Torn
I’m kinda torn on the whole guns in cars bill in Florida. First, I should point out that the media keep referring to it as a guns at work bill, which is totally misleading. The bill says guns can be kept in the car while at work.
Aside from that, I’m torn on the bill. On one hand, a company’s premises are their private property and they can do what they want there, including allowing or disallowing otherwise lawful activities. On the other hand, a person’s automobile is a person’s private property and they can do what they want with it. I mean, just because I park my car in your parking lot, it doesn’t mean you can tell the authorities they can search my car. On the third hand, this kinda law caters to the latter point but, really, is a law necessary?
April 11th, 2008 at 9:20 am
I don’t belive I’m allowed to frisk guests of my house searching for contraband. Why should they be able to search my car when no visable evedence exists?
If you’re dumb enugh to have a shotgun rack, or leave your carry gun on the passenger seat, sure they can observe that and ask you to leave or not bring the item back.
In the end, for me, “If a tree falls in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
A: “Who friggin cares?”
That’s where I stand.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:33 am
The company’s premises stop being truly private property when a wide swath of the public, included non-employees (if only during interviews), are invited. Such a semi-public place has increasingly limited ability to infringe on the rights of others under Florida’s State of Florida v. Wood case, the ADA, the 14th amendment and related civil rights law, and common law. Meanwhile, the right to privacy among one’s belongings remains a fairly strong indicator for this case, and less relevant privacy rights remain intact even with a strong permission given to the facility (again, see the ADA).
The question isn’t about property rights, not at this point. Banning companies from discriminatory firing and from violating the privacy rights of others is old hat, and well-worn-out at that. The same goes for the right to freedom of association.
The question is whether contract law allows such an act, and contracts have and do remain limited in what they can cover.
There have been multiple, documented cases of individuals being fired for having a legal firearm in their car. The costs of obeying such a questionably lawful contract are non-trivial (increased travel time and travel costs, firearm must be placed somewhere that may not have the same number of locks as a car), and significantly infringe on a human right. While human rights are not binding on private agents, laws like 18 USC 241 and 18 USC 242 and acts like the ADA demonstrate that there can be some onus against private agents who violate those rights, albeit under limited conditions.
Reducing the private property rights of the company in this situation provides little if any negative effects, most along the lines of potentially and slightly higher insurance rates.
I think the most acceptable result is rather clear.
I think it’s also traditional to call the third hand the gripping hand.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Unless you have a gun-check station with an armed guard and fences around your property, it’s pretty much similar IMO to ambassies in other countries: a little island of My Land in a sea of Your Land.
A law is necessary, because employers are sometimes jackasses. This is true of larger employers with faceless employees, as well as small employers run by lefties and GFWs.
example: A young woman is afraid for her life, with good reason, because of a crazyex. She is armed at home and on the way to the car and in the car on the way to/from work. Work is full of strapping manly men who look out for her. Manager McNewboss is a GFW and tries to ban t3h guns. Do you really want her to have no legal ground to stand on against an employer who doesn’t care that crazyex is wating for a chance to xyz ?
Yes it’s ugly putting property rights against defense rights, but the line between “yours” and “mine” is very blurry on a parking lot where anybody can drive up. And if it’s your property vs. my life, including the hypothetically possible changing of rules to prohibit guns in locked cars on the lot, my life trumps your property, law or no law. It’s just nice to know a body won’t get locked up after a legitimate self-defense action due to the employer’s (arbitrary?) policy.
As a personal aside, I’m glad of the law that passed recently in Texas, because it clarified existing rules, under which it was easy to get in big trouble. Conceal it and carry it in your car. No more risk of a boot on the neck. I call that a good thing.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I do agree with Robb that the law is too narrowly defined, but that’s about it.
My car is my property. You want to search it, get a warrant.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:54 am
I don’t belive I’m allowed to frisk guests of my house searching for contraband. – Weer’d Beard
Actually, you probably are. And even if not, if they refuse to being frisked, you certainly can kick them out (and have that decision enforced by the police, if necessary).
The issue I see it is this. If the company is incorporated then it is not a person and therefore doesn’t have any rights to start with, only privileges. Once one incorporates, they’ve asked the gov’t to create a legal barrier for them from personal responsability for the business (a protection you and I don’t get). That barrier should work both ways. If I have no recourse to assert damages (lititgation) against the owner as a person because of the business, the owner has no recourse to assert that his rights trump mine because of the business.
