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
If they don't like not being "defenseless", they can either park elsewhere, or work elsewhere.
They are not obligated to either take the job, or park in the parking lot.
I don't have that attitude, I just recognize that others have the right to have that attitude, and I resent the violation of their property rights via force of government at the bequest of special interest groups, because my property rights are violated by extent.
"I still need to protect myself too and from your place of business."
No one is telling you not to have a gun in your car, what they are telling you is to park someplace where that's permitted.
As I said, it's about parking, not the Second Amendment.
Yes. Actually, you do. Or we wouldn't be having this conversation. You resent what you see as a violation of your property Rights while advocating the violation of MY property Rights as a car owner AND my right to the tools of self defense.
As I said, it's about parking, not the Second Amendment.
It's about Property Rights actually. You property ends at my tires. Unless you hold the pink slip for my car, you can no more dictate what I have inside than you could dictate the contents of my house.
For the most part, no guns on military bases; you have to check them at the armory when you arrive on base.
I'm a contractor..
You call me out to your ranch to estimate a job, and I note the signs posting your property; they say, "-- No Hunting - No Trespassing - No Firearms -- Without express permission of the owner. --"
I get your job and we sign a standard construction contract.
Half way through the job, you think you see a gun locked in my tool truck, and order me to leave your place. -- I tell you that you are violating our contract, which has nothing in it about guns - or your ability to search my truck for weapons.
Now even if you can avoid paying damages in court, - was it worth your while to make an enemy for life?
You brought a firearm into my property without my express permission, you violated the contract by not adhering to the posted rules of entry.
Typically luis, you ignore the question as actually posed and assume that 'no hunting, trespassing, firearms without permission' signs posted on a property are a binding contact on others. They aren't. They are required to show others the boundary of the property posted.
-- You gave me permission to ignore your signs by calling me out to your ranch to estimate a job, then signed a standard contract to that effect.
Do you have ANY respect for other people's property rights tommy?
You have no respect for my rights to carry arms, yet you call me onto your property to work. I'll respect your rights when you respect mine.
I can see you scorn for property rights all over this thread.
I scorn those whose fear of arms lead them to attempt to ban them from being carried.
I just re-read your post #449, you claim to be some sort of Constitutionalist yet you have zero respect for property rights...
You have zero respect for my right to carry a gun in my vehicle luis, that alone is evident.
You posted that as a contrator, you would willingly violate posted rules of entry to private property,
Not true. You asked that I enter to estimate a job.
and that you would sue me
For violating our standard construction contract, which has nothing to do with firearms in a truck.
should I throw you off my property for violating my rules on my propety.
Your 'rule' on firearms violate my right to carry them in my truck.
Our Constitutional contract on that issue has always overruled your petty "property rules".
You have no shame in admitting that you have no respect for the rights of others,
I respect others that respect me in turn.
not enough respect to seek the authorization which may have been given
It was given when you called me out for an estimate.
and instead threaten to bring a suit against me for having the temerity of expecting you to be enough of a man to either seek my express permission,
You signed a standard construction contract, which has nothing to do with carrying a gun in my truck.
or not take the contract based on your objection to my posted rules.
You signed a contract for the work, one that ignored your 'posted rules'. -- Works both ways. You had the option doing the job yourself.
And the answer to your question tommy is that I would have no problem making an enemy out of such a scumbag.
A man that has a gun in his truck is a scumbag to you luis? Good to know.
You had no problem making an enemy out of me.
You initiated the 'scumbag' type action luis, not me.
You want your rights respected? Respect the rights of others.
I do, you don't, -- as you admit.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
i've NEVER been on ANY US military base in 30 YEARS, where your assertion is fact.
free dixie, sw
No I don't, nor do the many other pro-Second Amendment posters that on this very thread have agreed with me, nor did Locke, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin.
We simply recognize that agreeing with your free decision on what rules of access you set for your property is not required of me in order for you to implement those rules of access, and while I may completely disagree with your decision, I need to defend your right to make that choice, rather than seek to take that right from you via the use of force of government.
Ever hear this said before?
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it." -- Voltaire
We are all charged with the defense of each other's right to exercise our rights freely, not with the forceful implementation of our opinion, at the expense of their rights, on how others should exercise them should we disagree with their choice.
