker or estranged spouse or dissatisfied customer arriving at a workplace and going ballistic. It's all too common.

About 17 employees are murdered every week in American workplaces by someone with a gun, making gun-related killings the third-biggest safety hazard facing American workers -- right after vehicles and machines.
In fact, gun-related homicide is the leading cause of death at the workplace for women.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina have shown that killings are five times more likely to occur at workplaces where guns are allowed as where they're prohibited. It's just common sense.

So what are we doing about this? Some well-known American companies are taking action. It's government that's the problem.

A while back, the Weyerhauser Corporation banned weapons in cars parked in its employee parking lots. Workers who thereafter arrived with shotguns, handguns, rifles, and automatic weapons were fired.

But legislators in Oklahoma didn't like this at all.
Apparently Oklahoma's lawmakers are more concerned about protecting gun owners than protecting average working people.
So they enacted a state law preventing companies from instituting no-guns-in-company-parking-lot policies.

Unless something's done, the law goes into effect this November.
Thankfully, something is being done. A group of companies is going to court to block that Oklahoma law. They say they have a right to take action to protect their employees on company property. These companies -- including the energy giant Halliburton; aircraft-part maker Nordam; and ConocoPhillips, the largest oil refiner in America -- deserve the thanks of workers in Oklahoma and in any other states where gun-fawning lawmakers are intent on endangering them.

True to form, the National Rifle Association is taking a stand against these companies, and in favor of people who want to bring guns to work. It's even organizing a boycott of ConocoPhillips gas stations.

Now, you may ask, where is the federal government in all this? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is supposed to set national policy for workplace safety. Since it was established more than 30 years ago, OSHA has often been corporate America's worst nightmare, focusing its enforcement on picayune rules and regulations.

Now here's OSHA's chance to side with corporate America and protect workers' lives. OSHA ought to ban guns in every workplace across America -- thereby preempting the Oklahoma legislation and sending the National Rifle Association packing.

If OSHA fails to take action on this one, you might suspect that the National Rifle Association has trained its sights on the Bush administration.
Robert B. Reich is cofounder of The American Prospect. A version of this column appeared on Marketplace.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Are people's cars searched when they go to work in Florida?"

I have a very mundane job, my car is searched every time I leave my work compound.

I have to allow security to look in my vehicle, and I have to open my trunk for them.

If I have merchandise in my car, I have to show proper documentation for that merchandise.

Should employers allow theft in the workplace to go unchecked in order to safeguard employee's "privacy rights"?

If you believe that there is a Constitutional right to privacy, then you must support both Roe v. Wade, and Lawrence v. Texas.

You can't argue in favor of privacy rights out of one side of your mouth, and against them out of another; standing on the fence is standing for nothing.

If you argue that a property owner does not have the right to restrict people with guns from entering and remaining in his property because it violates the Second Amendment, then you must also be willing to allow a Muslim cleric to conduct services in your living room, lest you violate his First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of religion.

So then, can an employer set conditions of employment for his company which include restrictions on legal materials that can be brought onto his property?

Absolutely.

Pornography is legal, but I don't have to allow it on my property at all.

So then, if you accept a job with the understanding that a condition of that employment includes not being able to bring a weapon onto the property of your employer, then you must also accept the fact that the employer has the right to make sure that his conditions and employment regulations are being met, so he can in fact search your car to make sure that you are abiding by workplace rules.

Most employment is in fact an at-will contract; either party can terminate the contract at any time, and for any reason. Some reasons for refusing work or terminating work have been made unlawful; race, gender, and age are most notable, thus they are considered a protected class; when entering an at will employement contract, you don't have the choice of making a decision on your skin color in order to get the job, you don't have the ebility to become younger to accept the job, and you can't grow a penis to get the job.

Well, you can have one surgically added or removed...but let's not go there.

:-)

You can however, make a choice to not bring a weapon in your car, not to accept the job based on a condition that you don't agree with, park your car off-premises in order to retain your ability to carry the weapon to and from work, or even break the implied contract and bring a weapon with you to work with the understanding that you will forfeit your job if you are caught.

