Ah right. Thanks.
Fair enough.
Not so. The Supreme Court has not yet evaluated that portion of the 2nd Amendment. They have evaluated that portion of the 1st Amendment. Thus it remains to be seen whether or not gun possession is protected under certain circumstances. Is it a stretch? Perhaps. But legally it is up for grabs.
I’m so confused. What’s up for grabs?
Incorporation aside, are you suggesting that the relatively small body of law that provides private remedies for the protection of certain civil rights (e.g., employment discrimination, refusal of accommodation) be expanded such that all private action is treated with the same scrutiny as government action?
I’m sorry if I’ve painted this as such an absurd idea, but really don’t think I understand your idea.
Let’s clarify the distinction between having a gun present in a situation where a party is claiming the right to bar the gun, and having the status of “gun owner”. Gun owners who leave their guns at home are welcome just like everybody else. It’s not you the gun owner that’s the problem, it’s that there gun. Likewise it’s not you the smoker that’s the problem, it’s all that smoke.
Havnig said that, I think it’s stretch for employers to complain that their property rights have been violated (and even more of a stretch for churches to complain that their religious freedom has been) if a car pulls into the parking lot with a gun locked inside.
Motorists tend to see a parking lot as an extension of the roadway, rather than a building. Whether your boss or the city owns the asphalt your car is standing on hardly matters–your’re still in the great outdoors and subject to scarcely less risk of being accosted by a bad guy than would be on the street.
I should think this is a matter to be decided by the legislature rather than it being a clash of Constitutional rights.
We’re talking about an employer/employee relationship here, right? As far as I can tell, an employer - particularly in the US - can pretty much lay down rules as he wants, as long as he doesn’t discriminate against the protected classes (sex, race etc.) If an employer wants to make (or prevent) a specific impression, nothing is stopping him from putting down a “no bumper stickers in the parking lot” rule, for instance. Is that a violation of first amendment rights?
I am sorry, I may not have made myself clear. I’m not talking about a public parking lot open for anyone’s business - I’m talking about employee parking on the company’s property. As long as there a clear understanding that those are the rules and that I’m free to stay off the property if the rules are unacceptable, I don’t see what the big deal is.
It’s all in the details, isn’t it? At my workplace, security (badge check etc.) is at the entrance to the lot. It’d be a huge stretch to consider it an extension of the roadway.
Ah, maybe some of my confusion stems from overlapping and casual use of terminology.
I have a gun in my car and I want to go to work. The company I work for has two relevant policies: 1) no guns on the property and 2) all vehicles on company property are subject to search.
Can the legislature pass a law that makes the company’s policy invalid? There is absolutely no Second Amendment question here. Just as there is absolutely no Fourth Amendment question here. The challenge to the law would come from the company, not the gun owner. Getting to that challenge may be confusing as there are several ways the case can get to court, but in essence, as the law would be challenging/altering the company’s right to exclude or set conditions for entrance to its property, the Second and Fourth Amendments are not relevant.
In the absence of relevant legislation, can individual make a Constitutional claim against the company? There is absolutely no Second Amendment question here. The Company is not infringing on your right to bear arms. The Company is not a state actor. The Company is merely prohibiting you from entering its property. Similarly, there is absolutely no Fourth Amendment question here. The Company is performing the search. The Company is not a state actor. If you refuse and a tow truck is called to remove your vehicle, the state is not involved. If the police are called to remove your person, this is due to trespass.
Or have I completely missed something?
ETA: yes, lots of silly and irrelevant things can enter – was I on notice of the policy, was the gun legal, etc., but those are just inane Gotcha Yas
Legislation at the State level may not be clearly written, and that is how the legal challenges to such laws that work their way to the Supreme Court.
The State law would have to be written to cover all sorts of different parking lot situations, all sort of private property and buisness types, and so on.
That could snowball into a lot of “gun’s are ok to be banned, except for situations a through n”, and leave gun owners confused.
That is why some folks want a simple “one rule fits all” ruling from SCOTUS. I am willing to be reasonable, but I can see what a snarl it could become. 
Well, in the Florida case, it’s more than just the Second Amendment that’s relevant. In our state constitution, there’s a similar but more explicit provision:
In this case, the Florida Constitution is also recognizing a right to self-defense with firearms. By prohibiting guns in cars, employers are coercing employees to consent to forgoing the exercise of this right not just on the premise of the business, but also on the roads to and from work (where the business is unable to provide security).
Now keep in mind that the Florida legislature thinks rather highly of this right to self-defense. We’ve got an exemption that allows even someone without a concealed carry permit to still carry a loaded gun in their car as long as it’s “securely encased” (which case law has interpreted in favor of the individual – securely encased doesn’t necessarily mean locked). We made national headlines with the self-defense law that heavily presumes that homeowners are in fear for their life (and thus justified in using lethal force) when people break into their homes. And, of course, there’s the previously mentioned part of the Florida Constitution which chose to take a more explicit stand on the issues generated by the Second Amendment.
Of course everything I’ve said so far still doesn’t address the issue of state action versus private action. However, the state regularly limits the extent to which people can voluntarily or semi-voluntarily give up rights. You can see it in terms of courts placing limits on non-compete agreements, you can see it in landlord-tenant law, and so forth. In this case, the companies’ actions are having a disproportionate impact on a relatively important right (as far as Florida is concerned), and the state is doing the proper thing by mediating the conflict between the business’s property rights, the car owner’s property rights, and the car owner’s right to self-defense while traveling to and from work.
So while “gun owner” may not be a protected class in terms of the Civil Rights Act, “bearing a firearm for self-defense” is a protected right under the Florida Constitution. It’s the duty of the state, as a representative of the people, to do its best to protect that and all other rights and to provide for reasonable compromises when various rights come into conflict with each other.