For personally owned (unincorporated) businesses, it’s a little different. It’s their personal property and if you don’t like it, you little whipper-snappers need to get the hell of their lawn.
April 11th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I think that the personal (2nd Amendment) right to armed self-defense TO AND FROM the place of employment overrides the property rights of employers where you must park your car and then leave your personal defense “effect” locked away from your person while on the job. The 4th Amendment guarantees a right to be secure in our effects; in this case, self-defense. Taht should include your locked vehicle. I’m assuming this Florida law applies to their State’s carry permit holders who, if like here in TN, have already been certified as law-abiding citizens by intrusive background checks, not to mention State required training and fees.
Otherwise, why not the old Clinton policy re: “gays in the military”—“don’t ask, don’t tell”?
April 11th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
“I don’t belive I’m allowed to frisk guests of my house searching for contraband. “
Say why not. Understand: reference to the law as principle will not make the point.
“A law is necessary, because employers are sometimes jackasses.”
That doesn’t matter. You probably are too, sometimes, but that’s what freedom is about.
Why can’t you people arrange your principles so that that is what’s important?
Uncle: if you’re “torn”, then it’s only because you haven’t thought it through. Contradictions do not exist when it comes to this stuff. Look, man: let’s posit something that you would not allow into your house in someone else’s possession. I don’t know what it might be, but let’s stipulate to, say, a bag of heroin. You don’t want it in your house under any circumstances, and you make it clearly known.
This is what that would mean: I would have no right to enter your house with a bag of heroin in my pocket. My pants are strictly analogous to the car in an employer’s parking lot: they might be my property, but it would be just about mentally retarded to claim that the bag of heroin in a pocket is not subject to your rightful claim of property rights and all their necessary implications just because it was in the pocket and not in my hand when I walked into your house.
Can you see this?
This is an epistemic issue: it’s about maintaining a context (“the sum of cognitive elements that conditions the acquisition, validity, or application of any item of knowledge”) with scrupulous honesty, which is no more than you would expect from me if I were to attempt such bloody transparent sophistry in violating the rules of your home.
And if you don’t think it’s important to look at it that way, then simply observe the implications of not thinking about it, such as references to “law” that requires employers to hire indiscriminately. (Yes: that is exactly the precise word.) You people can go get in bed with, for instance, the racists who demand that sort of thing, but you’re being foolish on a grand scale if you do.
Freedom, ladies and gentlemen, is not necessarily easy or pretty. It’s simply the right thing, whether you bloody like it or not.
April 11th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
<Nitpick> The 4th Amendment guarantees a right to be secure in our effects;…
Uh, no. The 4th guarantees a right to be secure in your effects from unreasonable search and seizures by the .gov. It does not protect you from reasonable searches and seizures by the .gov, and doesn’t bar non-.gov entities at all.
April 11th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I have no idea what I screwed up on the formatting, but here goes again:
[Nitpick] The 4th Amendment guarantees a right to be secure in our effects;…
Uh, no. The 4th guarantees a right to be secure in your effects from unreasonable search and seizures by the .gov. It does not protect you from reasonable searches and seizures by the .gov, and doesn’t bar non-.gov entities at all.
April 11th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I ‘think’ I have this figured out.
If I’m going to someone’s house party and they say don’t bring so and so, I respect thier wish. It’s their property. I may or may not enter at my own discretion.
Same for my pistol.
The qualifier is public accomodations. Shopping malls are public accomodations, and are banks, libraries etc. It is my belief that such places may not restrict my lawful piece, as they are non-exclusive about who they let in. They don’t know who is coming, or why. Neither do I. They will let anybody in, have little security, and don’t seem to care about yours.
Thus, I’m ignoring the sign.
But my employer knows whos coming. They know me. I have a realtionship with them abeit strained at times. They are not a public accomodation. People with no business being there, and no business to transact aren’t welcome.
This is and ethical and property issue more than a self defense issue. And if you try to apply the strict “I have a right to self defense’ rhethoric then you seek the same safe at all times world as the gun grabbers, and ignore the rights of others the same way.
This is not the conclusion I like to come to, but there you are.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I see it as an encapsulation of property rights.
My employer ‘owns’ the parking lot (technically they may just lease access, but they’re still a controlling party).
I own my vehicle.