This legislation being considered by the Florida legislature (my legislature) removes rights, we know that all that government can do is to limit or remove rights; governments don't grant rights.

This legislature removes a property owner's right to set the conditions under which people can enter and remain in his property...that's a bad thing, not a good one, and it will be abused.

We get the tyranny we demand.

[planekT]

Them city folks probably wouldn't have known what to make of my neighbor who passed away a few years back.

I'm guessing he was in his late eighties and he was still plowing his own field every year. One time I happened to be at the back fence and he pulled up and we had a nice chat.

He had a nice big shiny revolver strapped on his hip. :-)

[planekT]

In this case, I think that would be the best policy.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Well Tommy, you now stand side by side with homosexuals, transexuals, and the gender-identity challenged in demanding to be granted protected class status by the government.

Congratulations.

Go pop open a nice bottle of zinfandel and pop a couple of quiches in the oven to celebrate.

[rahbert]

We dont enjoy pure "free speech" at work.

Speech that the co-workers consider demeaning or
that creates a hostile work environment is
specifically proscribed. You can be held to account
for it, beyond merely losing your job.

[Dead Corpse]

What kind of a moral cripple are you that you would disallow your employees their Rights. Especially when exercise of those Rights may help protect your property from criminal behavior?

If you can't treat your employees as free and sentient beings, with equal Rights, you won't soon have a lot of quality people working for you... You'll have dregs and drones.

400 posts and you are still arguing like a Cuban communist.

[tpaine]

Luis Gonzalez wrote:

Well Tommy, you now stand side by side with homosexuals, transexuals, and the gender-identity challenged in demanding to be granted protected class status by the government.


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

I stand with our Constitution, while you deny that it applies to you.

Your stance also puts you squarely alongside Robert Reich..


Replies
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1574293/replies?c=387

[Luis Gonzalez]

"What kind of a moral cripple are you that you would disallow your employees their Rights."

"Moral cripple"?

LOL!

It isn't me denying anyone their rights, it's they who are using the force of government to deny property owners the right to set conditions of access to what is theirs who are trying to take rights from others by using the force of government.

I offer you a job, it pays this much, you work from this time to this time, you get the following benefits, you perform the following duties, and you enter my property under my terms and in accordance with my conditions. Now you can either accept the job as the job was described to you, or not.

If I fail to deliver any part of what I offered, you may quit, and even take me to court. If you fail to adhere to any policy described as a condition of employment, or fail to perform the work you were hired to do, I may terminate your employment.

What you don't get to do is to tell me that you will take the job, but you will not accept a part of the conditions I set down.

It's not your job to have, it is mine to give.

It isn't your property for you to set the rules, it's mine.

"If you can't treat your employees as free and sentient beings, with equal Rights, you won't soon have a lot of quality people working for you."

That's right, and I will be out of business.

Isn't the free market system great?

"400 posts and you are still arguing like a Cuban communist."

I don't know whether the corpse is dead or not, but the brain certainly is.

You argue from the side of workers engaging the government to impose their will on the owners of private businesses, and you call ME a communist?

[stand watie]

NOT here in the Commonwealth. SEVERAL Park Boards TRIED that & got slapped down in the State Circuit Court for violating the park USERS rights.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

actually the founders of this republic would NOT have believed that ANYBODY would make that argument.

carrying/wearing arms was ACCEPTED everywhere in early US history.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

btw, when i was a SDUSM years ago, "a citizen" came to the courthouse & asked if we would STORE his pistol while "he was in town".

i was "working the front door" that day. i called "downstairs" & asked the Chief Deputy about this & was told that "while we haven't been asked to do this in a LONG, LONG time", that it was ACCEPTABLE. so i stored his .38 in the "lock box", gave him the key & he returned for his revolver, as he left town. (seemed to me to be like the OLD WEST!)

