Maybe because this time they’re wrong. Actually, the Miami Herald’s headline is misleading, since the bill has little or nothing to do with gun control as conventionally understood: it “would expose businesses to criminal penalties if they ban workers from having guns in their cars parked in employee lots.” (Mary Ellen Klas, Miami Herald, Apr. 5).
Fla.: “NRA finds itself on losing side of gun-control bill”
Maybe because this time they’re wrong. Actually, the Miami Herald’s headline is misleading, since the bill has little or nothing to do with gun control as conventionally understood: it “would expose businesses to criminal penalties if they ban workers from having guns in their cars parked in employee lots.” (Mary Ellen Klas, Miami Herald, Apr. […]
3 Comments
I would be in favor of laws of this type. My last place of employment was located in one of the more hazardous areas of town. I have a conceled carry permit and often locked my weapon in my vehicle because it was against company policy to have it on company property. It was also a requirement that I park in the company parking lot due to complaints from people in the neighborhood. Please correct me if I am wrong. My employer has the obligation to provide for my security at work. Do they have the obligation for my security once I leave work? I don’t think so. As soon as I leave work I am responsible for my own security. If an employer denied me the ability to provide for my security wouldn’t it mean that he was assuming the liability? It seems to me that they are trading one liability problem for another.
I am conflicted on this issue. On the one hand, I believe that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental right to bear arms for personal protection. We have laws against employers who violate other civil rights – why not the right to keep and bear arms?
On the other hand, I also believe in the right of an employer to make the rules about what can and can’t be done on his business’s property. If the employee doesn’t like the rules, he can go find work elsewhere.
All that aside, I don’t agree with a criminal penalty for the employer for this type of thing. If I decide (and I haven’t made up my mind) that the right to keep a gun in my car trumps the right of my boss to say that I can’t have one on his property, my remedy should be civil in nature.
Certain races, genders, religions and handicap persons can, at one time or another, be a liability issue for a company….so why can’t the company use the same “individual rights” doctrine, that out-lawed guns in the parking lot, to eliminate those other liability issues from it’s property.