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Jacob Sullum takes aim at activists so fond of the Second Amendment that they never got around to reading the rest of the Constitution.
|8.5.05 @ 10:30AM|#
So, if I boycott a company because I don't like their policy on
what employees can keep in their cars, we'd all agree that's fine.
They have their right to set their own rules, but I have the right
to spend money elsewhere and criticize them, and what happens
happens.
If I boycott the same company because they opposed a law against
their policy (hope I got all my double negatives straight there)
that's bad. By opposing that law they are defending property
rights. And if I oppose their defense of property rights then I'm
not a real libertarian.
Now that we've got the theoretical issues worked out, let me ask a
practical question: If it's the same company in both cases, do I
boycott them or not?
I guess it comes down to what kind of letter I send them while
refusing to buy. If I send a letter saying that I'm boycotting for
the first reason, well, no problem there. If I send a letter saying
that I'm boycotting for the second reason, well, that's a
problem.
My head hurts. Coupled non-linear partial differential equations
are easier. Back to that now.
|8.5.05 @ 10:38AM|#
And truth be told, Julian's comment about activists so fond
of the Second Amendment that they never got around to reading the
rest of the Constitution. is not far off.
While I am a card-carrying member of the NRA, and I'll freely admit
that the 2nd Amendment is my pet issue, I have to say that I find
many gun-owners' tunnel vision to be dismaying.
|8.5.05 @ 10:52AM|#
Every organization gets off track. As an anarchist, it doesn't surprise or bother me.
|8.5.05 @ 10:55AM|#
mediageek:
I think you've made the best point in this discussion in another
thread..
If a company is going to strip an individual of the right to
protect himself, then there should be an extra burden on them to
compensate for that vacuum. If some lunatic has a turkey-shoot at
unarmed employees out in the parking lot, and security doesn't
immediately take him down, that should be the grounds of a massive
lawsuit.
|8.5.05 @ 11:02AM|#
This reminds me; I think it is time to renew my NRA membership.
And now I will also boycott that oil company, godamn
communists.
By the way, it was an NRA leaflet, or something like it from the
NRA, that I saw a suggestion to form an alliance with the legalize
drugs crowd. "You can have your drugs if I can have my guns" or
something like it. This surprised me from such a conservative
group.
I'm sorry that I have nothing really of substance to say, I am just
knee-jerk coming to the side of the NRA, because I love guns. And I
hate the mentality that went into the firing of those people for no
good reason. So I am going to be with the NRA on this one.
|8.5.05 @ 11:04AM|#
"My head hurts. Coupled non-linear partial differential
equations are easier."
No. No, they aren't.
|8.5.05 @ 11:14AM|#
Jason, I'm having an easy time writing down the non-linear model that I'm going to feed into FEMLAB. Meanwhile, I'm having a bitch of a time formulating a linear model that I'm trying to tackle analytically.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 11:32AM|#
Personally, I would see both property rights and the right to
effective means of self-defense as falling into the "inalienable"
category, i.e. you cannot give these rights up, no matter what you
sign your name to. Which is why I find this situation so
interesting -- to me, rights are colliding, so how do we maximize
liberty given these colliding rights?
Perhaps I'm insufficiently pure libertarian (I didn't feel impure
before this came up, but this appears to be counter-evidence of my
purity), but I think that in a conflict between a corporation's
rights and a person's rights, the person's would overrule. Clearly,
many posters here disagree (as seen on a previous thread).
On a previous thread, the prevailing wisdom seemed to be "Get a new
job." If this were a situation with a friend, and he forbade
packing in his house, I'd have a talk with him about why he thought
I was going to flip out and shoot his kids (or whatever the issue
was). If he had a good reason, then I'd lock it in my car. If not,
I'd suggest that we should spend our time together elsewhere, or
not at all.
But with a corporation, I can't have that kind of discussion. In
employment, the corporation and I are not equals. Furthermore, in
at least one case I know of, the employee handbook was supplied
after the contract was signed, and the no-gun policy was issued
years after that.
Furthermore, the stated purpose of these policies is bunk. 30
people get shot to death on the job per year in the US, out of 133M
workers. The workplace is so incredibly safe when it comes to
shootings (I was amazed at the smallness of the numbers I got from
a gun-banner website), that gun bans, even if they were 100%
effective, would still be nearly useless.
I assume lawsuit protection is the idea behind these policies, and
not just gun-hate. A policy that "You may not commit any act of
violence against anyone on company time or property" would take
care of lawsuits from shootings, stabbings, and beatings.
For the record, my company has one of these policies. I called
corporate legal about it a few years back to see what the reasoning
was. Their position is that they feel like they "have to do
something." The response to my suggestion that doing something
that's completely ineffective (and possibly counterproductive by
disarming good guys) is not really useful, as expected, fell on
deaf ears. (I'm tempted to call back and discuss the numbers and
the fact that the policy is (for now) illegal in at least one
state. Hee!)
This is such a fun topic for me. I like it when things get messy
and make me think about what the Right Thing is.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 11:38AM|#
(Sorry, that post didn't seem quite so long in preview. Like I
said, this topic gets me all jazzed.)
Threadjack: Thoreau, do you do any calibration of your models
against measured data? If so, do y'all use autocalibration methods
(or want to)? If you do, I'd love to discuss some freeware that I
use in my work-life (PEST, Parameter ESTimation) that was
essentially a religious experience for me. (I do groundwater
modeling, but PEST is model-independent.)
|8.5.05 @ 11:38AM|#
kwais-
Hah! But seriously, FEMLAB is "Finite Element Modeling (Method?)
