Online polls re: FLA law

Funny how the media tries to control the thinking on these issues by the way they phrase their stories.

I have a Bible in my car, but have never thought of myself as "bringing a Bible to work." I have a tire iron in my trunk and I'm sure my fellow workers would be worried sick if they thought I was "bringing a tire iron to work." And what about the liquor bottle in Billy Bob's trunk - most employers in the country probably have rules against "bringing liquor to work" but what percentage of those say you will be fired if you have liquor locked in the trunk of your car in the company parking lot?

How would these newspapers describe a company rule that prohibited having a Koran locked in your car? (Say the owner's kid was killed by a Muslim so he decides to forbid HIS EMPLOYEES to possess the Koran on HIS PROPERTY.) The Orlando Sentinel and Miami Herald almost certainly would be screeching for that employer to be hung by his private parts and burned for TRAMPLING THE RIGHTS of his employees by trying to impose his PERSONAL VIEWS on their PRIVATE CONDUCT that WASN'T HURTING ANYBODY. There wouldn't be any talk of "balancing the interests" of the parties, or respecting "the private property rights" of employers.

I believe a large part of the problem in most of these "disputes" between employers and gun owning employees is the economics of the workplace, dictated largely by Workers Compensation laws. A financially rational employer should always choose to allow employees to be injured or killed (where his liability is fixed and capped by Workers Comp laws) than to allow them to defend themselves (and risk unlimited liability from being joined in a lawsuit when the employee wounds or kills an attacker.) Note that I said this was the financially rational decision, not the morally right one. But at least in the context of an incorporated business the legal obligation of the board of directors is to act in the financial (not moral) interest of the shareholders, so the board OUGHT to work against allowing their employees to be armed if it imposed ANY increased risk of liability on the company.

I have to wonder how much resistance there would still be from the "business community" if these parking-lot laws also included an exemption for the business from any liability for the employee's use of deadly force? Such a provision would show us which businesses hold anti-gun views for purely political, rather than economic, reasons. Of course, it would bring howls of protest from the plaintiffs' bar, and those guys contribute even more money to politicians than the chambers of commerce. But it might be worth a try. (Like the provision in the FL Castle Doctrine law a few years ago which imposed joint and several liability on plaintiffs AND THEIR LAWYERS for the defendant's costs and fees if they brought a civil suit against a shooter protected by the Castle Doctrine - that one didn't survive into the final bill, but it was a GREAT idea, and may have smoothed the way for getting the rest of the law through the legislative process.)

If the NRA is successful in passing this Commuter Defense Doctrine in all 50 states, this will go a long way towards general acceptance of firearms in the community as necessary to personal defense.

In SOME states (CA), there still needs to be work done to allow handguns in vehicles. Current restrictions prohibit carrying a handgun unless you are traveling to or from a shooting range. -- Oh! And shooting ranges are being systematically being driven out of business by punitive legislation.