Posted on 10/09/2005 9:09:28 AM PDT by RightDemocrat
TALLAHASSEE -- A rare and spectacular showdown may be coming in Florida's Republican Party: Big Business vs. Big Guns. And the stakes couldn't be higher. To critics, it's about the safety of workplaces, including hospitals and churches, throughout the Sunshine State. To supporters, it's about the safety of employees who travel to and from those workplaces.
The dust-up is over the "guns-at-work" bill, which the National Rifle Association began pushing last month in Tallahassee to force all Florida businesses to allow firearms in the vehicles of any employee or visitor. Companies could keep policies banning guns from their buildings themselves but could no longer apply those policies to their parking lots.
Many businesses are either wary of or leaning against the proposal, including heavy-hitters such as Disney and local giants such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, CSX and Baptist Health System.
But the NRA is insistent. The group, which has donated nearly $1 million in Florida over the past decade, mostly to Republicans, is led in Tallahassee by former national President Marion Hammer. Hammer said the rights of gun owners should be intact in their vehicles, and the proposed law already gives businesses immunity from liability lawsuits in cases of workplace shootings.
"Your home is a slam dunk, but bridging that into the private property of an organization doesn't hold," said Mike Hightower, chairman of the Duval County Republican Party and lobbyist for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. "I don't think people are going to want to cross that line."
In a telling sign of wariness, neither Gov. Jeb Bush, Senate President Tom Lee nor House Speaker Allan Bense are taking positions on the bill yet.
(Excerpt) Read more at jacksonville.com ...
Possibly not, but the Federal Government is in place to protect our rights period.
Be that against an employer or another government entity, it is the job of our Government to secure our rights.
An Employers rights end where my (and your) bumper begins.
Anything other than that is a matter for the courts to decide.
Semper Fi
The difference between 5 minutes and ready accessibility vs. 30+ minutes and a drive home and back is not the same as whatever is involved with waiting periods. The former also means the difference between a company preparing for a p-o'd employee who might return and not having time.
Your unsupported opinion again. In most of the stuff (granted anectdotal only) I've read about workplace shooting the shooter comes back days or weeks later and shoots up the place. Presumable having had time to cool off.
Don't you know that if people are allowed to have guns in their cars at work we'll see the Wild West replayed for us?
Imagine the bloodshed; imagine the horror.
Imagine Whirled Peas.
Stop the Violins!
Save the whales. You've got to wonder where the people who support firearms restrictions come from. New York, Ma, Md DU :-)?
bump. Meanwhile, in NJ, we still have to ask the government's permission to purchase a pistol.
My problem with banning weapons in the locked cars is a bit more pragmatic. I have worked at such companies, one of which had a force of private security for their facility. Unfortunately, the pricate security was not armed, nor licensed to be armed as part of their job. So, the employees were not allowed to be armed for self defense, and the security was not allowed to be armed.
The question is: How does this enforce safety? It doesn't - there is no "force deterrent" to the looney who violates company policy and starts shooting up the place.
Worse yet, the company admitted no liability if this happened. In other words, the company was allowed to disarm its employees without having to guarantee their safety from such incidents.
It's really a private-property (parking lot) versus private-property (car) issue, IMO. As such, it should be adjudicated toward the least intrusive solution as possible - as long as the weapons stay inside the vehicle, no infraction has occurred.
Just my $.02
Look at what you just said here. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the nature of the Constitution.
Let's say you own a store. And some ANSWER types come into your store and start chanting anti-American slogans.
Using your logic, if you kick them out of the store, private property, you would be acting against our Constitutional mandate that freedom of speech shall not be outlawed.
The Bill of Rights is a prohibition against government action - not individual action. Private individuals and companies have the right to dictate who can use their property and how it can be used. If you don't like their terms, don't work for them and don't give them business. But you cannot take your rights and force them down someone else's throats at the expense of their Constitutional property rights.
I pretty much agree with your thoughts except that the company was really not disarming its employees except when they were on company property, which should be its right, even if ill advised.
BTW, even though police forces *are* armed, they also accept no liability to protect the public.
Yeah, I agree, what good are unarmed security guards?
As for the private property vs private property, car owner vs parking lot owner, the corporation is not under a legal obligation to provide parking at all. I just think that if chooses to do so, it ought to have the right to impose whatever conditions it sees fit for those who choose (and choose is the operative word) to use those lots.
What is being "preserved"?
What does a private proprietorship gain [in a parking lot] by acting against our Constitutional mandate that the RKBA's shall not be infringed?
Look at what you just said here. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the nature of the Constitution.
Hardly. You cannot deny the 2nd is an individual right, to be protected by our Constitution.
Let's say you own a store. And some ANSWER types come into your store and start chanting anti-American slogans. Using your logic, if you kick them out of the store, private property, you would be acting against our Constitutional mandate that freedom of speech shall not be outlawed.
Get a grip. I'm not using that "logic", I'm defending our 2nd amendment right to have guns in our cars.
The Bill of Rights is a prohibition against government action - not individual action.
Look at what you just said here. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the nature of the Constitution, which is clearly set up to protect individual rights from infringements of any type from any source.
Private individuals and companies have the right to dictate who can use their property and how it can be used.
Within reason, of course, but neither private individuals or companies have the right to violate individual rights while "dictating".
