Editorial: Taking guns to work
Car-storage proposal infringes on property rights of employers
Wednesday, September 1, 2010  02:52 AM

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2010/09/01/taking-guns-to-work.html?sid=101

The Columbus Dispatch


Not long after the state's concealed-carry bill went into effect in 2004, many, if not most, of Ohio's private employers let everyone know exactly where they stood on the issue.

The state had given law-abiding Ohioans who met certain requirements the right to obtain a license that allows them to carry concealed firearms, but many employers were having none of it. Exercising their private-property rights, they banned employees, visitors and customers from carrying guns anywhere on their property, including parking lots.

But now a bipartisan group of 31 members of the Ohio House - including two from Franklin County, Reps. Cheryl Grossman, R-Grove City, and Nancy Garland, D-New Albany - wants to chip away at those gun bans that fall under private-property rights. House Bill 571, introduced last week, would forbid employers from prohibiting employees who have concealed-carry licenses from storing their handguns in locked cars on their employers' property.

This new bill is just as out of line as Ohio Senate Bill 239, which would allow people with concealed-carry licenses to take firearms into bars, restaurants and other places serving alcohol - places currently off-limits to pistol-packing patrons. The same bill also would allow license-holders to keep loaded handguns within easy reach inside cars and other motor vehicles.

The bars-in-guns bill passed the Senate in May and awaits action in the House, where it ran into a temporary snag but is, unfortunately, likely to pass and then likely to be signed by Gov. Ted Strickland.

Why the backing for this wrongheaded bill? Because the National Rifle Association and similar groups have disproportional influence over lawmakers compared with the majority of Ohioans who support reasonable restrictions on guns but who have no powerful lobby to represent their views.

The guns-in-cars proposal, which would erode private-property rights, is likely to draw fire from business owners and their organizations, some of which ought to be able to match lobbying clout with the NRA. Still, the success of such laws in about a dozen states is discouraging. A similar law went into effect in Indiana on July 1, despite strong protests from business groups, including the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, which is considering a legal challenge.

As with all concealed-carry and open-carry laws, not much time elapses after they are passed before the same gun lobby that helped get these laws enacted then turns around and launches an assault on any exceptions. Lawmakers who want to curry favor with the NRA introduce legislation to remove those exceptions. Eventually, spineless legislators in both parties, afraid of being portrayed as anti-gun and anti-Second Amendment, turn a deaf ear to police officers and citizens who want sensible gun laws.

Ohio business owners will have to work hard to make legislators just as cognizant of constitutionally protected private-property rights as they are of the Second Amendment.

Oh, NOW the left is all worried about employer's rights. Glad to see them sticking up for employers.

I didn't realize the NRA is helping out in Ohio so much when it seems like the BFA is pulling its weight and then some.

Guns in restaurants with alcohol is a problem too according to this article. Funny how it isn't a problem in all of the other states who do allow it already.

Keep touting those lies. Maybe one will stick....

They regret to mention that MY car is MY private property and those buisinesses are infringing on MY rights.

One of their editors recently sent out a pretty substantial survey to random Ohioans about the coming elections.  Having filled it out, I decided to appeal to him regarding my disapproval of this column.

Good Evening Mr. R-,

I recently took the time to fill out a multi-page political survey for
your paper.  It was unsolicited, but I'm happy to help, and I'd like to
think your organization appreciates it when Ohioans provide that kind of
help.

That's why I was particularly frustrated when I came upon yesterday's
editorial, "Taking guns to work: Car-storage proposal infringes on
property rights of employers."  While editorials are meant to express
opinions, and not everyone will agree with them, this editorial was
essentially a hit piece against a substantial portion of your audience who
have been dedicated to defending the individual liberties of law-abiding
Ohioans.  The column was, at best, a poor obfuscation of extremes by a
layperson unfamiliar with the law.

I realize this may have no relation to you, but given that you've asked
Ohioans from all over the state, of all stripes and persuasions, to assist
you with a research project, I hope you might pay that good faith forward
by making sure none of us are unfairly misrepresented or prejudiced by
your pages.  I'm certainly not going to disparage your paper or try to
organize some silly boycott, but I had a number of friends express some
negative sentiments in reaction to the piece.

Perhaps this will fall on deaf ears - but I hope you'd want Ohioans to
contribute to the paper, and that the contribution to be representative of
all Ohioans rather than a group of a single political attitude.  If you do
appreciate this contribution, I would be grateful if you could pass along
that no particular group of us deserves to be defamed or have our efforts
silenced.

Appreciatively,

Bravo sir!

nicely done!

".....turn a deaf ear to police officers ...."    Notice it's always cops who want to limit gun rights, yet wonder why there is an "us-vs-them" mentality.

it maybe your car, but you are parking it on private party. if you have no qualms  with that, then you shouldn't have no qualms about someone putting up a obama  re-election sign on your property, and you can't take it down. after all they have a right to expression, and it's their sign.  


infringe on one right, to accomadate another right, is never the answer. and anybody who thinks it is, is a fuckin' jackhole,

X02Wyvern had it right.  The parking lot owners have private property rights and so does the person parking his private property there.  The only right the owners of that property have is to tell you that you can't park your car there. That is where their rights stop and anything past that infringe on the property rights of the car owner.  They have NO right to tell you what kind of LEGAL items you may have in your car anymore than they have the right to strip search you for being on their property.

says you,  they can restrict what comes on their property.  you people are under the dellusion  that your rights extend to private entities, it doesn't, and never has.

it's obvious that you people are looking at this with blinders on.  you seem to want to trample on somebody else's rights, as long as it's with something you agree with.

And I said they can refuse to let me park on their property.  That is their right.  You can tell me I can be there or I can't, that is it.   They do not have the right to search me or my car. You don't seem to understand that we both have rights and I don't give up my rights because you also have rights.   Your rights to private property don't supercede my rights to my private property.  Do you honestly think that you give up all rights when you are on someone else's property? You are the one suggesting that property owners should be able to trample on other people's rights.

Would love to hear his definition of "sensible gun laws" for a good kick...

Here's the thing - by opening your property to others, you concede some of your rights.  The more people you allow onto your property, the more control you
concede to the public interest.  Legally, employers are
poised somewhere on the control/freedom scale somewhere between your
home and a public right of way.  A workplace may not be open to the public in the same way a mall is, but you're still not allowed to discriminate against certain groups, for example.  Other responsibilities apply to the employer that would not apply to a homeowner.





While the issue is in-flux in our state, I think there's a convincing argument that, unless you are trespassing - which an employee or customer obviously is not - your fundamental constitutional rights can be exercised in spite of the actual owner's personal taste.  If we're going to enforce against one flavor of prejudice, we've got to enforce against them all.





Further, the effect of stripping employees from even leaving guns in their cars is basically to negate the 2d Amendment for many.  Let's face it, a lot of people spend a lot of time at their office, and commutes have gotten longer as people take more far-flung jobs in the crappy market.  The only place a lot of people go in a week is work.  To prevent them from even having a gun in their car at that time, they basically aren't ever carrying, for all intents and purposes.





The bottom line, too, is that concealed means concealed.  One of my former employers moved from one fancy building to another, both had restricted access and desk security, and no carry policies.  As far as anyone that cares is aware, my coworkers and I observed that bar.  The work got done and everyone was happy - no harm, no foul.





 

Link to Akron Beacon Journal Editorial



Seems to be a state wide agenda for someone(s)