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 ...
Don't laugh...an automobile is considered an extension of the home in many states.
The contents of automobiles are beyond your "right" in many states. Your property rights don't cancel out my property rights.
Actually, no. Your dues cannot be used for lobbying. That's why you get all those solicitations for the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). Only money donated to the NRA-ILA can be used to lobby for legislation. Likewise only money donated to the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PFV)can be used to help pro-gun candidates. The NRA cannot use dues for either purpose without violating their tax-exempt status.
Your property rights should not, in a free country, allow you to bring anything onto my property that I don't want you to bring. You have RKBA, but you don't have it on my property without my consent.
As I mentioned in my first post, some posters are falling into the liberal trap of thinking that corporate property is public property. It isn't, any more than your own driveway is.
You know, you got me thinking, by talking about posting the land, etc. I might go for it being illegal to not allow workers to have guns in their car if they are not warned. However, if the employee and the employer agree ahead of time that no guns in the car is a condition of employment, then I don't see the state taking the power onto itself to prohibit such an agreement.
But my other point is that it makes more sense to be allowed to carry on school property, which is truly public property. I may not think the contents of a car are an extension of private property when that car intrudes on someone else's private property, but I sure do think it's an extension when it's on public property. I believe the couts have disagreed widely with me on this however.
It would be irony indeed if we end up in a situation where our cars are inviolate on private property belonging to another, but subject to search on public property.
It's a mistake IMO. Private property is private property. Companies should and do have the right to set the rules for their property.
They are not, because such bans are a voluntary agreement. What you want is for the state to disallow the ability of employers to make the agreement a condition of employment. However, I do think such bans are infringements of RKBA when they exist, as they do, on public property.
"You are letting your beliefs blind you to the truth. These bans are orchestrated by the brady bunch faction, imo."
In fact I recognize that and stated as much in a prior post. I don't know whether or not the liability claims are bogus, but I consider that corporations do this because they want to appear politically correct. Which is reprehensible, but within their rights. The point is that, as Exsoldier noted, your freedom ends at the point it interferes with the freedom of another. In this case, it ends at the freedom of the property owner to control what may be carried by another onto his own property.
"Parking your car in a private or public lot does not "extend your home" by any stretch.."
Here, we agree, regarding private lots. The car is an extension of the home on public lots, IMO. Should be, that is.
Let's throw another monkey wrench into this mix. What about a business that's a really B-I-G corportation with LOTS of major stockholders and strong feelings on the issue? Say Disney makes this case (and they do) and all of their stockholders decide to bail. Is there a point where compromising your ideals makes better business sense? Then what? Talk about the sole proprietor. He owns say a hardware store in a medium sized community. He makes the same demand. His employees bail and make it an issue in the papers. The pro-gun elements put together an effective boycott. Now what? Stand firm and go out of business? You can BET that the competition will make statements to the effect of whatever way they can grab the business.
I am always amazed that people object to me carrying a gun, with a permit that means I have never had a run in with the law, at 56 years old. No one in America cared that at 22 with an 18 year old driver, I went up and down the highway in Germany with a side arm, a M-16, and NATO CRYPTO for a Pershing nuclear missile platoon with three launchers and nine rockets.
Good point. My view is that we should bring pressure to bear through the market or through unfavorable publicity, those kinds of things. IIRC, it was done successfully against Citibank on the RKBA issue. They didn't want to do business with gunshops and suddenly found that they were going to lose a lot of customers because of that. They reversed course. Although IMO, Citibank didn't have to compromise any prinsiples, they just had to make a decision to forget political correctness for once. I can imagine that their decision, whichever way it went, was based on PR.
I don't see a boycott against Disney being effective though, because I doubt it possible to keep even conservatives away.
They are not, because such bans are a voluntary agreement.
Hardly. Ever hear of coercion? Most rational people are fighting these infringements tooth & nail.
What you want is for the state to disallow the ability of employers to make the agreement a condition of employment.
Every state is obligated by our constitution to defend its citizens against conditional, coercive scams that infringe on individual rights.
As I mentioned in my first post, some posters are falling into the liberal trap of thinking that corporate property is public property.
As I mentioned in some of my posts, some people here are falling into the trap of thinking that corporations are defending 'property rights'. Not so, -- they are trashing individual employees 2nd, 4th & 14th Amendment rights.
"Still not sure how passage of this Bill will affect me as a public school teacher!"
IIRC, there is a federal law that forbids firearms on school grounds, unless you are LEO or district security. I'm interested in that too, as I'm going to be a teacher. Working as a sub right now, waiting for my certification paperwork to get processed... and waiting, and waiting...
I believe that those folks from the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia, and The Peoples Republic of New York that you have engaged in this thread are so used to having their Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms infringed, and are so ready to accept "reasonable gun controls" that they cannot understand why those of us in the "Free States" think that the Second Amendment still means something.
"Hardly. Ever hear of coercion? Most rational people are fighting these infringements tooth & nail."
You'll have to tell me about the coercion. Last I looked, no one was being forced to work for these corporations. Quite the contrary, they work there because they want the jobs. Your thinking is akin to union thinking, the employee gets to dictate the terms, by the power of the law. Now that's coercion!
A corporation has no power to disarm you or anyone else. It does have the power to keep armed men off its property. Rightfully so.
What most of the posters on this thread want is not just the right to keep and bear arms, but the right to carry arms on to private property belonging to someone else regardless of the owner's wishes.
So what do you do with your gun between home and the office parking lot? Do you give it to Bubba to hold for you until 5 O'clock?
So what do you do with your gun between home and the office parking lot? Do you give it to Bubba to hold for you until 5 O'clock?
I'd leave it at home. Better yet, pressure your employer any way you can, mount a publicity campaign against him. It worked with Citibank, IIRC. But usually if the rules at a workplace are too onerous to tolerate, people have found work elsewhere.
"Oh wait Mr. Perp. I need to go home and get my gun."
Sheesh!
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