They have the right to tell me if I can place my vehicle in their parking area or not. They do not have a right to tell me what I can or can not have within my little bubble of personal space.
To look at it from another angle, if I have something deeply illegal – heroin wrapped in child porn, say, who’s going to jail if a cop looks in and sees it on the dash? The company’s not responsible – it’s their lot but it’s my car.
Using this same example to address the ‘can they fire you for it?’ question, I’d say (technically) ‘no’. They can’t fire you for having something they don’t like in your car. But I’m pretty darn sure they can fire you for committing an illegal act in their parking lot. That’s the key difference between ‘contraband’ and your gun – they may not want either one in their parking lot but only one of them is illegal.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
“They do not have a right to tell me what I can or can not have within my little bubble of personal space.”
(Me, as employer) — “Fine, then. Get your fucking ‘bubble’ off my property. Right now.”
Case closed.
April 11th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Billy Beck, thanks for making the argument. I’ve been trying, but it hasn’t been working.
gattsuru, property rights are human rights. Why do you think you have a right to self defense? It’s because you own your life. That’s the first property right, whence the rest flow, including the right to contract (you own your life, therefore you own the labor produced by that life), which is abbrogated by government interference with the terms of that contract.
How is it that you can somehow uphold rights by simultaneously degrading them?
April 11th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Nothin’ to it, Jed. I’m trying to help, but it’s really hard sometimes.
The mindlessness behind this issue is scary. Principles matter. When they’re overthrown, all bets are off. The ways that some people are approaching this makes me want them on my side of anything political not one bit. That’s because there is no telling what they’ll do next, or why.
April 11th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
KC makes an excellent point – who’s going to get busted for the contents of the car? Not the employer.
If the employer isn’t liable for the contents of my car, then the employer shouldn’t be able to say what goes in to my car.
April 11th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
That “point” — right there — is why I say that the law is not sufficient rationale for this. To begin with, people who argue this from the standpoint of law very, very rarely consider whether any given law is morally valid. Remember: things like slavery and Jim Crow were defended on this principle, too.
In any case, liability is not the entire boundary of the ethics of any of this. I’ll say it as long as people keep trying to ignore it: private property is its own valid principle here. The person who owns the business can be as irrational as they want to be about it (e.g.; — authentic Colt 1911 owners can carry their weapons in their teeth on the display-floor if they want to, but Glocksters dare not enter under any circumstances”), and nobody else has the slightest morally valid recourse in the world except to stay away from him and his property.
In case you didn’t notice, that is “freedom”, too. That’s what you have to respect, or be denounced as hypocrites.
April 11th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Yu-Ain Gonnano Says:
Uh, no. The 4th guarantees a right to be secure in your effects from unreasonable search and seizures by the .gov. It does not protect you from reasonable searches and seizures by the .gov, and doesn’t bar non-.gov entities at all.
Partly true; the government must have a probable cause, supported by oath for an issue of search and/or seizure warrant.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. –4th Amendment
I suppose the question is should the property rights of business, corporation, etc. supercede individual personal rights within the confines of their vehicles. I think deference should go to personal rights in that instance.
April 11th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
A nice platitude and all, but not a particularly useful from a legal or practical viewpoint, and not that factually accurate. The legal right to self-defense also includes the defense of others in all common law jurisdictions; you do not own those other individuals.
I don’t buy it.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
“I suppose the question is should the property rights of business, corporation, etc. supercede individual personal rights within the confines of their vehicles.”
You could only suppose something like that if you thought there was actually a conflict.
There isn’t.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Gattsuru, I disagree that it’s just a nice platitude and not useful. It’s quite useful for arguing in favor of self defense, and therefore, keeping and bearing arms. Also, against slavery, for example.
However, you do raise an interesting point, and I’ll have to give it some thought. My first notion goes to the concept of common good. i.e. it’s a benefit to me and everyone else to rid the population of those types who would perpetrate criminal acts. I also don’t think that coming to the aide of another invalidates my position. However, I also realize that “common good” arguments are slippery things.
I’m interested in how it is you think that my statement that you own your own life is factually inaccurate.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
If Billy Beck’s predictable “principle” argument is the best anyone can do to justify employers’ “right” to ban guns in trunks in cars parked on their lots, then that’s all the proof I need not to be torn on this issue. Give me one good reason why a rational employer should care whether a parked car is packing heat or not, and I’ll listen. But if the only argument is “because it’s their property, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah,” then I have little choice but to conclude that the employers’ goal is not to control their own property per se, but to use their property as a tool to control their employees’ behavior before and after work.
