2008 – Page 273 – Shall Not Be Questioned

HR 4900 Criticisms

SayUncle is asking what we think about GOA’s criticisms of HR 4900.Â My response to that is if GOA can push better legislation thorough Pelosi’s Congress, I’ll applaud them.

The criticism that ATF will abuse their power to levy these civil penalties is a legitimate one, but would we rather have ATF abusing fines, or abusing their authority to shut down gun shops?Â If I were a gun shop owner, I’d rather have to fork over a few thousand bucks in a civil penalty than have to fork over tens or possibly hundreds of thousands in legal fees fighting a license revocation.Â GOA also makes this claim:

The problem is that — in virtually all of the most aggressive regulatory agencies in the federal government — “civil penalties” are the central engine whereby the agency has expanded its jurisdiction.

I’m not sure what they are talking about here to be honest.Â Expanded its jurisdiction how?Â How does HR 4900 enable this?Â The law actually does a pretty good job of spelling out what types of violation constitute serious ones.Â It’ll make fighting an unjust fine a lot easier in court than it currently is fighting a revocation in court.

By no means do I think that HR4900 will fix everything that’s wrong with the ATF, but it’s a reasonable step forward.Â If GOA can do better, they are welcome to try.

More Cases of Employer Nonsense

Florida’s bill was spawned by something Disney Corporation did.

I represent Doug and Linda Gray, a husband and wife who were both employed by the Walt Disney World Company. They worked similar shifts, and traveled to work together. The Grays had to begin their commute before sunrise, and had to travel through some less than safe areas. In fact, they had been accosted on their commute to work in the past. They contacted law enforcement about this and were advised that they should purchase a firearm for their own protection during their commute. Based on this advice, Mr. Gray purchased a revolver to protect he and his wife. When the Grays arrived at work, the revolver was locked in their vehicle.

The Grays were both hired by Disney on November 13, 1996. They met at Disney during the final entry interview process, and were later married. Just 17 days before their 10th anniversary of employment at Disney, they were both terminated. While Mrs. Gray was being asked about an absence from work, she responded that her husband was unable to attend, and she didn’t feel safe traveling into work without him. Upon further questioning, Mrs. Gray revealed that Mr. Gray had the firearm in their vehicle for their protection. Disney had the vehicle searched, and the firearm was found, locked in the vehicle where the Grays indicated it was. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gray were terminated. Additionally, Disney had the Orange County Sheriffs issue a trespass warning against Mr. and Mrs. Gray, so that neither could step foot on any Disney property again.

Well, I can tell you, if we win Heller, I hope the attorneys won’t be going to Disney World. But I think this is a good lesson in keeping your mouth shut about how your provide for your own personal security. It’s a bad idea to blab about your carry status; there’s just no reason to mention it. You’re not doing anything wrong or illegal, and it’s none of their damned business anyway.

Random Conversation About Fingerprinting

Friend: I know you are at work.. but you are good at tracking things down too. My mom now has to be fingerprinted for work as a crossing guard…. they claim its a Michigan state law that all people working with children must be… but i don’t think so. I don’t have to be, and my daycare was just relicensed in December. So.. i wondered if you had any ideas how i could go about looking this up and if she really does have to be fingerprinted.
Friend: Never mind.. i found it already. The Student Safety Initiative.
Me: Most police departments will do it for you
Me: Nowadays, they can use electronic fingerprinting too
Friend: The school is doing it for free for her
Friend: but, she is just really against it… let me see if i can quote her:

Friend’s Mom: Are you being asked to be fingerprinted for your work? The school says it’s the law this year and all employees that work with children – church, schools, day cares, have to be fingerprinted….
Friend’s Mom: I don’t like it – that’s for criminals and I don’t like the FBI keeping my fingerprints on file

Me: But it’s For the Children^TM
Me: Ze innocent have nazing to fear
Friend: bleh
Me: Tell your mom now she knows how gun owners feel ;)
Friend:

Friend’s Mom: Yeah – I still feel like a criminal and I don’t carry a gun
Friend’s Mom: My only weapon is an orange vest

Me: It’s hard for me to have sympathy :)
Me: I get routinely treated like a criminal every time I want to buy a gun or renew my license
Friend: She’s all mad that i said something comparing her to a gun owner
Friend: BTW, she’s very anti gun.
Me: Welcome to the police state. Vere are your papers!?!?!?
Friend: heh ;~)

Savor that one folks. What goes around, comes around. You can’t expect to empower the state to take away liberty from people you find undesirable, and then expect the state to respect your liberty when you end up in the cross hairs. When you find yourself in that situation, the people who’s liberties have already been trampled on may not be sympathetic enough to help you.

