Posted: 4/14/2007 9:25:01 AM EDT
I just recieved thsi e-mail from the GA Bar President. I and many other lawyers support the take your gun to work bill and are in favor of it. I wanted you to see how a liberal view of this bill is being sold to the Bar community. We can have a discussion on the pros and cons of vicarious libility, later but for now please read. I may get flack for distributing a lawyers only e-mail but you deserve to hear what the State Bar Leadership thinks of our carry rights.
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It gets better. At the bottom of the e-mail is a link to send a message to yuor represenatives. Here is the message the bar wanted to send on my behalf:
Here is the message I sent through the bar to my legislators:
Here are the rules about how the Bar Leadership takes a stand on legislative issues.
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The bill will be heard in the rules committee Monday morning in 450 Capital. Here is the announcement www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2007_08/senate/publications/agendas/Rules4-16-07.pdf I'm going to try to attend and I hope other gun folks do too. |
| I think this has a good chance of passing. Not to be a jerk by saying this, but there are only two womens names on the Senate committee, and Chip Rogers is involved as well. Chip sponsored the Senate bill for the same thing. Glad to hear it isn't dead. I wish I knew ahead of time. I'd love to go down there, but can't take off work tomorrow. |
I hope you are right. I'd actually like to see even more. I think if you put up a no guns sign you should be made to ACCEPT liability for everything that happens on their property. Not only would it make plaintiff's lawyers work very easy it might discourage those little signs
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A Primer on the 2007 Legislative Session in Georgia for Dummies This is another example of how a bill can really be twisted into something unrecognizable from its original form when in the hands of the legislature. Originally, it was a move to stop Employers from interfering into the personal (and constitutional) rights of their employees. In response, the employers cried about being sued if they allowed armed employees on their property and someone got shot. The first patch was to provide immunity to employers for allowing firearms on their property. Then everyone "what if'ed" it to death. Originally reported as pitting two traditional Republican supportive organizations against each other - the NRA vs. Chamber of Commerce, it received much media attention. The legislature tried to take the easy (and gutless) way out of the controversey by simply avoiding the issue and letting it die at crossover day (the magic date by which proposed legislation must be sent from the sponsoring house to the senate or vice-versa). If a bill doesn't cross over by that date, it dies because there is not enough time left in the legislative session to dissect it; debate it; and vote on it. This particular bill was reported dead by the press on crossover day. The Lt. Governor made the unusual move of declaring that it was not dead, but still breathing. This alerted the media and everyone else who didn't know it that this was a political football for the session. Now the Chamber of Commerce would like the immunity provision written so broadly that it can be interpreted by shrewd insurance defense lawyers into an immunity for everything. The plaintiff's lawyers don't want blanket immunity for anybody, so are pressuring for defeat of the bill. So what started as legitimate arguments about Individual Rights of Employees versus Property Rights of Employers, has now become a Tort Reform debate between lawyers and insurance carriers. The bottom line is that we lawfully armed citizens are no longer involved or considered in what began as a bill about our right to bear arms. That's my individual understanding of what is going on. If any of it is inaccurate - it won't surprise me. My opinion is that by the time all is said and done. We would have been better off if they had just left it alone. Ga. 2007 Legislative Session 101 for Dummies by a Dummy |
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After posting the above, I read that Vicarious Liability (Section 5) has now been taken OUT of the bill. So it looks like it is back to the original: Citizen's individual Rights vs. Employer's Property Rights fight again. Eliminating the Plaintiff's bar vs. Insurance aspect was the right thing to do! Now, I can fully support its passage again. Later, Dummy. |
