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Today's Topics:
1. Re: guns at workplace ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
2. Re: guns at workplace ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
3. Re: guns at workplace (Lowell C. Savage)
4. RE: Firearmsregprof Digest, Vol 26, Issue 5 (Paul Laska)
5. Re: guns at workplace (C. D. Tavares)
6. Follow-up re motor vehicles (Greg Jacobs)
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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 15:18:09 -0500 (EST)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: guns at workplace
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Guy writes:
...
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 trumps 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.
I'm not convinced on this approach.
I'm a bit more convinced - as long as we distinguish between your
right *in* the motor vehicle, and your right's as soon as you exit the
motor vehicle.
In the motor vehicle, you can have a continuous posession of a firearm
from your home onwards. Denying posession in the motor vehicle then
denies possession on the entire travel, to and from. Clearly the
property owner has zero right to regulate the rest of the travel.
But as soon as you exit the motor vehicle, then you are entirely on
the other's property and that property owner's requirement holds. (I'm
assuming that you have been informed of that requirement.)
Let's assume for the moment the
destination is not a workplace, but another person's home. Is the right
of
this homeowner secondary? If Maggie doesn't like guns, and doesn't want
John
to bring his gun onto her property, she can keep him from doing so.
I'd give the same interpretation as above, and say that the gun in the
car isn't really on Maggie's property.
Ignoring for the moment the lacking of individual standing that a
corporation has, why would their property rights have a secondary status?
My interpretation puts both of them on the same basis.
Taking this one step further: Public parking lots are just that --
available to the public by an implied invitation ("Please come shop and
the
Mega Mall of Memphis!"). A corporate parking lot is by specific
invitation,
and indeed by employment contract. Property and contract rights would
have
a superior standing (this gets messy when we also consider that
corporations
invite a subset of the non-employee public onto corporate grounds for
visiting -- vendors, potential employees, customer representatives, etc.).
As far as employment, or other, contract - I'd agree that it has
superior standing. If my employment contract says that I won't bring
guns or cats onto the employer's property, even inside my motor vehicle,
then I've bound my self with that restriction. Visitors to that
property aren't bound by an employement, or other, contract and so
haven't given up the right to keep (legal) stuff in their car.
(Possibly a sign outside the parking lot saying XYZ Prohibited on These
Premises, would have the same effect as a contract?)
So if you enter into a contract with Maggie which says that you won't
bring motor vehicles with guns or cats onto her property - then that
governs what you can do.
Overall, I'm distinguishing between the limits of a property owner's
rights - and what you can agree to in a contract.
--henry schaffer
P.S. IANAL.
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 17:57:31 -0500
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: guns at workplace
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
-----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 trumps 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.
____________________________
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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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 17:40:57 -0700
From: "Lowell C. Savage" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: guns at workplace
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
It seems to me that this is one of those cases where two rights are in
conflict. On the one hand, there are private property and contract rights
and on the other hand, self-defense rights. Both important, both
emotional, both deeply felt by some people. There are all kinds of issues
in society where we have this sort of conflict between different
rights. The right to protest vs. the right to be left in peace and
sometimes, the right to privacy. The right to free speech vs. the right
to
not be damaged by it.
The question I have is: what is the best way to resolve these kinds of
conflicts? Is it in the courts (which the conversations below would seem
to indicate) or is it in the legislature? If the courts could decide that
private property and contract rights should trump self-defense rights, why
could not a later court decide that the first decision is in error and
that
self-defense rights trump property and contract rights and therefore
people
can bring guns into the parking lot even in states that allow companies to
ban firearms?
But frankly, I think that a superior legislative solution would be to
allow
companies to have whatever policy they wish, but create a civil court
safe-haven for those companies that follow a particular course. So, take
Utah for instance. It might say that if company policy allows workers to
carry guns on the job--provided that they are acting within the law (i.e.
properly licensed)--then the company is not responsible for any damages
should that employee harm someone else with their weapon. But conversely,
if the employer bans weapons, then should an employee be harmed (on the
job
or traveling to or from), the employer will have the burden of proof to
show that even if the employee (or a fellow employee) had been armed, the
harm would still have occurred.
While this still impacts property and contract rights (which, as Kelo, and
numerous contract-override provisions in various state and federal laws
have shown, are not absolute) it does so far less than the
one-size-fits-all approach of "thou shalt not" current laws. Also, it
becomes just one more of several issues a company must consider in
developing its workplace rules.
Lowell
Guy Smith wrote, in part:
Grag wrote:
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 trumps 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.
I'm not convinced on this approach. Let's assume for the moment the
destination is not a workplace, but another person's home. Is the right
of
this homeowner secondary? If Maggie doesn't like guns, and doesn't want
John
to bring his gun onto her property, she can keep him from doing so.
Ignoring for the moment the lacking of individual standing that a
corporation has, why would their property rights have a secondary status?
Taking this one step further: Public parking lots are just that --
available to the public by an implied invitation ("Please come shop and
the
Mega Mall of Memphis!"). A corporate parking lot is by specific
invitation,
and indeed by employment contract. Property and contract rights would
have
a superior standing (this gets messy when we also consider that
corporations
invite a subset of the non-employee public onto corporate grounds for
visiting -- vendors, potential employees, customer representatives, etc.).
Lowell Savage
It's the freedom, stupid!
Gun Control: tyrants' tool, fools' folly.
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 01:33:58 +0000
From: "Paul Laska" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Firearmsregprof Digest, Vol 26, Issue 5
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
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Message: 5
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 22:07:34 -0700
From: "C. D. Tavares" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: guns at workplace
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
On Jan 15, 2006, at 3:57 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
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 it all depends on what set of legal fictions we
agree to honor today.
For example, in physical terms, it is ludicrous to insist that the
earth under an embassy is "foreign soil," yet we swallow this fiction
every day. A person within the boundaries of Washington DC is subject
to the jurisdiction of Washington DC, unless he is inside the French
Embassy, in which case he is suddenly outside it.
Extending a similar argument to objects inside vehicles would really
not be that much of a stretch for a properly-motivated legislature.
--
Escape the Rat Race for Peace, Quiet, and Miles of Desert Beauty
Take a Sanity Break at The Bunkhouse at Liberty Haven Ranch
http://libertyhavenranch.com
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 00:41:55 -0600
From: Greg Jacobs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Follow-up re motor vehicles
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 02:00 PM 1/15/2006, Guy wrote:
I'm not convinced on this approach.
That makes two of us. I presented it as a possibility.
Let's assume for the moment the destination is not a workplace, but
another person's home. Is the right of this homeowner secondary?
Never.
If Maggie doesn't like guns, and doesn't want John to bring his gun onto
her property, she can keep him from doing so. Ignoring for the moment the
lacking of individual standing that a
corporation has, why would their property rights have a secondary status?
I created the argument that I submitted more for the sake of discussion
than anything else - I didn't say I really liked it. :-D
***GRJ***
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