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
So if I walk to work (many urbanites do) then by logical extension of the above, the employer couldn't bar guns from his buildings either. Sorry, doesn't work.
errrr they are called "books"...lol
Anyone with half a brain can understand that, those with less than half a brain have problems with that concept.
Well that really narrows it down. Care to say which one?
Luis, Article VI goes on to say that all officials "-- shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this Constitution; --"
Do you disagree with this principle?
Of course I don't.. --
-- I am sworn to defend the Constitution, and I will fight any government law which seeks to violate the Second Amendment.
Neat evasion. You will not defend the Constitution from individuals who infringe upon our supreme law? Quite an admission.
--- but I am not an official, so I am not bound by the Constitution to honor your Second Amendment rights at the expense of my property rights.
None of your property rights are 'expended' by honoring Second Amendment rights; -- thus you are sworn to defend the Constitution, and fight any infringement which seeks to violate the Second Amendment.
"Any more B.S. arguments from you?" - as you put it?
"If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments." -- James Madison
I have property rights, and rights in my property that may not be violated by the government in the name of those who own no right to my property.
I defend my Constitution from the violation of its contents by government, and as the Constitution does not grant the government the power to violate my property rights in the name of they who own no right to my property, in defending my property rights from being violated by the government, I defend my Constitution.
--- unless one is actually small minded enough to think one can be armed wherever and whenever they wish...which of course stretches credulity beyond any reasonable means.
In-credibily laughable argument. Heaven forbid that one can be armed wherever and whenever they wish..
The fix is a simple one , the employee who wishes to take his weapon onto company property , pays a small fee for the employer to establish a guard house where lock boxes, much like at the post office or bank deposit box area, can safely stow their weapons while on duty, then take his gun home after work.
"The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property. To which in the state of Nature there are many things wanting." -- John Locke
I charge the government with the duty of preserving my property, and my rights to my property to the Government by way of the Constitution, which details all powers granted by me to the government, and details all limitations imposed on the government by me.
When government fails to preserve my property rights, and my rights to my property, and instead works to grant rights in my property to those who own no right to my property, then the government is in violation of the conditions of my consent to be governed, and in violation of the Constitution.
I defend my Constitution from being abused by a government seeking to violate my property rights, my rights in my property, and the abuse of granting rights to my property to those who own no part of my property, as I did not grant the government the right to subject my property rights to others not owning a right to my property.
Psssssssst hey Tpaine, try climbing onto you local municipal bus, or train, and while your paying your fare whisper to the driver/conductor that your armed, or walk into a federal building, bar, sports stadium, and tell the ticket checker your armed, then post me your experiance from your jail cell.
Neat evasion luis. You will not defend the Constitution from individuals who infringe upon our supreme law? Quite an admission.
--- but I am not an official, so I am not bound by the Constitution to honor your Second Amendment rights at the expense of my property rights.
None of your property rights are 'expended' by honoring Second Amendment rights; -- thus you are sworn to defend the Constitution, and fight any infringement which seeks to violate the Second Amendment.
I defend my Constitution from the violation of its contents by government,
Government only? -- thats an evasion of the oath you took.
and as the Constitution does not grant the government the power to violate my property rights in the name of they who own no right to my property,
Who claims "they" are violating ~your~ 'property rights' by having guns in car trunks? That's your fantasy. - Get real.
in defending my property rights from being violated by the government, I defend my Constitution.
Yet you refuse to defend our right to bear arms from those who want to ban guns. You can't honor just part of your oath luis. -- Admit it.
"Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables. Would Mr. Nedham be responsible that, if all were to be decided by a vote of the majority, the eight or nine millions who have no property, would not think of usurping over the rights of the one or two millions who have? Property is surely a right of mankind as really as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors. Debts would be abolished first; taxes laid heavy on the rich, and not at all on the others; and at last a downright equal division of every thing be demanded, and voted. What would be the consequence of this? The idle, the vicious, the intemperate, would rush into the utmost extravagance of debauchery, sell and spend all their share, and then demand a new division of those who purchased from them. The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free." -- Thomas Jefferson
My property is mine own, and governments are instituted among men, by the consent of the governed, to protect those property rights that are "as sacred as the laws of God."
I charge my government, via the covenant known as The Constitution, with the defense of my property rights, and with the duty to uphold my rights in my property above those who own no right to my property...I consent to be governed thusly, and will not consent to be governed otherwise.
When government seeks to grant rights to my property to those who own no right in my property, then government is in violation of the covenant known as The Constitution, and I will defend this covenant from being violated by government at the bequest of a majority seeking to gain equal property rights with me, within my own property.
It's people like you with your idiotic arguments that fuel the fire of those who want to castigate common sense individuals like myself as "GUN NUTS".
Psssssst, jabber, tell me why you are defending the concept that our right to bear arms can be infringed..
The supreme law applies to the government, individuals can't enact laws, they can assert their own rights on their own property.
"Who claims "they" are violating ~your~ 'property rights'"
They are...if I don't want guns in my property and they use the force of government to force themselves on to my property with a gun, they are violating my property rights.
"...thats an evasion of the oath you took."
No it's not.
"Yet you refuse to defend our right to bear arms from those who want to ban guns."
No one is banning guns, I akm not seeking to ban guns, I don't have the power to ban guns, nor does the government.
I have the power to set conditions on access to my property.
The exercise of their rights is subject to your review?
Show me where in the Constitution you are given that power.
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