The Second Amendment Vs. Property Rights
By Mr. Ed Posted in State Politics — Comments (23) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Last Saturday I attended my first Texas Republican Party State Senatorial District Convention as a delegate. Among other things, we briefly debated and voted on a number of propositions to send to the state convention in June.
One particular proposition, which enjoyed significant support in our district convention, dealt with drafting legislation enabling those with concealed handgun permits to bring and keep their handguns in their cars at their place of employment.
I don't know that you'll find a stronger proponent of the second amendment than me. It's not about hunting, it's about personal protection and keeping an abusive government in check (but then again, most here at RedState already know that!).
As a small business owner I have no problem if an employee wants to keep his handgun in his vehicle while parked at my business.
However, I am also a staunch conservative who believes in minimal government intrusion into our lives and our businesses. I am not sure I support legislation forcing business owners -- who may not feel as I do -- to allow their employees to bring handguns onto their business' property.
So I voted against the proposition...even speaking on the floor against it prior to the vote. To little avail as it passed easily on a voice vote.
Is my small government, property-rights reasoning sound?
If you put this in the 1st Amendment context, I would agree that an employer could rightfully limit your freedom of expression in the business. I don't think that it is any business of my employer if I choose to keep a campaign sign or a newspaper in the trunk of my car. As aptly stated below, a homicidal employee is not likely to be deterred by either law or contractual obligation.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies...
Mr. Ed
I've heard of the right of a business owner to search lockers and work areas inside of a work place, but I've never heard of that extending to the parking lot of a business.
Where did the worry come from, the cause of this as an issue? I suppose if you have a business compound where you drive onto company property and all cars are subject to inspection, there could be a problem, but I'd think the concealed weapon permit would cover that.
I'm not sure what I think of the mix of guns and places of work, worship or for that matter booze. Probably not a good mix in the case of booze, church is rather a weird place to have a gun to me personally, and the work place itself I would have real problems with. In your car in the parking lot, probably arguments could be made on both sides of that one.
Please tell us more about where this was coming from.
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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !
Might have been nice if a student had been carrying a weapon here at Northern Illinois.
Or another worker could have stopped this with a carried weapon in NC
Erik
I'm in favor of allowing them to do so, and I would allow my employees to do so. If you own a gun shop, you want your employees to do so.
The property-rights question is an interesting one but in my experience the problem is much more often that businesses use those property rights in a needlessly anti-2nd Amendment fashion, because they don't want to apprise themselves of the facts. The problem really is that someone who has every right to carry a gun in their car very often has no choice but to leave it at home because once they get to work, they cannot bring it onto the premises. In a related circumstance, I witnessed a police officer at a law school in Chicago who was forced to leave his service pistol at home even while off-duty because:
1) He couldn't keep it in the car if he parked it on campus.
2) He couldn't bring it inside the building.
There is accomodation to be made on both sides in this debate so that everyone's rights can be protected and honored. I'm not in favor of forcing people to do anything, but I understand why a lot of people want to legislate it. I'm ambivalent or slightly leaning toward legislation, but I would prefer if more companies had an enlightened view so that it wouldn't be necessary in the first place:
I think the arguments against not allowing people to do it are unconvincing, and I agree with the NRA-ILA.
The best way to summarize my thinking on it is this: people shouldn't be made to feel as though they are doing something wrong by exercising their Constitutional rights. If the person in question owns the gun legally, can travel with the gun legally in their car on public roads, and can keep it in their home and on their property, employees should at the very least make an accomodation that allows them to keep the gun locked securely in their vehicle.
I know personally that there is no problem with things like this, even with high school students.
Most HR departments at corporations wouldn't have a problem asking their employees whether or not they own a gun that they might keep locked in their car from time to time. I can very easily imagine a non-confrontational HR scenario where employees who choose to do so are accomodated by the management subject to a few simple rules. And most larger companies have security personnel to monitor their parking facilities, also. It really depends on whether people want to make it into a fight or not, but my sense is that there's no reason why it should "come to blows" if people try to be accomodating.
Myself, if I knew one of my prospective employees was a gun owner, I'd probably ask her/him to bring it in so we could talk about it over lunch and compare notes! It would be a plus, in my book. :)
The truth is that when you're talking about risk when it comes to having vehicles on private property, the problem for the employer is much more often the vehicle itself than anything it contains. Cars are much more dangerous than guns in America.
So let's say there's a guy who wants to bring his gun into work to shoot someone.
Is it your position that the absence of this law allowing concealed carry prevented this until this point?
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
So can the employer make some sort of rules to make his business and his parking lot less attractive to people who would know that there might be guns in those cars?
Locked in the trunk?
Not loaded?
Trigger locks?
Approval of coming on property in advance?
Taking the gun out for show and tell in the parking lot means suspension of packing rights on my property?
I'm not sure what would be a reasonable accommodation, and as Mr. Ed pointed out where do property rights and second amendment rights intersect and coexhist?
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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !
To say "no guns in the building, thanks."
I just think that such a statement carries as much real-world weight as the admonition in the bathrooms that say "EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS".
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
If the business is an airport or similar then yes, they should be allowed to prohibit employees and other law abiding citizens from bringing guns onto the property.
Such a business will have guards and metal detectors at all entrances so no one, criminal or law-abiding, CAN bring a gun onto the property.
All other businesses should allow permit holders to bring their guns to work. Any business that does not make it IMPOSSIBLE for a criminal to bring a gun onto the property should allow permit holders to bring guns onto the property. Otherwise you're just setting up a gun-free work-place that is very inviting for people like the VA-Tech mass-killer.
Property rights vs other rights. Property rights are important but they don't trump other rights.
I don't think people are talking about bringing guns into airports. Clearly, they can prevent that. However, parking lots are usually very public areas. Such things are different then being inside the business its self.
