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Guns Legal Now In Texas' Work Place Parking Lots

You have every right to ban or not ban such things as you see fit. Surly you would respect the rights of other business owners to choose otherwise.

(man pro-choice logic is addictive)


Sigh...I guess I'm going to succumb to thread-drift. :mrgreen:

As I mentioned, I think we need to differentiate between truly private property (ie your home) vs "private" property that is open to the public or onto which you invite selected employees and customers. (ie Businesses)

On my truly-private property, I have the right to exclude most things I don't like: ie smoking, excessive swearing, perfume, whatever. Anyone who does things I don't like in my house is invited to quit or leave. However, my invited guests do not give up their right to life by entering my home when invited to do so... I can't simply kill them and say "well, when they stepped in my house they became part of my property." So there is a balance between the rights of the invited guest and the homeowner.

Yet there is a major difference between my home and invited guests, vs a business. No one HAS to come to my house to fulfill a basic need. On the other hand, if your biz is the only employer hiring in town, I may not have a lot of choice about coming in your biz as an employee. As a customer, if you're the only gas station within fifty miles, I might not have much choice about patronizing your biz.

A business is a different proposition from a private home. If you employ others, they are an essential part of your business...in a sense they are your partners, and should be treated as such. Ditto customers. In a perfect world it would be so...but employment of labor is usually a buyer's market and the employer often gets away with a lot of crap.

If you're not independently wealthy and don't have the capital to start a business of your own, you have to have a job to live. That, plus the fact that a business necessarily brings in non-owners (employees and customers) in order to function make it a bit different from truly-private property.

In balancing the rights of the owner vs the "guest":
1. The homeowner in his house has stronger rights against his guests', in most regards.
2. The business owner vs employee/customer balance is a little less slanted in favor of the property owner, because the property is privately owned but publically operated, and the employees and customers are essential to the survival of the biz.

"If you don't like it, find another job" is easy to say, but harder to justify, since every other employer in town might be just as bad or worse, or not hiring, etc.

Fundamental human rights protected by the Constitution need to be respected by the business owner, as long as they don't disrupt the conduct of business to a significant degree. Telling a Catholic they can't wear a cross at work has been determined to violate the 1st Amendment, for instance. Praying quietly at lunch is also an upheld right. OTOH, insisting on holding a loud, disruptive prayer meeting during lunch IN the employee lunch-room can be banned for being disruptive and disturbing other employees.

I think gun rights should be considered in a similar light. If there is not a very good, substantive reason that carrying a concealed weapon would disrupt business, then it should be protected as a right. If the biz is a chemical factory and an accidental-discharge could result in a huge disaster, then banning carry inside the biz would be reasonable.

OTOH banning someone from having a gun in their own car in the parking lot is an unreasonable intrusion by the business. The car is the employee's property. Banning them from having a gun in the car also bans them from having that protection going to and from work, arriving at home after work, etc.

Smoking...well that isn't a protected right under the Constitution. A biz owner can decide whether to allow it on his property or not. I think a wise biz owner would consider the wants of the majority of his customers and employees in making that decision.

Banning someone from smoking in their own car in the employee parking lot, now that is unreasonable under most conditions. If the parking lot is right next to the propane factory, you might have a case. :mrgreen:


G.
 
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I'm curious. This law seems to unsurp the rights of the business owner. If I am reading this correctly, if the business owner does not want an employee to carry a weapon, this law negates that.

The inside of my car is not your workplace.

So, for consistency's sake, those of you that agree with this, do you also agree that the government has the right to tell business owners that they cannot allow someone to smoke in their place of business?



No. you can still smoke in your car at ones place of work.
 
This is unreasonable. Employers have every right to set restrictions on what employees can bring to the workplace. The right to own a gun does not mean you can bring it onto other peoples property against their will. If you want to bring a gun to work, find an employer who allows it or just park your car off the campus. I find the undermining of property rights disturbing.

The trunk of your car is not needed in most job scenarios and the employer needs to keep their damn business out of other peoples cars anyways. I got fired because of an unopened bottle of vodka in a grocery bag I had planned for the weekend thanks to random parking lot searches. :doh
I bet there will be a lot less parking lot brawls as you walk to your car in Texas refineries now.

Oh well.. I think most refineries are Federal Trading Zones and would not allow guns even in the parking lot.
 
Sigh...I guess I'm going to succumb to thread-drift. :mrgreen:

As I mentioned, I think we need to differentiate between truly private property (ie your home) vs "private" property that is open to the public or onto which you invite selected employees and customers. (ie Businesses)

On my truly-private property, I have the right to exclude most things I don't like: ie smoking, excessive swearing, perfume, whatever. Anyone who does things I don't like in my house is invited to quit or leave. However, my invited guests do not give up their right to life by entering my home when invited to do so... I can't simply kill them and say "well, when they stepped in my house they became part of my property." So there is a balance between the rights of the invited guest and the homeowner.