The default position is that a private owner can set conditions for other people to be on his or her property, even if those conditions run foul of the guest or visitors constitutional rights; those rights protect the individual against government infringement. The government may chose to pass laws limiting the right of private individuals to set such conditions on access to property, but in the absence of such laws, as is the case with gun ownership, there isn’t a basis as far as I can see to claim any kind of right to possess a gun on someone else’s property. That a private individual cannot exclude another private individual from their restaurant on the basis of the prospective diner’s skin color is the product of legislation. As far as I can see, no such legislation exists in the case of gun ownership.
They shouldn’t be allowed to, unless their car is parked on your property. Employers have searched employees legally since forever, from Gamestop to the State Department.
Raise your hand if your employer has ever seen the inside of your car, much less searched it. If I was the type who felt like he needed a gun in the car, I would carry a gun in the car, and if I ever had to use it, explaining myself for breaking a corporate rule would be an afterthought. These rules are only to cover their ass in the case of a shooting and subsequent lawsuit, anyway. I doubt they really give a shit if you have a gun in your car or not.
However, as I pointed out, part of the problem is that those conditions implicitly extend beyond the property since there’s not a reasonable alternative allowing the employee to be armed to and from work.
Did you read the first half of my post? The whole part that you didn’t quote centered around first setting up the concept of a state-recognized, strongly protected right to bear a firearm for self-defense.
That bearing such a firearm results in possession (locked in the car in the case of the law in question) on another’s property is just an aspect of allowing the larger right.
Wait, what? This makes no sense. We’re discussing actual legislation covering this, so how can your argument be that no such legislation exists?
No state action (or no individual action “under color of law”) means no constitutional issue.
Period.
Private action against private individuals is unlawful (not, mind you, unconstitutional) when and only when specific statutory enactments make it so. When the Civil Rights Act creates a “protected class” that includes blacks, it makes it unlawful for me not to let blacks in (for instance) my restaurant. It does not make it “unconstitutional” to do so. In fact, the Act trumps what would otherwise be my constitutional right of free association and the enjoyment of my property, under which there is no affirmative obligation for me not to kick blacks out because I just don’t like them.
Unlike the Constitution in the hands of activist jurists, statutes don’t really have “penumbras.” The fact that the CRA restricts my freedom to discriminate against minorities in my private business cannot give rise to an inference or implication that the CRA places any restrictions on my freedom to tell my employees or patrons they cannot carry a gun on my private property (unless or until a legislature creates a separate statutorily protected category of gun-carriers).
Indeed, but not relevant. The default position is still my property, my rules; provided those rules don’t violate legislative command.
Yes I did - but that prevents the state government from infringing on your right to self defense, not a private individual from so doing on his or her own property.
But the right isn’t preserved, absent legislative action, against private curtailment.
We are? I just reread the thread. What am I missing. I don’t see anyone discussion legislation that purports to permit a private individual to carry a firearm onto private property against the wishes of the property owner?
What actual legislation is this?
I thought the whole point of owning guns was so an individual could defend his civil rights. Including property rights. Such as the right to decide he doesn’t want people to bring guns on to his property.
If we start saying that the right to carry a firearm outweighs all of the rights that carrying that firearm is supposed to support, then the ends no longer justifies the means and the Second Amendment has no meaning other than its existence.
Click on the first link in the first post and check out the third paragraph. This is in terms of Florida’s new law that allows employees to have a gun locked in their car.
With the exception of Texas, the use of lethal force (which includes guns) is generally to protect yourself and others from the imminent threat of death or great bodily harm. When someone breaks into your home at 3 in the morning, you shoot him because your life is in danger, not because he’s making off with your Xbox.
My bad - I hadn’t seen the link.
OK, to rephrase. In the absence of such a law, which seems to be the exception rather than the rule, there is no problem with a private organization preventing guns on its premises.
There certainly isn’t a constitutional right to bear arms on a person’s property against the express wishes of that owner. A state refusing to pass such a law, or allowing private property owners to exclude gun carriers does not violate an individual’s federal constitutional rights, nor I would imagine does it violate an individual’s rights under any given state constitution, though I don’t know most state constitutions well enough to comment further on that. And that seemed to be the question being posed by the OP - my apologies to Airman Doors if that is not the case.
I think you understood the OP correctly and I hope it’s now clear the distinction between state action/constitutional rights and private action on private property.
Want to have some fun, now, and contemplate whether a state that tried to force private property owners to allow gun-carriers on their property against their wishes is guilty of a takings violation?
Me neither, just kidding.
All I can find are articles talking about the law, but for some reason I can’t find the law’s actual text. Anyone have a direct link?
Ok, everyone take a deep breath and repeat after me. And Huerta88.
THERE IS NO SECOND AMENDMENT ISSUE HERE
There. Is. No. Second. Amend. Ment. Here
There is no Florida equivalent to the Second Amendment issue here
Is there talk about guns? Sure. Is there love of boomsticks? Sure. In any action revolving around this law, will there be talk of the need for bang-bangs? Sure. Will references to, appeals about, adulation for, and veneration of the Second Amendment? Sure.
But the Second Amendment is not at issue.
Suppose Florida got wrapped up in civic pride and passed a “take your ‘gator to work” law. The law says that <<anyone with a ‘gator permit has a legal right to keep his ‘gator locked in his car in the company parking lot.>> (Fr quotes are taken from the OP’s linked article with the obvious change)
Does the Florida law pass Constitutional muster? Does Florida have an interest in promoting civic pride/promoting public safety such that it can override a private entity’s right to association and control over property? The same questions that would be asked in the ‘gator case would be asked in the gun case. The analysis—especially on the company’s side—would be very similar but for some noun differences. The analysis on the employee side would be very similar but for some noun differences.