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
And my boss would know there is a gun in my trunk how?
This legislation makes sense to me, but I've never worked for an employer with a strict no-gun regulations extending into their parking lot. What they don't know, won't hurt them, I suppose, and besides, the 2A guarantees me a right to have that firearm. Not taking it into the workplace to honor the policies of my company is my choice.
"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."
The companies asserted a right to conduct health and welfare inspections because the employees' vehicles were parked on the company's parking lot.
How would this work on a military base, or federal property?
i'm glad one of the things MI is pretty good on is their gun laws. MI recognizes that your vehicle is your personal property, and that you may have you gun in your vehicle anywhere. including schools, courts, police stations, and everywhere else.
And what about on the way to and from the business property? After all that's where this is going to be effective. Locked in the car isn't going to do anyone any good in a post office type shooting, but that isn't what's being addressed here.
Why this is even an issue is a measure of how far out of fashion common sense has fallen.
Which means it doesn't have a chance in hell in todays political climate of widespread adoption.
And isn't it terminated employees that do most of these shootings? What makes anyone think the criminal ex-employee is going to obey their RULES anyway?
I agree with your take on the issue. It's one thing to have employees carrying firearms inside the workplace, but locked in their cars in the parking lot? Who cares?
Here in NM your vehicle is considered part of your house, with all the rights that go along with it.
What, you mean it wasn't the NRA that actually filed the legislation?
</sarcasm>
You drive your car to my private business as my employee, I can have your car searched.
Dont want it searched? Walk to work or park on the street.
No. As long as the car is in their lot, which is their private property, they do not have to care how far you drive.
Simple solution: Start your own business and make your own rules.
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