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

i wonder. IF the employer orders you to be UNarmed on the job (and thus vulnerable to ARMED attack), does this then require him/her to PROTECT you from such harm, while on his/her property (and perhaps to/from work???)????

free dixie,sw

[tpaine]

Luis Gonzalez wrote:

I have a very mundane job, my car is searched every time I leave my work compound. I have to allow security to look in my vehicle, and I have to open my trunk for them.
If I have merchandise in my car, I have to show proper documentation for that merchandise.
Should employers allow theft in the workplace to go unchecked in order to safeguard employee's "privacy rights"?

Weird reply. --- Luis, why do you imagine this is the issue? -- Would the security guard guestion your ownership of a shotgun in your trunk?
Would managment fire you for having one?

If you believe that there is a Constitutional right to privacy, then you must support both Roe v. Wade, and Lawrence v. Texas. You can't argue in favor of privacy rights out of one side of your mouth, and against them out of another; standing on the fence is standing for nothing.

Why are you babbling about privacy? The issue here is a gun in your trunk.. Can you be fired for having it there?

If you argue that a property owner does not have the right to restrict people with guns from entering and remaining in his property because it violates the Second Amendment, then you must also be willing to allow a Muslim cleric to conduct services in your living room, lest you violate his First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of religion.

No, thats a absurd comparison. A fanatic preaching in your living room has nothing - zip - to do with having a gun in your trunk while parked at work.

So then, can an employer set conditions of employment for his company which include restrictions on legal materials that can be brought onto his property? Absolutely.

Nope, not absolutely. Your employer is bound by our Constitution, as are you. It's Constitutional to have gun in your trunk. [locked in your trunk, the weapon is on your property]

Pornography is legal, but I don't have to allow it on my property at all.

A rational security guard, searching your property, your car for pilfered objects, would be obliged to ignore your personal porn. [locked in your trunk, the porn is on your property]

So then, if you accept a job with the understanding that a condition of that employment includes not being able to bring a weapon onto the property of your employer, [locked in your trunk, the weapon is on your property] then you must also accept the fact that the employer has the right to make sure that his conditions and employment regulations are being met, so he can in fact search your car to make sure that you are abiding by workplace rules.

Your employers 'workplace rules' are restricted by our Constitution. It's Constitutional to have gun in your trunk. "[locked in your trunk, the weapon is on your property]"

Most employment is in fact an at-will contract; either party can terminate the contract at any time, and for any reason. Some reasons for refusing work or terminating work have been made unlawful; race, gender, and age are most notable, thus they are considered a protected class; when entering an at will employement contract, you don't have the choice of making a decision on your skin color in order to get the job, you don't have the ebility to become younger to accept the job, and you can't grow a penis to get the job. Well, you can have one surgically added or removed...but let's not go there. :-) You can however, make a choice to not bring a weapon in your car,

But your employer can't restrict your right to bring a weapon in your car. "[locked in your trunk, the weapon is on your property]"

not to accept the job based on a condition that you don't agree with, park your car off-premises in order to retain your ability to carry the weapon to and from work,

Not true, as local ordinances control employee parking most everywhere. THis is a BIG part of the issue, luis, and you refuse to admit it.

or even break the implied contract and bring a weapon with you to work with the understanding that you will forfeit your job if you are caught.
This legislation being considered by the Florida legislature (my legislature) removes rights,

So you've claimed, but what 'rights' does it remove? -- Who is harmed by a gun in a trunk? "[locked in your trunk, the weapon is on your property]"

we know that all that government can do is to limit or remove rights; governments don't grant rights. This legislature removes a property owner's right to set the conditions under which people can enter and remain in his property...

Nope, that's what you've claimed, but what 'rights' does it remove? -- Who is harmed by a gun locked in a trunk in the parking lot? "[locked in your trunk, the weapon is on your property]"

that's a bad thing, not a good one, and it will be abused. We get the tyranny we demand.

Get a grip luis, there is no "tyranny" in having a shotgun locked in the trunk of a car.