Couple of TN Gun Bills
Bill to remove restriction on concealed carry in parks advances.
Tennessee’s legislature is looking at a bill that would prohibit employers from banning firearms in an employee’s car in the employer’s parking lot. Not sure how I come down on this one.
In Florida, there was a push for such a law a bit back that I mildly supported. The reason I mildly supported it was because in FL, it was a special crime to carry on an employee lot when they said not to instead of just trespassing. The bill in Tennessee simply says that an employer may not ban possession by employees of weapons in their cars on the employers parking lot. It’s a sticky issue since the parking lot is the employer’s property and the vehicle is the employee’s property.
Via Chas Sisk says that some employers aren’t happy about it:
Employers are objecting to a bill that would let gun owners take firearms into workplace parking lots. (Wrong. They can do that already but employers can forbid that practice. – ed)
Sen. Dewayne Bunch has introduced legislation, SB 1724, that would let holders of handgun carry permits take their weapon into company parking lots and leave them in their locked vehicles. (Wrong again – ed.)
But speaking at a subcommittee hearing Wednesday morning, representatives for Bridgestone, the Tennessee Hospitality Association and the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry said the bill would hurt companies’ ability to write rules to protect their workers.
What about the workers’ ability to protect themselves?
March 26th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
What do you mean you “don’t know” how you would come down on this issue? It’s pretty freakin simple. The “employee” gets to work in HIS car. The car is HIS property. What is in HIS car is none of the employers business unless there is some REASONABLE suspicion the guy is stealing or selling crack out of HIS car or something. If the employer wets his pantys over the THOUGHT someone might have a nasty evil gun in the parking lot and the employer is too freakin LAZY to search each and every car going into the parking lot, then all the employer has to do is CLOSE THE PARKING LOT. Problem solved.
March 26th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
There are two points that bring me firmly on the side of the employee:
1) The employee doesn’t always have the choice to go work somewhere else;
2) The employer’s ban doesn’t just cover his parking lot, it effectively covers everywhere from the employee’s front door to the parking lot, and anyplace the employee may need to stop in between, regardless of circumstances.
Live in a bad neighborhood and can’t afford to move? Tough, you can’t have your defensive weapon when you go out to your car.
Your ex has threatened to kill you? To bad, you still don’t get to be armed when you go out to your car, or pick up your kid from day care after work.
The employer is in a position of significant power over the employee, and the employee’s non work-related activities. Bills like this help keep that power within it’s proper limits.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:30 am
I consider myself a free-market extremist, but in a world with so much government intervention, I must choose the side which benefits the individual. Since government allows criminals to freely roam it’s property, and since gov claims almost all roads, sidewalks, parks, etc, people need to have the means to defend themselves with so many crimes occuring.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:01 am
I support the law whole heartedly. I cleared my conscience over this when ‘routine’ Weyerhaeuser drug search in Valliant, Ok on the opening day of hunting season happened.
In addition to the above mentioned GREAT points, I would add. . .
The parking lot is generally a publically accessible place, so even though it is privately owned it doesn’t enjoy the same protections nor carry the same liability as the private land ‘inside the fence’ that is controlled by the owner.
Also, if during hunting season, everybody parks up and down the bar-ditch on the opposite side of the road (with guns locked in cars) can employment be threatened?
Is society safer with the cars with guns parked on public right-of-ways?
If the government requires a no-firearms policy as part of regulatory oversight (OSHA) and the company implements the standard ‘model employment policy’ then why should said company be able to retain ‘private property’ rights. No employer subject to OSHA regulation could then safely omit such a policy without risk of stockholder lawsuit for negligence.
In short, by adopting government mandated regulations in the parking lot and workplace, it is no longer purely private property. It has become a mix between government controlled property and private property.
The corporations are more than willing to accept this mix when your car is vandalized or hit and run in the parking lot. In fact, LEO obtaining the surveillance videos of the parking lot can be an impossible challenge with disappointing results. Perhaps if the owners were subject to STRICT liability on their property, (Property Forfeiture if drugs found in a car, etc, same stuff as you and I at our houses) then perhaps I would feel different.