Maybe it fears a President Obama. Maybe it feels enough time has elapsed since Robert Hawkins gunned down 13 Christmas shoppers at an Omaha mall. But the National Rifle Association is back on the legislative track.
It is reviving its campaign, derailed last year in Georgia by the Virginia Tech shootings, to prohibit businesses from forbidding employees from keeping licensed firearms in their cars while at work.
The Georgia "parking lot" bill is modeled after an Oklahoma law written after eight workers at a Weyerhaeuser plant in Valliant, OK were fired for guns in their vehicles in 2002. When ConocoPhillips which employs 3,000 in Oklahoma challenged the law--since struck down by federal courts but under appeal-- NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre vowed revenge.
"We're going to make ConocoPhillips the example of what happens when a corporation takes away your Second Amendment rights," he thundered in 2005 announcing a "boycott" that no one noticed including ConocoPhillips. Meanwhile the American Bar Association condemned the parking lot law in 2007. And Georgia legislators resisted NRA threats--a vote for adjournment would earn them an F they were told-- days after the Virginia Tech shootings last spring and didn't give the bill a Senate vote.
Of course most of the world goes to work, school and the store without the help of a firearm and enjoys the fact that others did the same.
But the NRA says property owners and municipalities who ban firearms violate its rights.
"You could have a constitutional right to have a firearm in your home and you could ride around with it in your car, but you couldn't stop anywhere. You could have every gas station, every hotel, every motel put off limits," says LaPierre. "So in effect, this [banned weapons on parking lots] is a wrecking ball for the Second Amendment. It's also a blueprint for totally eviscerating and nullifying right-to-carry legislation in 38 states in our country."
Last year a similar parking lot bill prohibiting even churches and hospitals from banning firearms was defeated by the Florida legislature.
"We're not against the Second Amendment, but guns are inappropriate in our workplaces and workplaces include parking lots," said Randy Miller of the Florida Retail Federation.
"Possession of firearms in the workplace or on company property is strictly prohibited," said Bruce Middlebrooks of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, a company which no doubt knows the costs of treating gun shot wounds.
Nor have the string of police shootings since then-- starting with Miami-Dade Police Officer Jose Somohano and three of his colleagues in September --helped the NRA cause in Florida.
So the NRA is assuring the Georgia business community that the parking lot law wouldn't mean they'd be liable for gun violence on their property--"unless the employer anticipated and failed to prevent an armed criminal act by a specific individual on the premises"--and even that their insurance costs would go down.
But Joe Fleming, senior vice president for government affairs at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce says the NRA's message to its members--"If you hunt or own a gun, you'll be fired!"--is fear mongering.
The NRA has already, "threatened all Georgia senators who fail to fall on bended knee with "F's" on the next NRA re-election scorecard," he writes in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "Those senators who don't succumb to the NRA's bully-tactics, name-calling, temper tantrums, insults and lies will be subjected to election-year retaliation."
There are even critics within the ranks.
Bob Thornton, an NRA member and former liquor store owner actually heckled LaPierre at the parking lot law kick off news conference in Atlanta in January. "I really object to the government getting involved to say what's allowed on my property," said the Arnoldsville, Ga., resident, wearing a "Wayne Never Asked Me" tee shirt.
No wonder Chris Cox, NRA's chief lobbyist waxes "membership drive" in a January Atlanta Journal Constitution piece, trying to add to the list of those oppressed by parking lot bans.
GOOD ARTICLE, WHEN ONLY CRIMINALS HAVE GUNS WE ARE SITTING DUCKS, AND WHEN ONLY OR GOVERNMENT HAVE GUNS AND BEING RUN BY THE BUSH CLINTON CRIME FAMILY WE ARE REALY DONE FOR.
by
RICHARD SHADE (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 460 comments)
on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 7:01:32 AM
I'll stick up for people's right to bear arms. It's their right. I'm personally opposed to owning a gun myself, but that's just my personal philosophy and I'd rather not impose that on anyone else. However, It seems silly and a slight bit irresponsible to me for someone to keep their gun locked up in a car where it could quite easily be stolen. A good friend of mine was recently visited by the FBI in regards to a handgun that was stolen from his apartment nearly a year prior and was later identified as to have been utilized in several violent crimes including two bank robberies he of course had nothing to do with. Of course, it took a while to get sorted out and my friend thoroughly enjoyed the vicious nature of his own interrogation by agents who couldn't figure out why a black man would report his gun stolen months ago and still have nothing to do with the crimes that were commited with it much later when it was discovered in a suspect's possession. I don't foresee anybody with a gun locked in their car actually running out to get it and promptly turning around to run back inside to defend everyone when an unforeseen incident necessitiates it... hell, if you made it to the car -you might as well safely drive away! But, maybe there are some NRA members that could actually get the chance to play hero and who'd actually manage to pull it off. Seems more likely they'd just get into a bind with the local cops on a traffic stop than they would successfully engage another gun wielder in a really cool shoot'em up until the cops arrived... I think it's likelier that someone would get so pissed off and snap at work and THEN take a trip to their car to grab a weapon instead of the chance they might come to their senses and cool off on the drive home for it...
The scariest thing about all this is: what gives a business the right to search a vehicle?
by
C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 732 comments)
on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 8:51:50 AM
JUST WONDING HOW WILL THEY GET ALL OF OUR GUNS, HOUSE BY HOUSE OR WILL YOU HAVE TO TURN THEM IN. I JUST HOPE THERE ARE ENOUGH PATRIOTS OUT THERE TO STAND STRONG, RIGHT NOW THIS SEAMS LIKE OUR LAST FREEDOM LEFT. I WANT TO FEEL SECURE IN MY HOME, AND PROTECT MY FAMILY, NOW WITH A RESESSION HANGING OVER OUR HEADS, PEOPLE WILL DO THING THAT THEY WOULD'NT NORMALY DO WHEN THING GET TOUGH.
by
RICHARD SHADE (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 460 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 12:57:27 AM
They actually did a practice run during Katrina. National Guard house to housing it... in the midst of the disaster when nobody was really prepared to resist! If you'll remember -Blackwater was there too. Excellent testing ground for that type of trial run.
by
C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 732 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 7:39:17 PM
GOOD POINT, HOW MANY BLACKWATER WILL THEY NEED FOR THE HOLD U.S., MY LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE THEIR FRIENDS GUNS IN THIS SMALL TOWN, AND I DON'T THINK BLACKWATER WOULD EVER COME HERE. THAT WORKED IN ONE SMALL AREA, BUT WE ARE TALKING 150 MILLION HOMES + OR - YOU WILL HAVE COME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER.
by
RICHARD SHADE (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 460 comments)
on Saturday, January 12, 2008 at 2:57:30 AM
6 comments
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