Then again, maybe the better approach would be a tort law that clarifies that no property owner can be held liable for allowing employees/guests/whoever to possess weapons in accordance with the law, but every property owner can be held liable for prohibiting their lawful possession. Such liability would cover not only any crimes committed on the premises, but also any crimes committed en route to or from it, unless the same owner offers a reasonable accommodation (e.g., allowing would-be heat packers to bring their guns up to the property line, then leave them with the security guard for safekeeping).
April 11th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
My car is my personal property. Period. You want to talk freedom, keep your hands off my shit.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I’m curious how you feel about the recently passed Georgia law that includes a parking lot provision. It’s a bit complicated: you can read this post for details and a link to the official text, but one major change is it only applies to “public” lots. For example, Wal-mart can’t say only employees parking in the lot can’t bring in guns, but the general public can. (There are also other provisions, too.) If they gate the lot and apply the ban to everyone entering it, they can restrict whatever they want. No one says you have to open your property to the public, but when you do you have to meet certain requirements, such as a number of handicap spaces.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Xrlq, admittedly, I don’t know this firsthand, I’ve read reports that insurance companies offer premium discounts for such business having those policies. Assuming that’s true, then it’s one reason why an employer would consider it rational, irrespective of whether they think it’s sensible of their insuror to do so. In the absence of risk of liability for workplace assaults (which currently runs the opposite direction), the feduciary motivation runs counter to allowing guns on site.
Sadly, the case which comes to mind occurred before things were all webified, but circa 1984, U.S. West was found liable for not providing a safe workplace in the sexual harrasment case involving the hiring of Robert Harlan (I’m quite sure I’m remembering the name correctly), a convicted sex offender, as an operator supervisor. IIRC, that was a pivotal case in employer liability for “safe workplace” issues.
I’m intrigued by the liability question. The argument I’d expect from corporate lawyers is that the employee willfully entered into an employement agreement in which guns on site are banned.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Ron W, Yes, the .gov does need probably cause to obtain a warrant. However, the 4th never stipulates that all searches and seizures require one.
If a cop catches you running 120mph down an interstate at night with your headlights off, your car is going to be searched without a warrant because the search (and subsequent seizure of any contraband found) is deemed resonable. So the .gov can (and will) search and seize your stuff without a warrant or probably cause supported by an Oath.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
OK, I’ll say it again, More plainly this time:
Businesses don’t have rights. Only people have rights.
If I own a property and I put a business on it, I can restrict whatever I want for whatever reason I want. If you don’t like it, get the hell off my lawn!
If the business owns the property then tough shit. Business don’t have rights, they only have privilidges which the gov’t can grant and/or take away at their whim.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
You’re saying that the people who own the business have no rights in the property they own as part of the business? If a business has no property rights, how can it operate? How can a retail business, for example, sell items it doesn’t own? How can it own the items it’s selling without property rights?
April 11th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Jed, section 7e of the Georgia bill provides liability protection for the employer. Does the Florida version not include that?
April 11th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
No, the premise that you own your own life is (generally) correct. The conclusion, that the right to self-defense exists because of such, just doesn’t logically follow. Moreover, it can be disproven, as the right to self-defense alwo protects the defense of others, and existed in overwhelmingly rare cases even among some American slaves, most obviously the Virginia 1680 to 1792 statute which stated recognition of the right to self-defense from being ‘wantonly assaulted’.
There are some very, very strong arguments for the right to self-defense and the defense of others. I’m a personal fan of the “common good” viewpoint, as I’m not a libertarian and thus it’s the result that is most appealing to me — the numbers suggest that self-defense is rather good for good people. The moral hazard of screwing over the concepts of the Founding Fathers for simple yucks is not really a good idea, in my book. Or that the law recognizes some acts simply are so outside acceptable ranges that death or severe injury of the perpetrator is, if not ideal, an acceptable risk in exchange for fighting those acts.
Or, hell, the simple part where it was encoded into law.
But trying to claim all rights or even all of a certain subset of rights arise from property rights is rather questionable. It may even be true — I honestly neither know, nor care — but many people who don’t already agree with you won’t find the assertion on its own particularly enlightening, and it’s rather easy to come up with outlier cases.
