Kerbouchard

Bob, the difference is, you are under no obligation to park in the employers parking lot. The employer provides it as a convenience to the employee. There are many employers who simply do not have parking for employees.

As far as your analogy of an employer not being able to mandate what an employee does on his off time, it falls far short. Many employers do, indeed, regulate what their employees do off company time. Anything from firing somebody for unethical behavior, to enforcing a drug-free policy. Employers can and do, fire people for drug use during their off time, criminal behavior during their off time, and even smoking on their off time.

Pavestone is one employer who comes to mind that will not hire smokers, and as a term of employment, employees are required to be non-smokers. That doesn't just mean on company property. That's anywhere and everywhere. I turned down a chief engineer position from them for just that reason. If I want to smoke a cigar when I have a kid or any other time, I don't feel like they have the right to tell me what to do...so they made their choice. I made my choice and went with a different company.

Just as I would turn down a job with somebody who required me to be unarmed, but to think I, as an employee, have the right to tell them how to run their business, is ludicrous. I'll make suggestions where I find they are warranted, but other than that, if the disagreement is so severe that neither will compromise, I will find employment elsewhere.

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Bob The Great

Well if they don't provide parking for employees, then they have no basis at all to object to anything in their cars.

For a lot of businesses, people really have nowhere else to park except in the company lot. If they park in another business' parking lot, and it becomes obvious they are not patronizing that business, they'll be towed. Parking on the street is not always an option either - in many places it's either illegal or so hard to find a spot as to be impossible.

I might as well say an employee of this fictional company in my analogy could always go rent a lockbox at a nearby bank and leave his tracking device there. It's not a reasonable solution, and not a reasonable job-related problem for the employer to create.

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"A well-educated electorate, being necessary to the continuance of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."
Is this hard to understand? Then why does it get unintelligible to some people when 5 little words are changed?

Kerbouchard

I agree, and if people keep pushing stuff like this, that is exactly how it will end up. If I was a rabid anti-gun person, before I let somebody lawfully bring a firearm onto my property, I would just close the parking lot.

I think a lot of people should just be grateful their employer is providing them free parking. There are many, many employers who do not.

And I have another question, if the basis for this is to provide people a way to protect themselves(or come back from hunting trips) on the way to work, or on the way home, how about the millions of people who use public transportation.

The entire argument is contradictory. If you acknowledge the right of an employer to prevent his on-clock employees from being armed, then it seems that the 'take your gun to work' law, completely ignores those people who do not have a car, or choose to use public transportation.

It seems to me, for the argument to stand up, you would have to take the position that employers must allow firearms on property at all times, or must provide a secure area for employees to disarm.

Even if an employer is not a rabid-anti gun, it makes sense for an employer to not want firearms left in vehicles on his property. In most cases, the employer is responsible for damages to employee vehicles. Having a parking lot, that to public knowledge, has unattended guns in it, is not exactly the best risk-management strategy.

And I seriously doubt that even 10% of the vehicles with unattended guns have any sort of a safe, unless you count the glove compartment as a safe.

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Who is John Galt?

Bob The Great

If they choose to use public transportation, that is a choice they must make knowing that they may have nowhere to disarm when they reach their destination. That is squarely in the realm of personal choice with consequences.

The people who do not own a car, but do own a gun and a license to carry it is a good point, but that doesn't mean that allowing the people who do have cars to store their guns in them is bad.

It's not the employer's responsibility to provide for every possible way his employees may arrive armed, but he should not be able to prohibit them from being armed off-site.

__________________
"A well-educated electorate, being necessary to the continuance of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."
Is this hard to understand? Then why does it get unintelligible to some people when 5 little words are changed?

Kerbouchard

Look, I think we should be able to carry firearms anywhere and everywhere. If I want to drive down main street in an armored tank with live ammo, I think I should be able to. If I shoot something I shouldn't or run over something I shouldn't, then I should be held responsible, but I don't think they should be able to take away my ability to do it.

But that's on Main St. If you don't want me to park my tank in your driveway when I come to visit, I think that you should have the right to say no tanks allowed.

I'm all for gun rights, and even tank rights, but not when it weakens property rights. IMO, property rights have gotten about as weak as I can stomach them to begin with. My home, My Castle. What I say goes. If you don't like it, your more than welcome to not visit. I think it should be the same for employers who privately own their property. Their property, they are the ones paying the pay checks, they pay the property tax, they pay the insurance, and they provide you a job. I think they should be able to run their business the way they want.