If you don't like their terms, don't work for them and don't give them business.
Paraphrased: 'If you don't like our Constitution, feel free to leave the country.'
But you cannot take your rights and force them down someone else's throats at the expense of their Constitutional property rights.
Nor can you take your property rights and force them down someone else's throats at the expense of their Constitutional right to have arms in their vehicle .
Your claim that The Bill of Rights is not a prohibition on individual action is belied by the fact that we are all obligated to support & defend the law; - the law of the land as in Article VI.
All officials are sworn to defend it, as are all naturalized citizens. Those of us born here have that same obligation.
If anyone disagrees, they are free to leave.
The SC would never go for it. Then again they just might, on the basis that your house could then be searched on the same basis as your car.
Once again, there is no point debating further as long as you show such disregard for the nature of the Constutution. It is a constraint against government, not individuals. I think liberal viewpoints are wrong. But they have the right to express them, and also exclude them from their property. It's that simple.
You have a right to do such in your car on public property. If you go on private property, you either need to conform to the wishes of that individual or leave.
It shows a profound lack of understanding of the nature of the Constitution, which is clearly set up to protect individual rights from infringements of any type from any source.
Show me ANY writing by the Founders that said the Bill of Rights was a constraint on individuals. ONE.
I guess you want to differentiate between the amount of power the government exerts over a "person" and the amount it exerts over a business entity, specifically the corporation. Aside from the weird parallel here (on a conservative forum) in the way leftists view corporations, I have a couple points of disagreement.
First, increase government power over business entities and you risk government taking that same power for use over individuals.
Second, while a corporation may not be a "person," it most certainly is "people," or a group of persons, a group of individuals, the officers and the stockholders. I don't think you can justify saying that just because people band together in an organization, be it business or otherwise, it is OK to grant government more power over them than you would grant it over an individual. I think that's unAmerican.
"It is absolutely unreasonable to believe that EVERYONE could choose not to work for a corporation. Some could, but if everyone tried, the entire economy would fail.
Well, you have just illustrated rather clearly the power ordinary citizens can exert over corporations without resorting to increasing the power of their rulers, should they so decide.
"I find no compelling reason to spare corporations from legal constraints on their abilities to reduce the freedom of the people. If corporations were forbidden to infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms, I see no reason to believe that the economic success of corporations would in any way be negatively impacted."
As Exsoldier so eloquently pointed out, your freedom to swing your fist stops when it reaches my nose. In this case when you enter the property of others. RKBA is not being infringed since it doesn't extend to private property of someone else without their consent. However, I agree with you that a law such as the one this thread discusses would have no adverse effect on economic success. It does, IMO constitute an adverse effect on our freedom.
BTW, the limit to liability for corporations is proper IMO. You can go after the corporation's complete assets in a suit. Remember, that means that you are not going after the assets of an inanimate "entity," but the shares in that company of all the stockholders who have risked their money in investment. A risk that provides those jobs that we were talking about. The limit to liability in suing corporations is that you cannot also sue for assets belonging to the stockholders that are held outside the corporation, such as their shares in other corporations, their homes, etc. Seems pretty reasonable to me. However, there is one way in which corporations are less protected than individuals, that's taxation. Profits made by corporations are taxed 3 times: first, by taxing corporate profits, secondly by taxing those profits again when they are paid out to shareholders as dividends, and thirdly, as capital gains when the shares are sold.
They 'really' are attempting to disarm their employees, and it's obviously their intent. -- And that is "ill advised" by the clear words of our 2nd. And at least 2 state legislatures plus the Georgia supreme court agree that it is not a company power or 'right' to search private vehicles.
As for the private property vs private property, car owner vs parking lot owner, the corporation is not under a legal obligation to provide parking at all.
Local law says otherwise. Most larger companies are required to provide off street parking to employees & visitors as part of the business license/use permit process.
I just think that if chooses to do so, it ought to have the right to impose whatever conditions it sees fit for those who choose (and choose is the operative word) to use those lots.
You say above such a choice is "ill advised", yet you argue they ought to have that power "even if ill advised." Can you explain why?
Why should we allow companies to ban guns in parking lots? It makes no constitutional sense.
I don't see how you can make a distinction between our *rights* to control what happens on our private residential property vs our private business property.
Again, I think that mindset falls into the liberal trap of thinking that businesses are public, not private entities, that their existence is justified by their benefit to the public, as decreed by the state.
Now, come on now. I can't imagine the federal government ever ignoring Fifth Amendment restrictions about the sanctity of private property for individuals.
Oh, wait a minute, they did just that with Kelo.
But I'm SURE that was just an isolated incident! Government would NEVER abuse the power to dictate private property rights, other than that!
That is EXACTLY the logic you are using - the right to exercise YOUR rights at the expense of someone ELSE'S rights.
A corporation is a group of people banded together in a specific type of business organization. It was not created by the government, but follows rules imposed by the government, as do individual citizens. I don't agree with your premise that an individual loses his rights and intrinsic value just because he works in concert with other individuals.
Know what? You are absolutely correct. But you knew that. I stand corrected. But that takes us right back to the public schools and my right to have a gun in my car on school property. I teach 7 hours a day and stay on campus to grade (on my own time) for 2-3 hours more each day. I teach in the inner city. I should be able to protect myself on those streets when I roll out of the parking lot....
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