April 11th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
A business is not a person so it has limited rights under the law. Any public accommodation has to abide to restrictions under state or other governmental rules. No business has unlimited property rights. People have stronger property rights than a business.
For example: My home is my castle, I can invite or disinvite or refuse entrance to another person for any religious or bigoted reason I chose. However a business cannot do that. Apartments have to abide by Fair Housing Acts. Employers have to abide by a variety of rules preventing them from bigoted behavior or unsafe behavior or refusing entrance to invitees if they are a place of business that can reasonable expect the public to enter for business purposes.
Not all this is statutory law. Common law is prevalent in our justice system. Like a right of way. Suppose I own land that that has a pathway leading from a road to another road. I allow the neighbors to use this pathway. I have then given a right of way to that pathway and can be prevented from blocking if I change my mind.
Billy Beck stated in one example that he feel he has the right to search a guest. That is not correct. A homeowner does not any superior right to search a person than the person has a right to refuse. If the homeowner persisted it would be an assault, a violation of the person, the most basic property right.
Business has no statutory or common law authority to search a person or his effects. The 4th amendment does not apply since a business has no authority delegated to them that the government or police has. The government has been delegated with different authority that individuals and business do not possess.
The libertarian idea that a business has unlimited ability to fire at will is not correct. There are Labor Acts that impair that ability. Fair labor laws prevent corporations from taking excessive advantage over its laborers.
This law is to prevent employers from firing employees who chose to have firearm in their car. This type of thinking generated from an increasing worry about employees going postal. Plus a lot of people think; gun= bad. Gun on person = criminal. So with that type of thinking and concerns about safety of the labor force and management some companies decide to restrict employees having a gun in the car.
This actually happened in Oklahoma at a Weyerhaeuser plant during the hunting season. The company put the restriction in the policy manual and then during deer season asked some employees to open their vehicles. I do not recall if the employees complied or not but the result was they were fired. The employees did not file suit or contest the firing. The outcry was so great that the legislature put a law to stop the encroachment on the private lives of the employees and the privacy of their cars. Weirdly OSHA actually said that the law was not legal and I do not know the status now.
The legislature has a lawful reason to promote a law restricting a business since there are hundreds of such laws that are based on public policy reasons. This is a legitimate use of their authority. My beef with this law is that unfairly restrict lawful carry to only CCW holders. I have an issue with CCW people getting more rights than other lawful carry citizens.
No corporation has any authority to search a vehicle that they do not own. If the vehicle is a company vehicle then they do have the authority to make restriction on what can be in company property.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
gattsuru, I don’t think it follows that if my position doesn’t cover situation B, that it is invalid for situation A. At most, it means it isn’t broad enough. I’m still not convinced of that. For argument’s sake, I’ll state that because I value my life, I assume others value theirs. Therefore, I’m willing to assist, and expect the same from others. This is a sort of implied mutual assistance pact, which I don’t think detracts from the property right position.
You mention slavery, and I infer from your comment the position that under slavery, the product of one’s life, i.e. the labor provided by slaves, is distinct from life itself. But I don’t agree that the usurpation of the property right in one’s own labor disproves that it proceeds from the ownership of one’s own life.
RAH, you’re mostly proceeding from arguing points of law. That something is law doesn’t mean it is correct in principle. Certainly, you don’t need for me to cite examples. Your argument that since there are already a bunch of laws, that means more of the same is all fine is no argument. What is the principle? Not in the heaping pile of existing laws that we’ve become accustomed to, but in fundamental rights?
I agree with you that a forced personal search is tantamount to battery. However, that still leaves any person as being within his right in property to tell someone to leave the property — for whatever reason, even if that reason is failure to consent to search.
Also, regarding searches, the rights we have in personal ownership, whether you want to call those “personal / individual” or property rights (in our own labor), allow us to consent to the terms of an employment contract. If the terms of that contract specify that the employer may search anything brought on to the property, then yes, the employer has the privilege of doing so — through consent. If consent is withdrawn, then the employer has grounds for termination, due to abrogation of the contract on the part of the employee.
If I’m engaging in a business as a sole proprietor, then there is legally no difference between myself and my business. Suppose I’m doing light manufacturing in my garage? Does this mean that my home is no longer my castle?
