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

[Heyworth]

read "BLACKS IN BLUE AND GRAY" by professor H.R. Blackerby,PhD, of Tuskegee Univ.

A book of which about 40 pages is dedicated to blacks in the confederate army. It's mainly a string of disconnected anecdotes--so-and-so's servant stayed with him throughout the war and later got a pension. My favorite part is on page 38 when he says, "It will be proved that not a few blacks were in the battle charge..." but then quickly moves on to another anecdote about the SCV voting ex-slave JT Chambliss recognition for his loyalty to his master. When he wraps up the section of the book on confederate blacks two pages later, he hasn't proved what he just said he would. Maybe he means someone else will come along and do the job, although no one has yet.

Nor is Mr. Blackerby a Ph.D. or a professor at Tuskegee. He's an amateur historian who mainly worked as a publisher of pulp magazines and comic books (google his name).

[Dead Corpse]

Hadn't actually gotten around to checking out the reference, but thanks for the input.

[stand watie]

aside from "name-calling", what have you contributed to the discussion?

i asked for your DOCUMENTED SOURCE. you fail to provide same & you call me an "idiot"?????

LOL AT you.

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

btw, i note that "heyworth-LESS, the hate-FILLED" has posted something or other to you/me.

fwiw, i shunned him/her a long time ago (for posting DUMB & hate-FILLED bilge/nonsense) & i NEITHER read NOR respond to his/her IGNORANT & hate-FILLED bilge.

i have posted several times that since i shunned him/her AND he/she continues to post to me, that he/she "has no life".

free dixie,sw

[Heyworth]

Meet Watie. He shunned me when I challenged him too many times on his imaginary sources. He once claimed that, during WW2, Texas had separately declared war on Germany and had commissioned privateers, one of which had captured a u-boat now on display in a Galveston park. When everyone pointed out that there is no u-boat on display in Galveston, he blamed it on a book which doesn't exist ("Yachts Against Subs", by LBN Gnaedinger). It's not in the Library of Congress, not in the combined university library database, not in any used bookseller database, nor cited by any academic paper. What does exist is a magazine article entitlted "Picket Patrol: Yachts Against Subs", by LBN Gnaedinger, in the December, 1971 "Motor Boating and Sailing" magazine. Watie has tried to claim that this is just a review of his book, but I've tracked down the article (my local library had it bound) and is neither a review nor does is say anything about Texas privateers and Galveston parks. (I can fax you a copy if you'd like).

I predict that rather than respond rationally to any of the above, Watie will foam at the mouth.

[jwalsh07]

Many moons ago when I was stationed at Ft Hood I used to drink in a honky tonk in Belton, Tx. The sign on the door on the way in stated the following:

"Check your guns or go drink somewhere else."

My take on their sign as a non lawyer.

A lot of wisdom there.

[stand watie]

they MAY have meant, "make sure they are LOADED!"

fwiw, i was once the PM of "third herd" down there. i KNOW the saloons around Ft Hood. (lol)

free dixie,sw

[Dead Corpse]

I've had a few conversation with stand watie. Most very satisfactory. If you have had problems with him in the past, I suggest you take it up with him.

As for questionable source material, I can't say. Going off your information, there doesn't even appear to be that much. Certainly none of the online Texas historical site mention such a thing.

How is this germaine to the topic of this thread?

[Heyworth]

How is this germaine to the topic of this thread?

It's germane to Watie's credibility. When Watie starts spouting his bile about me, it's germane to defend myself by explaining some background to his attacks. When Watie cites the Blackerby book, it's germane to say it's not nearly the ultimate source that he claims it to be.

(By all means, track down a copy and see if I misstate the book's contents or the author's credentials.---Amazon's got one for $4)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0916620158/sr=8-12/qid=1139940620/ref=sr_1_12/103-3267343-9565442?%5Fencoding=UTF8

[tpaine]

jwalsh07 wrote:

Many moons ago when I was stationed at Ft Hood I used to drink in a honky tonk in Belton, Tx. The sign on the door on the way in stated the following:

"Check your guns or go drink somewhere else."

My take on their sign as a non lawyer.
A lot of wisdom there


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


And if the 'businessmen' here were wise, they would not object to their employees checking their guns at the door of an on site gun locker.. -- Or leaving them locked in the trunks of their cars in the company lot..

But sadly we see no wisdom in FReepville. We see empty rhetoric about defending real estate property rights by banning another type of property [guns].

[Dead Corpse]

Your first post on this thread was a post to stand watie. Nothing to do whatsoever with the thread content and marginalizing an already marginal point. Subsequent posts are equally as irrelevant.

It's good to know that sw doesn't always 100% fact check. Ok. Fine. Got it.

Now take your flame war elsewhere please.

[jwalsh07]

And if the 'businessmen' here were wise, they would not object to their employees checking their guns at the door of an on site gun locker.. -- Or leaving them locked in the trunks of their cars in the company lot..

Oh, I emphatically agree. I just don't think it's wise to invite the government in.

But sadly we see no wisdom in FReepville. We see empty rhetoric about defending real estate property rights by banning another type of property [guns].

Do you have the right to invite me into your home on the proviso that I carry no weapon with me?

[jwalsh07]

fwiw, i was once the PM of "third herd" down there.

Preventive Maintenance guy, Post Menopausal Guy or Provost Marshall guy? :-}

[tpaine]

And if the 'businessmen' here were wise, they would not object to their employees checking their guns at the door of a work site gun locker.. -- Or leaving them locked in the trunks of their cars in the company lot..

Oh, I emphatically agree. I just don't think it's wise to invite the government in.

It's a States ~duty~ to defend our right to carry arms. The companies insist they can ban or fire. The rule of [constitutional] law settles the dispute. --- How else can it be resolved ?

But sadly we see no wisdom in FReepville. We see empty rhetoric about defending real estate property rights by banning another type of property [guns].

Do you have the right to invite me into your home on the proviso that I carry no weapon with me?

I don't think I do. I see such a 'command' as being akin to making an illegal order in the army. I am under no obligation to obey an illegal order to disarm myself.
-- Sure, ordinarily, most people are polite & comply with weird social requests from their hosts. -- But disarming yourself to please a control freak boss at work? -- No way & no thanks, -- I'll keep my pocket knife..

[stand watie]

fwiw,Provost Marshal has only ONE "L".

i was the "3-Corps PM".

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

my beloved would probably say "Post Menopausal Guy", i.e., "Cloud's Syndrome", as i'm entering my 6th decade of life.

rotflmRao.

free dixie,sw