While I might like to go on a fishing trip after work, I would not bring my boat with me to work without getting permission first. This bill was announced as something to prevent employees from getting fired over forgetting that their gun was in their car after a hunting trip.
He's not even arguing self defense...he's arguing that sometimes people forget they have guns...well, if I am coming back from the bay, I may forget that I have a 60 foot yacht hooked onto my truck, so I should be able to bring it to work, right?

(disclaimer:I don't have a 60 foot yacht or a tank..maybe someday)

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Who is John Galt?

HotGuns

The parking lot where I work is within the confines of a security zone that stretches over 1 mile from my actual workplace. I have to show a badge just to be admitted in so that I can park.

I am also subject to a random vehicle search as a condition of being allowed in. I do get searched several times a month. Even with those circumstances, I am allowed to carry my personal weapons with me in my vehicle as are all employees.

In fact, when I do get the random search, the engine compartment is checked as well as the toolbox in the back. When they look behind my seat and see my Mossberg riot shotgun with 6 rounds on a sidesaddle and they see my Sig underneath the seat, it always brings on some discussion, by those that haven't seen it before.

Several years ago, one of our plant managers put out a mandate that no weapons were allowed in the parking lot. That lasted about 3 days as we were able to convince him that it was not the right thing to do.

Now here is where it really chaps me to see company's preventing guns in the parking lot. First, let it be known that I have no problems with them forbidding guns in the workplace. It is their property, their rules.

When they disallow guns in the parking lot, they are assuming that I will be safe on my trip to and from work. Since most of us live in rural areas and cover lots of area to get to work, that is a bunch of time where we unwillingly put at risk because the ability to protect ourselves if need be has been taken away.

When I have a flat on the interstate, what good are the company rules?
When I walk into a Walmart on the way home from work, or stop at a PDQ that gets robbed once a month, what good will those company policies do me if some jerk wants to rob the place and kill the witnesses?

I have real problem with employers that either aren't smart enough to figure it out, or they simply don't care about the well being of their employees. They assume way to much.

I willingly give my employer 10 hours a day.
For him to dictate how or what I do with my life when I am off the clock is not only wrong, but irresponsible and downright unAmerican.

If it takes a law to make sure that it doesn't happen that way, then so be it. Those employers that lament and argue about how dangerous it is to have guns in the parking lot are little different than those that swore up and down that blood would be running in the streets when the concealed handgun laws started popping up all over the country.

Apparently alot of other people agree, because these laws are getting passed.

Dont want me to carry my gun to work? Fine.
But dont prevent me from doing so anywhere else.

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Bob The Great

Oh, I wasn't questioning your "devotion to the cause" or anything like that.

In general, I agree that property rights (business and personal) have gotten weaker, and I don't like it either. But, like it or not, businesses do give up some property rights when they employ other people. You can't fire someone for being hispanic or refuse to pay someone whose name you draw out of hat every week, etc. In a pure property rights employment system, the employer is god, but that's not how things operate.

I think we may just have to disagree on this particular law. I don't have a problem with it; in fact, I think it's a good balance between the employer's and employee's property rights.

My girlfriend came up with another good analogy that I like. Suppose an employer banned seat belts on his property. Not just the wearing of seat belts, but having them installed or present at all, on the grounds that they aren't needed since parking lot speeds are slow and not life-threatening. That's within his ability to do, except that it forces his employees to drive home with no seat belts, which is certainly dangerous at highway speeds. That's outside of his authority, and should not be allowed.

__________________
"A well-educated electorate, being necessary to the continuance of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."
Is this hard to understand? Then why does it get unintelligible to some people when 5 little words are changed?

Bob The Great

HotGuns - I envy you, sir. I too work on a secure facility, but mine is Federal, and the guards would most certainly flip out if they found a riot gun and a pistol in someone's car.

If you don't mind me asking, if it's not weapons, what are they looking for that they would search the engine bay (under-carriage too, I assume, if they go to that much trouble)? Drugs? Company property? Black-market body parts?

__________________
"A well-educated electorate, being necessary to the continuance of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."
Is this hard to understand? Then why does it get unintelligible to some people when 5 little words are changed?

HotGuns

Undercarriage too.
They are looking for explosive devices. Something that could knock the plant offline.

__________________
AR. CHL Instr.

To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas.'
Dr. G. Brock Chisolm

tbeubs17

Wife works at a company that has a secured parking lot and denied the right to keep guns in their vehicles. One lady left at 1am after her shift, got within 2 blocks of her house, the thugs walked up to her at a red light killed her and dumped her in the street.

After that the company changed their policy but didn't bother to announce it. The employees found that out after this passed.

It pretty much sucks to have to have examples like this but I think the site managers felt guilty about this happening and that is why the policy changed.