You have a right to your property, and property in your rights to that property; if you want to preach communism from your doorstep, I will disagree with your words, and defend your right to preach freely from your doorstep.
If you do not allow me on your property with a gun, I will disagree with your decision, but I will honor your choice, and defend your right to set the rules of access to your property, and I will walk away having made the free choice not to enter your property on those terms, or to enter it under your terms, or to willfully violate your terms with the understanding that you retain the right to remove me for having done so.
Under any one of those scenarios, all the rights of everyone involved have been protected, and no one has had their unalienable rights violated against their will.
That's all.
I've never been required to park in a parking lot, I have never been required to drive to work. I have been informed of available employee parking and what rules there may exist for use of that parking.
And I've certainly NEVER bee told that I was not allowed to park elsewhere.
I'm not saying that what you're saying isn't true, I'm just saying that in thirty plus years of being a part of the work force, not once have I ever heard of any company dictating that you are required to park on their lot.
Moron.
Gee... how magnaminous of you. You freely admit that my property is mine, unless it is parked on your property in which case you somehow can claim partial ownership of its contents by mandating restrictions.
My keeping MY gun in MY car in no way infringes on YOUR Right to run a business or provide public parking for employees and customers.
None. What so ever. My property stays fully contained BY my property and NEVER infringes on your equal Right of property for your parking lot.
It's a satisfied equaiton. Unless, of course, you have an axe to grind against lawful gun owners. In which case, you can't admit it and need to find a way to prevaricate around the subject to try and find a way to claim ownership Rights to my car AND my firearms.
I don't have that attitude,...
DC:
Yes. Actually, you do. Or we wouldn't be having this conversation. You resent what you see as a violation of your property Rights while advocating the violation of MY property Rights as a car owner AND my right to the tools of self defense.
Well said DC. -- But as we've seen, - Luis has no problem speciously denying that he personally is arguing against our right to carry arms.
Yet here he is at #424, doing just that:
"-- my right to free speech ends at your property's edge. So do Second Amendment rights.
Anyone with half a brain can understand that, those with less than half a brain have problems with that concept.
Proof positive that he believes our right to carry arms in our property, our cars, "ends" at the edge of any other property. Sad delusion.
free dixie,sw
Technically, it does end, in a way. It's that demarcation line that is important. From the tires down is his property. If a criminal comes in to shoot the place up, I get injured but survive, I'm suing Luis for every penny he has for failing to adequately provide for my protection by denying me my CCW Rights as a term of employment. His unreasoning fear of guns should in no way jeopardize my life without adequate recompense.
That being said, from the tires up is MY property.
We are required to register our vehicles with our campus security team. Nor is there a busline drop off point near ('near' being defined as anywhere within a mile or so) the building I work in. Nor is campus security adaquate if someone goes on a shooting spree. A major liability point IMO as they are little more than unarmed Mall Ninja's.
"you are missing the FACT that MANY employers REQUIRE employees to park in the employee parking lot."
Luis denies obvious fact:
I've never been required to park in a parking lot
You must have a LOT of tickets luis. -- Or is it possible you simply cannot & will never admit to the reality of this issue? -- Employers & local governments severely regulate parking every where in the USA. Your denials are ludicrous.
I have never been required to drive to work. I have been informed of available employee parking and what rules there may exist for use of that parking. And I've certainly NEVER bee told that I was not allowed to park elsewhere. -- I'm not saying that what you're saying isn't true, I'm just saying that in thirty plus years of being a part of the work force, not once have I ever heard of any company dictating that you are required to park on their lot.
Amusingly 'bold' luis. Keep it up.
Luis Gonzalez reponds:
Moron.
Typically luis, unable to refute logic, you simply make a rude personal comment & scuttle away.
You've become an FR joke.
If the fact is so obvious, then aple proof should be readily available.
Post it.
"Moron" was not a personal attack, it was an obvious fact, and I have proof to post.
By the way...let's examine your scenario re: "If a criminal comes in to shoot the place up, I get injured but survive, I'm suing Luis for every penny he has for failing to adequately provide for my protection by denying me my CCW Rights as a term of employment."
Will you ask him to wait until you can get from your desk to your car and back to your desk before he begins shooting up the place?
Who forced you to enter into an at-will contract when you weren't in agreement with the terms of that contract?
And why am I liable for your willingness to enter into a contract when you were not in agreement with the terms of that contract?
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