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
slaves all over the country, from the earliest days, WERE armed by their owners, primarily to hunt for food for the plantation/farm/ranch AND secondarily "to protect the property & persons thereon".
ONE of the many strengths of the rebel military forces was the LARGE number of "freemen of colour" (read mostly FORMER slaves), who acted as volunteer SNIPERS for the CSA.
those brave men got their marksmanship skills the HARD WAY (if they didn't bring home game, a LOT of people did not eat!). the DYs (particularly the high-ranking officers AND with REASON!) were "scared to death" of them.
free dixie,sw
Like I said, there is an internal logic to it that cannot be refuted. It is actually silly to try.
You and I are in agreement, I am just pointing up hypotheticals to run against the formula. And yes, I do actually believe that while there may be circumstances where adaquate protection could be attempted, that no other means are as satisfactory as personal defense tools. However, not all people are as smart about such things and could be coerced into taking the lesser protection of a group force being designated as "protector".
Interesting historical note. Thanks for the info. I assume there are readily available sources for this? You just know someone will want them just to argue the point...
free dixie,sw
Any employer who bans guns is creating an unsafe workplace. Anyone hurt by a violent act in such a workplace should sue. A couple of good trial lawyers could get millions for someone hurt because employees were barred from having the tools to protect themselves. Banning guns is no different from chaining a fire exit closed.
You claim an unalienable right to enter my property against my wish.
You are an idiot.
You don't have to be disarmed at all, because you don't have to enter my property at all.
To claim that I can "disarm" you, is to claim that I can force you to enter my property against your wishes.
I set the rules for access, and you make the choice of whether you want to enter under my rules, or not enter.
If you chose to enter under my rules, you disarmed yourself.
You don't have an unalienable right to be on my property, so unless I let you in in agreement with my rules of entry, you can't be on my property...try coming into my house and let's test your moronic theories in the real world.
By the way...where is that proof of parking ordinances you're supposed to be providing?
Jesus, you guys are all dense.
If I say you can't enter, and you enter regardless of what I say, you violated my property rights.
I am coming to your house with a Mullah, and I am going to tell him to invite a bunch of his friends over for a Islamic service that he is going to conduct on your yard.
You may not disallow him to do that, because you may not disallow him his unalienable right to freed speech and freedom of religion.
You don't have to attend my barbecue you idiot.
Real estate owners do not, and never have had a power to arbitrarily disarm people that work on or visit their property.
-- Rational people have compromised to such irrational disarmament demands by agreeing not to carry in their buildings, [IE - their personal space]
.The point is that an alienable right to control real estate property [as luis argues] can not trump an inalienable right to be armed.
You claim an unalienable right to enter my property against my wish.
Learn to read luis. I've claimed no such 'right'. -- You know that, so you are reduced to rude comments, trying to start a flame war:
You are an idiot.
You don't have an unalienable right to be on my property, so unless I let you in in agreement with my rules of entry, you can't be on my property...
You hire people to work on your property under basic constitutional "rules of entry" luis. That's our "law of the land". Learn to live with it.
try coming into my house and let's test your moronic theories in the real world. By the way...where is that proof of parking ordinances you're supposed to be providing?
What moronic proofs do you expect luis? Look up your towns zoning laws & parking ordinances. Hell, in most localities they're down to the point of requiring 7/11 to provide mandated employee parking. -- That's the real world kid.
tpaine. -- You don't have to attend my barbecue you idiot.
DC, I see where luis is getting overwrought. -- Perhaps we should get him some help?
Do you know any good men in that field?
Nice line. -- Lets see what FR's foremost workplace gun-ban expert has to say; - luis?
The attached was posted by tpaine:
Answer this question Luis: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?
Posted by tpaine
Here's my position:
I expect the contractor to fulfill the letter of the contract, according to my posted rules of entry as they were clearly posted at the time that he entered into the contract with me.
If he refuses to enter my property without his gun, he will not be allowed to enter, yet I still expect the contract to be fulfilled by him, so I'll sue him.
Who wins the lawsuit?
Good for you luis, -- you know you need help, and you've taken the first step by asking for it.. -- 11 more to go kid, don't give up..
You raised a legal question, let's get lawyers in here.
I don't need help, I've been beating you senseless for days now.
Senseless? That delusion proves you need help.
You do. Someone who thinks you don't is a gun nut kook.
How cruel torie. You're encouraging his delusion that banning guns is constitutional.
Paine, guns are private property. Why do you want to invite the government in to tell you what you can or can't do with your private property?
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