Even incorporated business are still owned by people — i.e. the stockholders.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Scott, I’ve read neither law, so I don’t know. But I’m arguing on principle here anyway.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
JED,
If you run a business out of your home you lose many of the rights of home is your castle. For instance trepass can not be used against an invitee. Businesses can be checked by OSHA and Fire Department and whole host of other agencies.
I said that the representatives set law based on public policy. The public policy is that people should not be fired for having a gun lawfully in the car even if the car is parked on a business parking lot. I personally think that is good. I do not see how it damages the business. The can still prevent the carry gun being carried on the person in the building if they chose.
So principle of allowing people the freedom to carry in their car without being in danager of being fired, is good. Expands freedom of citizens and reduced the hassle CCW people have going back and forth to work.
Do you think that carry a weapon should be limited? Property rights to parking lots have a lot of law that applies. No law is just basic principle and that is naive. Common Law is developed through the centuries from competing right and equitie issues.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Do you think that’s right? I don’t.
Public policy? What does that mean? Majority opinion? Who determines what “policy” is?
Eminent domain is also something that is part of Common Law. Does that mean it’s always correct? As it has evolved through 2 centuries in the U.S.? Do you think it correctly applies the concept of equity?
I’m all in favor of unrestricted carry. I’d dearly love to see all this irrational fear go away. But I don’t believe it’s philosophically correct to argue for one right at the expense of undermining another. Nor do I expect others to honor my rights, if I demean theirs.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:17 am
If the new law in question is for CCW licencees being even more equal than the rest of us, I’m against it for that reason but it still is a step in the right direction. I had been guessing (based on nothing) that it was like in Texas, where anyone not otherwise prohibited can carry in their car (as well as at work, with the consent of the Boss, but not everywhere is as enlightened as us’n).
If you want a steak dinner and are starving, do you turn up your nose at a salad? I think it’s important not to let the Perfect be the enemy of the Good in this case, and not shoot our own over this one. So to speak. Let’s continue the debate and press toward “the great objective”.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:31 am
One other thing no one has mentioned is that most parking lots are “dedicated”. Which means law enforcement is permitted to pursue and enforce laws on that lot. If it is not dedicated, the employer can disallow their presence on the lot, in theory only, because the cops carry guns.
on a “dedicated” lot a Leo doesn’t need to be working a current crime, he can be serving a subpoena or arrest warrant or checking for expired license plates, etc. That being the case the lot is “public use”, I still have rights in public.
And for those of you who argue I don’t in private, what is to keep an employr from killing, robbing, raping his/ her employees it they have no rights he does not allow them?
And please, don’t give me that crap that somehow that hypothetical is different, IT IS NOT!
April 12th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
You’re saying that the people who own the business have no rights in the property they own as part of the business? – Jed
I do believe I said that if I own the property and then put a business on it, then I can do what I want.
The problem is that Steve Jobs doesn’t own the property for the Apple Store. The Walton Family doesn’t own the property for Wal-Mart. The business “Apple” and “Wal-Mart” owns it. Wal-Mart and Apple aren’t people and thus they don’t have rights. They have the privilidges society (.gov) lets them have.
The property that Y-A.G. Enterprises sits on however is owned by me. And I do have rights, so take that stinkin’ tie off or get the hell out of my shop 🙂
April 13th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
“For example: My home is my castle, I can invite or disinvite or refuse entrance to another person for any religious or bigoted reason I chose. However a business cannot do that.”
This person is a fucking idiot, ladies and gentlemen. He is exactly why I pointed out that resort to law is incompetent to address these matters.
And this sort of thing is where his logic goes.
I’ve said everything there is to say about it, and hereby leave you to yourselves.
April 13th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
If you don’t see the difference here Billy B, I suspect you have misidentified the idiots.
April 13th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
That is the law, though. Go open a business and put a white’s only sign on front or make it inaccessible via wheelchair and see what happens.
April 13th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Feel free to “believe” anything you want, but if you try acting on that belief you’ll be up shit creek in a hurry.
Totally irrelevant. They run businesses, they follow the rules that apply to businesses. The only difference is the number of employees.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to look up the statutory definition of “person” in the corporate laws of your state. Once you have one-one hundredth of 1% of a clue as to what you are talking about, we can resume this discussion then.
Translation: this person is living in the real world, and Billy don’t like that.
April 13th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
True, but again assuming it’s true, that’s evidence that the law needs fixing, if only to clarify that the tort exposure is no greater for those who permit guns than for those who forbid them.