On Feb 7, 2009, at 8:26 PM, Paul Laska wrote: > Recognizing that some states have statutorily specified gun free > zones (schools, courts, drinking establishments, etc.), and some > permit individual sites to post themselves as "gun free," for those > states that do not statute wise permit locations to declare > themselves gun free, what is the legal standing of such a location > that posts such a sign? I have heard the argument of private > property rights, but personally consider this specious, as these > are rarely mom and pops, but more often corporate identities, > themselves not "private" identities. First, other than to attempt > to have a "violator" warned against trespass and removed from the > location, do they have any legal standing to prevent a legal > firearms bearer from entry? Second, do they encumber any specifi > liabilty themselves by this action, not being supported by law?
The meme that "state-created fictional persons" should not have all the property rights of a natural person is popular with a certain class of conservatives, but is generally not supported by actual law, nor if it were would it be the unalloyed blessing they imagine. Corporations have pretty much the same property rights as far as admittance and trespass as individuals do. One does not need the "support" of an additional law to be permitted to exercise a right. Unless existing statute explicitly denies them a particular form of discrimination (racial being the most obvious example) they are free to engage in it, subject only to the power of social disapproval. For example, the law does not stop Curves from not admitting men or Augusta National Golf Club from not admitting women. It does not stop rehab clinics from not admitting visitors carrying their own legal prescriptions or cigarettes. It also does not stop Fry's Electronics from refusing to admit armed customers. What does work best in these cases is social (i.e., consumer) action. The question of whether a property owner who has temporarily deprived a visitor of a critical possession is liable for the results is unsettled. Part of the difficulty is fairly assigning the burden of proof, e.g., how does an injured party prove that if he had remained armed he would not have been injured anyway? To my knowledge, there have been very few civil cases filed on this theory, and none of them won. One attempt to codify such a requirement into state law (Alan Korwin's "Gun-Free Zones Liability Act," <http://www.gunlaws.com/GFZ/ GFZ-BillReview.htm>) has failed so far in Arizona, Illinois, and Georgia. -- 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 _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
