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
It wouldn't. Federal law overrules, at least as a practical matter. The military takes a dim view of privately owned firearms. Although most bases will allow those living in on base quarters to have them, if they are registered with the Provost Marshall. Many bases also allow long guns used for hunting, even by local civilians, if hunting is allowed on the post/base. But they still have to be registered with the Provost Marshall.
That's what I thought. I know, on some bases around here, one can hunt, but what you have to go through to get permission, makes it a major chore.
See #41
Did it!
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Working for a company isn't a right, it's always subject to the company's rules.
A person who feels strongly enough about this particular wrinkle on the issue can always choose to terminate the relationship if they can't abide by what the company demands of them.
Having said that, let me also admit that I don't have a carry permit and so I'm not affected by this issue the way that some people are. About the only time this is an issue for me is on Friday afternoons during hunting season.
On the other hand, I'm always in favor of the NRA keeping the pressure on, even if I'm not directly affected. But I don't think this is a horse I'd bet on.
Sounds reasonable.
Was in Ft. Meyers a year or two back and when a vehicle arrived at the job site near where my wife and I vacationed, about fifty Hispanics jumped out, kind of like the circus clown wagon.
Gun racks aren't outlawed (once gun racks are outlawed, only outlaws will have gun racks), but guns in those gun racks aren't allowed. I have, however, seen big ol Ram 1500s with lift kits with super soakers in their gun racks. Kinda funny.
Personally, I keep my S&W in the center console or on my hip while I'm driving. God Bless Jeb!
When enlisted men are in the barracks they are required to keep personal weapons at the armory. I know since I got more than an earful because some reservists were taking their 9mm pistols with them to Saudi/Kuwait during Desert Shield/Storm.
Prison terms is going a bit far. I would think stiff fines would do the trick. And the private property issue isn't one to be taken lightly. However, if employers are allowed to require that guns be kept in a locked vehicle, and not visible, that's not much of an imposition on the employers, compared to the imposition on employees of they're not permitted to keep their guns in their cars while at work, since that effectively prevents people from having their guns with them while travelling on public roads between work and home. And where are the liability suits from people who were held up or worse, and couldn't defend themselves, because of their employer's no-guns-on-our-property rule?
When businesses limit employees' on-the-job speech rights, that doesn't limit speech rights off the job. The same isn't true with a rule prohibiting employees from keeping guns locked in their cars, since that effectively prohibits them from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights while going to and from work as well.
It is just the anti-gun control freak business people again;if you treat your employees like fellow citizens and pay them on work done instead of busy time ,most problems would disappear.The employer who wants to lord it over workers hates the idea of peasants with arms. The reality is that prohibit guns in vehicles at parking lots of businesses could grow to shopping malls and effectively disarm all law-abiding persons.
My recollection is that the parking lot in question was a leased lot shared by, perhaps, more than one company. I don't think the employees in question were at all aware that they were committing a firing offense for having their hunting weapons in the parking lot.
My solution to this problem is to make a change in incorporation laws.
Laws permitting the formation of corporations encourage the pooling of capital to conduct business by limiting the liability of stockholders. This is a benefit conveyed by law to improve life for all. There is no reason whatever not to include protections for civil rights as part of incorporation law.
Privately held businesses could continue to make any rules they want. It's unlikely that privately held businesses would be very interested in limiting the rights of employees in ways not practiced by larger companies.
There would certainly be little sympathy for an employer who banned political bumper stickers in their parking lots or who required voting a certain way as a condition for employment.
Liability concerns have resulted in very few larger privately held companies. Similarly, liability concerns cause corporations to decide issues such as "guns in the parking lot" with no weight whatever to the civil rights of employees. If there was no law prohibiting corporations from demanding specific political affiliation as a condition of employment, that would be viewed by most as a serious problem. Likewise, the keeping and bearing of arms is being made very impractical for most people.
Don't Ask. Don't Tell.
You are forgetting about the private property owner Rights of vehicle owners.
Absolutely, which is why the state has the power to get involved. It's no different than if a major corporation made you sign a document agreeing to vote a certain way as a condition of employment. Good for business? perhaps in the short term. Good for a Republic based on individual Rights? Absolutely not.
Governments are instituted, after all, to defend individual Rights.
Easy! Your boss (your company's HR and Security Dept) would utilize a dog trained to identify the smell of gun powder and thus determine that there is just cause to request that you open your car for a search. Refusal will be cause for your termination. See how easy this is?
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