Parking Lot Bills

I think the ironic thing in this whole issue in Georgia is that I’m actually not in favor of the parking lot bill, and would prefer a bill like HB 915 to be passed in its place.Â But I find myself defending NRA’s position on the bill, which I don’t agree with, because I think the criticisms that it won’t get behind HB 915 are unfair.

Gun owners should take a hard look at the situation that got this whole “Parking Lot” thing going:

On October 1, 2002, the company sent detection dogs into the parking lot of their Valliant, Oklahoma paper mill plant looking for drugs in vehicles in response to an employee drug overdose. They found no drugs, but the dogs alerted on 12 cars with guns in them.^[8] Some of the employees were provided by sub-contractors, including Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) and Kenny Industrials.^[9] The company then asked the employees if they would open their vehicles for a hand search, two of them refused, of the remaining 10 vehicles rifles, shotguns, and handguns were found.^[8]^[9]

…

On November 14, 2002, the vehicles in the parking lot were searched for a second time. All employees were warned that if contraband, either drugs or firearms, were found a second time, they would be terminated. 12 employees were found with contraband and were immediately suspended.^[9]

Whether you agree with the Parking Lot bill or not, the gestapo tactics employed by Weyerhauser in this case are despicable, and I can tell you I would never do business or work for Weyerhauser because they treat their employees with this level of disrespect.Â It’s unprofessional on the part of Weyerhauser to violate their employees privacy by conducting random searches of employee property.Â I would have told them to get bent.

But as I’ve said, I think an employer has a right to make an ass of themselves in this manner.Â While government does rightly interfere with the Employment at Will doctrine to prevent discrimination against certain classes of people, in most cases, we don’t for behavior issues, and I don’t like the idea of opening the door up to that. Â I also think the problem has been overstated; are that many employers going as far as Weyerhauser has in terms of searching employee vehicles?Â Is it worth the energy and resources to solve this problem legislatively? Â These are the things I question.

But if you’re NRA, and you have members worried about situations like Weyerhauser, do you tell them too bad, because NRA is going to stand up for property rights and employer rights?Â They are an organization that represents gun owners.Â They are not the CATO Institute.Â They’re also not Reason Magazine, no matter how much I might agree with Reason’s take here.

I don’t agree with NRA on the parking lot bill, but I won’t blame a tiger for its stripes.Â A lot of gun owners see things differently on this matter, and the National Rifle Association represents them every bit as much as it represents me.

I’m The Responsible Party

Ahab notes an e-mail he received from the GeorgiaCarry.org folks:

I have been working closely with the NRA trying to get them to join the other groups that have already given their written endorsement to HB 915, including GCO, GSSA (the NRA affiliate in Georgia), SCCC, and GOA. I still hold out hope that the NRA will endorse HB 915 in the near future. If somebody at the NRA with whom I have been working is actively at the same time passing out misinformation, I would like to know about it.

I am probably the person that originated this with my post.Â I also hope that NRA will endorse HB 915, but I suspect that 915 will have to be modified to not pose a threat to HB 89.Â I’m still not convinced by the folks who say there’s no danger there; I think there is.Â I will try to get one of our attorney bloggers to weigh in on this matter.

I’m not in agreement that the parking lot carry bill should be a priority, but this parking lot carry bill is important to a lot of other gun owners.Â The NRA has staked its reputation on the car carry bill, and they aren’t going to abandon it at this point.Â As much as I think that sucks, because carry laws affect me more than a parking lot law would, I’m not the only gun owner out there.Â I think there needs to be a little understanding that sometimes the powers that be will push the interests of other gun owners over yours.

More on HB 915

Ed over at the comments on Jeff’s site responds to my comments on HB 915:

Go back and read the bill again. We have literally been working on this bill for years, and we last worked through this portion some time ago (before the NRA ever dreamed up a parking lots bill for Georgia). Removing that section would change the bill. Here is why. Section 4 of HB 915 is an express authorization for license holders to carry â€œin all areas of this State, except as specifically limited in this Code Section.â€ While this language was also stolen directly from the senate bill that the NRA pushed into law in Colorado, it was good language for Georgia because of the odd case law here pertaining to criminal trespass and government property. This authority to carry â€œin all areas of the Stateâ€ language will ensure that local government officials cannot simply use criminal trespass law to eject lawful firearm carriers or arrest them.

