Via the Triangle of Death:
Today, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in support of allowing employees to store legally owned firearms in locked, private motor vehicles while parked in employer parking lots. This decision upholds NRA-backed legislation passed in 2004.
“This is a victory for the millions of American workers who have been denied the right to protect themselves while commuting between their homes and their workplace,” said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. “This effort was aimed at skirting the will of the American people, and the intent of legislatures across this country while eviscerating Right-to-Carry laws. This ruling is a slap at the corporate elitists who have no regard for the constitutional rights of law abiding American workers.”
Keep in mind this only applies to states that have passed such laws. Currently that is only a handful of states.
I have mixed feelings on this. It’s a balancing act between property rights and gun owner rights. Generally I just remain silent rather than cheer for either side. But I have to admit it makes it more publicly acceptable to be a gun owner. Just as requiring a license to carry wouldn’t be necessary in a Utopian world it did make it more acceptable to the general public.
As long as the firearm remains in the vehicle it is on private, not company property, IMHO.
Just as a vehicle on a public roadway requires a search warrant for a search, because it is effectively private property (albeit mobile).
I can carry anything which I can legally own, in my car (wire, drywall, the latest DVD, publications of various types, unhealthy foodstuffs…). If not, how do I transport it to my (immobile) home? Foolishness.
Legal foolishness (read infringment) pushes weapons into the trunk AND unloaded, but that is a firearms issue not as much a private property issue.
A man’s car is his (mobile) castle.
It seems to me there is a range of different types of parking and some place in that range the rules should change. If the parking is pull in head first, directly off the street, the the store has no right to restrict what is in the car, even if it owns the land. If the parking is inside a gated lot, then they have the right, even if the writing on the back of the ticket, is too small to read. The question is what to do in the middle, and I fear that society today is not up to the task of debating that in a honest fair manner.
I too had mixed feelings on these laws when they first went thorough. After thinking about it for awhile though, I’ve decided that since the car itself is private property that the land owner has no claim to and the car encloses whatever is inside it, then the contents is also private.
You beat me to it. That’s always been my opinion on the situation as well. The only issue I’ve seen with the laws passed regarding this is that they are specific to firearms. A more appropriate law would be one that simply stated that my employer has no more right to search my car just because it’s on their parking lot than they do to search my home. If they want to make searches at the door a condition of employment, that’s their right. But my car is mine.
We aren’t necessarily talking about the power for the employer to search the vehicles. Just prohibit employees from bringing certain things onto their propery.
Would you also say you have the right to bring a truck load of explosives to your job at the oil refinery?
Joe,
Most cars already have a load of expolsives on a company parking lot and at at an oil refinery lot. That is the gasoline in the tank which has explosive capability.
For that matter why care about explosives at an oil refinery, the oil refinery itself is explosive? Just need to watch out for combustion sparks in order not to create the inferno.
Have you ever tried to make a container filled with gasoline explode? Ry and I worked off and on for over a year using explosives and high powered rifles trying to get a container with gas to just ignite before we got it to work somewhat reliably. How many car accidents (outside of Hollywood) result in an explosion?
And barring some additional mechanism for dispersing and detonating (not mere ignition of) the fuel in a fuel/air mixture it’s not going to affect much of anything beyond 25 yards or so.
A truck load of explosives would have a much greater potential to rupture containers and transport systems than a fuel tank in a vehicle–even if you could get the fuel to explode.
The point is that certain places of work may be much more sensitive to some types of objects than others. Another example might be CB radios near a blasting site using electrical caps. The employer may have a legitimate reason for prohibiting the proximity of those objects. The difficulty is in “Who decides what is legitimate?” Should the legislature make those decisions or should the property owner make those decisions?
In the case of prohibiting guns from being stored in trunk of your car, in almost all cases, it’s pure bigotry on the part of the employer. But I’m uncomfortable with saying the legislature knows better than the property owner in the more general case.