-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Jacobs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sat, 14 Jan 2006 21:10:00 -0600
Subject: Re: guns at workplace
Assuming by Constitutional protection or by validly issued state license/permit that you have the right to carry a firearm on your person, why is that right subordinate to an owner's private property rights at the owner's workplace but that very same right somehow supercedes the owner's property rights in the parking lot - how can that be argued legally? It seems to me that there are two possibilities, and the question is, is either one a sound argument?
1 - Your motor vehicle is an extension of your home. As such, your private property rights at home transfer to your motor vehicle and, therefore, are exactly equal to the property rights of the person upon whose land you park that motor vehicle, despite the fact that there is at least some kind of implicit grant of permission or licence to park there. The rights being equal, the prohibition is stalemated and must fail because the right to possess/carry the firearm at home either tru! mps a workplace situation or maybe it occurs first - the right starts inside the house before the worker gets to the parking lot so he simply carries it with him (no pun intended). Being first, it wins.
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1 - Your motor vehicle is an extension of your home. As such, your private property rights at home transfer to your motor vehicle and, therefore, are exactly equal to the property rights of the person upon whose land you park that motor vehicle, despite the fact that there is at least some kind of implicit grant of permission or licence to park there. The rights being equal, the prohibition is stalemated and must fail because the right to possess/carry the firearm at home either tru! mps a workplace situation or maybe it occurs first - the right starts inside the house before the worker gets to the parking lot so he simply carries it with him (no pun intended). Being first, it wins.
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I don't think this adequately explains the issue. A motor vehicle is not generally considered to be an extension of one's home, unless it is an RV or motor coach, or something similar. A motor vehicle is a piece of personal property capable of moving from one piece of real property to another. It has particular characteristics that make it subject to a different set of laws regarding search and seizure, for example. One does not even have to own or lease a home on real property in order to have the same level of protection that someone who lives in his car does. A car is treated as a car, not a house or apartment. The right is either an individual right or not. Making it dependent on the car being an extension of the home requires that one be a home owner or lessor in order to have and exercise the right.
What everyone has in an automobile is an expectation of privacy in one's person, papers and effects per the Fourth Amendment. What we are discussing in Situation 1 is a direct conflict between an individual's private property rights in the auto and its contents, and a corporate employer's rights in the parking lot. If you can own the property, you are entitled to be secure in it, even if you are doing something illegal with it. In the past, courts have come down on the side of the individual's rights versus the corporation's "rights" because corporations are creatures of the state and do not have the same level of constitutional protection that an individual does. Only recently have courts been modifying this approach when dealing with conflict between individual rights and corporate powers, or so-called rights. Corporations are only "individuals" when a law defines them as such.
If you take the firearm out of the equation for discussion purposes, and substitute various other items, some legal, some not, the question is still the same: Should an employer be able to force a search of a privately owned automobile in the company parking lot under penalty of law or loss of employment? I think not. The answer should not be dependent on whether the employer is looking for guns or drugs, where many would say it is okay, versus looking for pornography, banned books, stolen property, knives, illegal fireworks, alcohol, etc., where most would say it is not okay. The courts still apply the same 4th Amendment analysis even if the item found within the car is illegal. The end of an illegal item does not automatically justify the means of an illegal search. Illegal searches that turn up illegal items still are suppressed by courts on a regular basis.
It seems like certain corporations are trying to extend their ability to give drug tests before or during employment, search lockers, desks, and computers owned by the corporation, or otherwise require employees to give up certain freedoms within the workplace to the employees' private property. The issues of prohibiting employees from smoking or refraining from motorcycle riding in order to keep employer-provided health insurance and forced searches of private autos in corporate parking lots for guns or drugs may seem like separate issues, but are linked in that corporations are trying to extend their powers to intrude into employees' private lives.
The government telling employees that it is okay for their employers to force a search of private automobiles on employer-owned property is allowing a substantial chunk to be taken out of the Fourth Amendment's protections, and reestablishing a much lower expectation of privacy in a very common item of private property for a huge class of the population.
Regards,
Scott Hattrup
P.S. IAAL.
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