BUT IF SUBSECTION C IS REMOVED, then Section 4 would mean that a person with a firearms license would be authorized to carry in all areas of the state, including any and all private property. That means your private property, Sebastion. Do you think that is a good idea? Would such a bill be likely to pass? If not, then why do you suggest the language be removed?

In other words, the language to which you point is integral to HB 915 and has NOTHING to do with the NRAâ€™s parking lots bill. You need to be more careful in looking at the effects of your suggestions.

GCOâ€™s Secretary informed me that he went through the time stamped drafts of the bill, and that provision appears in every version, INCLUDING THE VERSIONS THAT PREDATE THE NRAâ€™S PARKING LOTS BILL. In light of this evidence, please QUIT claiming that anybody had any designs to â€œscuttleâ€ anything the NRA is doing. You are simply wrong, and I wish you would take affirmative steps to correct the misinformation you have been publishing and distributing.

Please correct your statements on your blog and here.

I do apologize if this was not deliberately intended, and have put this here in its entirety in the interest of fairness on that issue, and I will update the original post with a link here.

But I still don’t see how this section doesn’t interfere with the parking lot bill NRA is pushing.Â Â I am not, however, an expert on Georgia firearms law, but based on my reading of both bills, HB 915 could interfere with HB 89.Â Can some of our attorney types on the blogosphere weigh in with what they think?

Wrong Headed Thinking

I guess if I’m going to criticize Reason Magazine, I should probably link to them when they say thinks that make sense and I can agree with.Â This article by Chris Sprow talks about how the NFL has been strongly discouraging players from keeping or bearing arms.

No doubt we’ve had problems with NBA players doing this illegally, or engaging in illegal activity while armed, which the NFL would be right to discourage, but I agree that it’s wrongheaded to impose a blanket policy on players, especially when they are attractive targets of violent crime.

Reason Magazine

I used to be a subscriber to Reason back in the days when Virginia Postrel ran the show. Hit and Run was actually the first blog I started reading. But sometime in the early part of the decade I just stopped reading. Something had changed. I didn’t know if it was me that changed, the magazine, or a little bit of both.

Either way, I no longer subscribe, because while I still self-identify as a classical liberal, the style just seems to have changed under Nick Gillespie such that it no longer really appeals to me. Maybe it’s meant to appeal to a younger crowd, and I’m just getting old. Anyone else been a reader and think it’s gone downhill?

A New York Year

Tom King has the low down on what he thinks gun owners in The Empire State will be facing in 2008.Â Chief among them is the effort there to close the “musket loophole”, by classifying black powder muzzle loading firearms the same as modern firearms.

2008 is going to be rough sailing folks.Â We have to be ready.

San Francisco Loses Appeal on Gun Ban

The City of San Francisco has lost its appeal to get its gun ban reinstated.

In today’s 3-0 ruling, the appeals court cited its own 1982 decision overturning a San Francisco ordinance that prohibited handgun possession within city limits.

Sponsors of Prop. H had hoped to comply with that ruling by drafting a narrower measure that applied only to San Francisco residents. But the court said the 1982 decision properly interpreted state law as “depriving local entities of any power to regulate handgun possession on private property.”

The court declined San Francisco’s request to allow the city to enforce the ban on the manufacture or sale of rifles and shotguns, saying the city must first rewrite the ordinance to narrow its scope.

Noting the existence of state gun laws, Presiding Justice Ignazio Ruvolo said, “When it comes to regulating firearms, local governments are well advised to tread lightly.”

Take that hippies! It would seem preemption, at least, is alive and well in The Golden State.

UPDATE: NRA has their press release.

UPDATE: The decision can be found here.Â The original San Francisco Superior Court case can be found here.

— Welcome Instapundit Readers —

Thanks for stopping by.Â If you’re interested in second amendment issues, you’ve found the right place.Â 2008 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for us in the gun blogosphere, so I hope you’ll have a look around, and visit some of the fine gun blogs on the blogroll to your right.