Yet there is a major difference between my home and invited guests, vs a business. No one HAS to come to my house to fulfill a basic need. On the other hand, if your biz is the only employer hiring in town, I may not have a lot of choice about coming in your biz as an employee. As a customer, if you're the only gas station within fifty miles, I might not have much choice about patronizing your biz.

A business is a different proposition from a private home. If you employ others, they are an essential part of your business...in a sense they are your partners, and should be treated as such. Ditto customers. In a perfect world it would be so...but employment of labor is usually a buyer's market and the employer often gets away with a lot of crap.

If you're not independently wealthy and don't have the capital to start a business of your own, you have to have a job to live. That, plus the fact that a business necessarily brings in non-owners (employees and customers) in order to function make it a bit different from truly-private property.

In balancing the rights of the owner vs the "guest":
1. The homeowner in his house has stronger rights against his guests', in most regards.
2. The business owner vs employee/customer balance is a little less slanted in favor of the property owner, because the property is privately owned but publically operated, and the employees and customers are essential to the survival of the biz.

"If you don't like it, find another job" is easy to say, but harder to justify, since every other employer in town might be just as bad or worse, or not hiring, etc.

Fundamental human rights protected by the Constitution need to be respected by the business owner, as long as they don't disrupt the conduct of business to a significant degree. Telling a Catholic they can't wear a cross at work has been determined to violate the 1st Amendment, for instance. Praying quietly at lunch is also an upheld right. OTOH, insisting on holding a loud, disruptive prayer meeting during lunch IN the employee lunch-room can be banned for being disruptive and disturbing other employees.

I think gun rights should be considered in a similar light. If there is not a very good, substantive reason that carrying a concealed weapon would disrupt business, then it should be protected as a right. If the biz is a chemical factory and an accidental-discharge could result in a huge disaster, then banning carry inside the biz would be reasonable.

OTOH banning someone from having a gun in their own car in the parking lot is an unreasonable intrusion by the business. The car is the employee's property. Banning them from having a gun in the car also bans them from having that protection going to and from work, arriving at home after work, etc.

Smoking...well that isn't a protected right under the Constitution. A biz owner can decide whether to allow it on his property or not. I think a wise biz owner would consider the wants of the majority of his customers and employees in making that decision.

Banning someone from smoking in their own car in the employee parking lot, now that is unreasonable under most conditions. If the parking lot is right next to the propane factory, you might have a case. :mrgreen:


G.

They way I see it, unless my carrying into your business disrupts your business and therefore causes you a damage, then you as the business owner have absolutely no right or authority to bar me from carrying.

"It's my business and I said no" simply is not good enough.

It's absurd to assume that I should automatically respect your rights as a business owner while you are standing there disrespecting my rights as a person.

IMO a business owner should have to seek a license to bar lawful concealed weapons from their premises so that any business owner is forced to demonstrate a genuine need to do so.
 
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Oh look, there you are trying to be above it all, show you're realllllllly non-partisan and above it all by twisting the verbage around to show that there is another side and if you support the one you're a hypocrite!

No, just pointing out how certain partisan hacks are, in actuality, hypocrites.


Nice try, but that's not what it says at all, as I believe Jerry clears up the post down from mine.

Now that I know exactly how you play this game, I'm gonna call you out on it. Nice try...

The subject at hand is what employees can have in their POV's while traversing to and from work. Not if they can pack heat in businesses.

Ummm...excuse me, but if you actually paid attention to the thread, you would have noticed that as soon as Jerry clarified the issue, my hypocrisy check no longer applied, and I pretty much said so, thanking him for the clarification. Of course if it did still apply, I doubt you would pass. :2razz:
 
Yup, just like the law allowed the two Columbine boys to carry guns in school...oh wait a minute, that's illegal....gosh, I guess those psycho killers don't obey laws about not carrying firearms.

What in the HELL makes you think that some psycho, bent on mass murder, stops outside the door with the "No Guns Allowed" sign and says:

"Darn! I was going to go in there and kill twenty people, but I'm not allowed to bring a gun inside! Crap! I'll have to go somewhere else..."

THINK for a minute. They call them criminals, because they don't obey the law??

(PS if you're talking about people WITH carry permits, the violent crime rate for CCW holders is virtually zero.)




You know nothing about me bud, and that was uncalled for. My best friend was murdered in a robbery at his store when I was 24, for starters. I saw all kinds of crap as a cop, for another. "Cold" is not what I am; passionate about the right to life and the right to defend that life, is more like it.

G.

Well said. The idiocy of banning fire arms and expecting criminals to obey the law kind of reminds me of this skit.

YouTube - Gun Free Zone - Get Yours Today!
 
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