"I ain't never votin' fo another Democrat so long as I can draw breath! I'll vote for a dog first!" - Leola Thomas
then the VA Tech gun ban would have made sense and would have saved lives.
But VA Tech just banned guns, while not setting up the security system that would make it IMPOSSIBLE for bad guys to bring guns on campus. Hence the rule-obeying good-guys were all unarmed and the lone armed bad guy had an easy time killing dozens of victims.
Any company that simply bans guns but does not make it impossible for bad guys to have guns will simply ensure that only bad guys will have guns on its property.
If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have them.
David
How about instead the laws on the books in regards to people with mental illness buying guns had been followed and the administration of VA Tech had been ether paying more attention or allowed to pay more attention to a very sick individual then there would not have been this tragedy.
The answer to these sorts of random acts of senseless violence is not ether more gun laws restricting ownership or creating armed fortresses in this country "just in case" or arming people "just in case".
Plenty of laws on the books when it comes to guns, and in my view we don't need more guns in society to feel secure nor less guns ether.
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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !
Right...what's your point exactly here?
Just because someone has a right to have a gun doesn't mean they don't have the right NOT to have a gun.
"I ain't never votin' fo another Democrat so long as I can draw breath! I'll vote for a dog first!" - Leola Thomas
Property rights differ depending on what you do with the property, zoning, etc. If you are using property as a public place, your rights differ from if you are using it as your own private place. That's been true to some extent for a long time, it's been very true in the past 70 years or so.
If you want to make an argument we should go back to a time where contract and property rights were supreme, you might have a point. But till then, provided we are saying that property rights differ depending on of it's for public use or not, it seems to me this should be something that's allowed.
"I ain't never votin' fo another Democrat so long as I can draw breath! I'll vote for a dog first!" - Leola Thomas
Of all the respondants to this post, yours addresses the issue most directly.
Most of the other responses deal with the emotional side of the argument and/or the preferential side (e.g. "what I'd do if I were the business owner").
As I am not an attorney, I am not aware of how property rights laws are subjugated to other laws. Your points are interesting.
I find it troubling that so many "conservative" RedState colleagues seem so easily willing to force a business owner to enact a policy that may go against his will or conscience. If the proprietor owns the property on which the parking lot sits, I would be very hesitant to promote legislation enabling others to act in such a way that conflicts with the proprietor's wishes.
Mr. Ed
Straight from the Horse's Mouth
I think there are arguments that can be made for both sides.
I think I could be persuaded either way depending on the specifics.
2A doesn't present a right to self defense as much as it presents the right to prevent govt oppression by keeping arms. I don't see it explicitly saying that you can carry the weapon wherever you go. So from a legal perspective I'd say that it does not explicitly trump the property rights.
Now apart from the legal stuff, does your natural right to defend yourself trump someone else's property rights? Initially I'd say no since I think a man's house is his castle and if you go into it of your own free will, you go into it under his conditions. But if you accept the idea that a man can't restrict who enters his castle for any reason no matter how petty or bigoted simply because it is public or a place of business (and most of us do accept that), then we’ve already accepted that someone else’s right to be treated fairly trumps property rights. Many of us also accept that a business owner cannot subject his employees to unsafe work conditions as well. If we accept that, how hard a leap is it to say that your right to reasonable self defense (carrying a concealed weapon) trumps as well?
Now as for the practical side of life, I think anyone who can be trusted to carry a concealed weapon absolutely should be allowed to carry it into work (laws don't stop psychopaths, etc...) The only places I absolutely would never allow weapons to be carried into are places where normally law abiding people are routinely emotionally upset and not rational by the very nature of the place like places courthouses, sports arenas and any place that serves alcohol. Now of course I would compensate for such liberal allowances by cracking down on reckless and improper firearm use, but perhaps I’m heading back into the theoretical since I’m not so certain after that last sentence that I’m thinking practically.
"Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em. I'm a whale biologist."
I agree that you probably found yourself betwixt the horns. As a business owner, the less regulations holding your business back from succeeding the better. Additionally, the balance between property rights and carrying of weapons has to be made by the individual business owner or school...not the employee. Business has no requirement to uphold the 2nd Amendment. That is for individuals against the government.
I believe you engaged in the right thinking - less regulation for business which would still allow businesses to decide whether or not to allow weapons on their premises.
The only problem in all this is that the convention is taking an offensive position to try and ensure the right to carry is promulgated. After years of neglect and disdain where gun rights have been more and more restricted (see NY), it may be time to take a positive position on this issue rather than simply saying no, you can't take my weapon.
Erik
There was a time when my place of work had a club sponsored firing range. Employees obviously could bring firearms to work in their cars, and bring them onto the site of the range which was outside the badge gate. The company always had a standing order that no firearms are brought into the fenced area. Somehow I never questioned this policy in terms of second amendment or in terms of property rights.
Since that time, environmental concerns about lead concentration in the range has led the company to disband the range (a loss to the employees) and now the gate area has been moved to the property boundary. The firearm rule now prohibits guns in the trunks of employees’ cars although search conditions have never been instituted on entry, (sometimes on exit though). I still come down on the side of the company, its their right to make the rules. However if an employee needed his/her firearm for protection on their way to and from work, I could see conditions would be right for a challenge. In Texas I suspect the employees want to go from work to the firing range without going home. I would think that a few safety regulations might be involved in the compromise. To this end I would propose that a conceal carry permit might satisfy the safety concerns of companies and they might make this exception for their employees who have CC permits. BTW CC permits are possible in Texas so this would work there.
Other constitutional rights also are limited in a work environment, such as 1st Amendment rights, for instance. The employee can choose to work elsewhere if he doesn't want to follow reasonable workplace rules.
And Rightly So!