LAB", a software package for doing calculations.
I agree with M.J. Baisal's assessment: A ban on guns in cars might
not make anybody safer, but it is probably necessary if something
DOES happen and there's a lawsuit.
Lawyer: "Mr. CEO, did your company have a policy banning guns on
the premises?"
CEO: "Um, no."
Lawyer: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this man just let
anybody do whatever they wanted with guns on company property, and
one day somebody did just that and my client's wife was
killed!"
And yeah, that's a dramatization, and yeah, it's full of
non-sequiturs, but I think it still contains a significant kernel
of truth (sadly). So I can see why companies have these
policies.
Whatever one might think of the policies and the philosophical
issues involved, I'm pretty sure the little skit above is the
reason why these policies exist. Change the tort system and maybe
some of these companies will change their policies.
|8.5.05 @ 11:39AM|#
I don't see this as a Second Amendment issue at all, because the
Second Amendment does not restrict the actions of private
parties.
That said, I think that it is perfectly appropriate for an
organization that represents gun owners to pursue the interests of
those gun owners.
As libertarians, I think we can all agree that a boycott of a
company is a perfectly legitimate tactic. If the NRA wants to
boycott companies that are hostile to gun owners, go to it, I
say.
If the NRA wants to sponsor legislation that prohibits those
companies from being hostile to its members, well, that is
perfectly consistent with its charter of pursuing the interests of
gun owners.
It may or may not be a good law - personally, it doesn't quite
overcome my presumption against laws controlling peaceful behavior,
but I think there is a legitimate argument to be had on the
subject.
But the NRA? They're just doing their job.
|8.5.05 @ 11:42AM|#
M. J. Baisal-
I am modeling the migration of cells (endothelial cells, elements
of the capillaries) through the extracellular matrix (basically,
the proteins that make up a lot of your body tissue) in response to
chemicals released by tumor cells. Tumors send out a signal and
blood vessels start to grow. It's hard to get good data to compare
with, because our idealized model may (ironically enough) be closer
to what happens in the body than any experiments we do in a petri
dish. And it's hard to watch these processes in the body, although
it has been done in, say, mouse corneas.
The short answer is no, not right now. Our comparisons are mostly
qualitative, not quantitative.
|8.5.05 @ 11:46AM|#
kwais:
The most recent issue of the one of the NRA magazines
(America's First Freedom, thus showing the tunnel vision
of the group) had a short article on what Raich v.
Gonzalez "means" for gun owners.
In short, if They can criminalize simple possession of drugs, why
can't guns be next?
(full disclosure, I'm an NRA life member)
|8.5.05 @ 11:47AM|#
Mr. Nice Guy made an argument I have seen several times
regarding this issue.
"If some lunatic has a turkey-shoot at unarmed employees out in the
parking lot, and security doesn't immediately take him down, that
should be the grounds of a massive lawsuit."
These arguments miss the fundamental point. A lawsuit does not do
an individual any good if he is dead and buried because company
policy made it impossible for them to defend their life.
|8.5.05 @ 11:53AM|#
I've heard of a number of workplace shootings.
Can anybody please find me a story about a workplace shooting that
was foiled, or ended, by another employee getting his gun and
shooting the shooter?
Just one? Anybody?
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 11:56AM|#
OK, the 2nd Am. protects you from the government. But isn't
there a well-established argument that the Constitution
*enumerates* rights that exist outside of government, and does not
*grant* them. As I recall, the reason there is a Bill Of Rights is
that one faction said "If you write them down, you'll end up with
ONLY what you wrote down, and lose all others", and the "No, we
need to write it down" faction eventually won?
So, wouldn't the right to self-defense (which the 2nd Am. is trying
to get to, but doesn't fully encompass) exist even if there were no
government? However, the right to control your property would also
exist without government.
But where I get tangled up is when it comes to corporations. They
aren't people, they're property. Property doesn't have rights, but
the owners do. But the policy is not set by the owners, it's set by
the corporation, the shareholders' property. It seems to me that
the "Get a new job" folks are arguing that either property has
rights that are equal to a person's, or that the owners' rights are
transmitted to the corporation undiluted.
Which doesn't seem correct -- a corporation can't vote or hold
office, so it's definitely less than a person in some respects. I
would think this issue (restricting the right of people to
self-defense) is another one, but maybe that's just because I want
to do what I want to do.
|8.5.05 @ 11:57AM|#
Speaking of hurting heads and thread-jacking, I was just reading
this by my favorite columist on Aurutz Sheva, Ellen Horowitz:
I fall into the sub-category of concerned mothers against
Disengagement. My position is complex, but hardly unique. I've got
a son serving in an elite unit of the paratroopers. A couple of
weeks ago, he assured me that he wouldn't be participating in the
uprooting of Jews from their homes on D-Day, as his unit has been
assigned to stopping the mortars and rockets emanating from the
terrorist's territory in Gaza.
After trying to digest the fact that my son would be assigned to
preventing rocket attacks, which, on one hand, would save Jewish
lives, but on the other hand, would facilitate a smoother
implementation of Sharon's plans, I decided to ask my rabbi's
advice.
Now, my rabbi is a hardcore proponent of the "Jews Do Not Expel
Jews" position. I was sure that my dilemma was going to cross his
eyes. But, without missing a beat, he looked directly at me and
said, "In this case, your son will be saving Jewish lives, so he
can't refuse."
|8.5.05 @ 11:59AM|#
The NRA is the only activist group that has been successful in
defending and expanding constitutional protections.
People are complaining about the NRA use of state power to defend
the second amendment. This ignores the fact that most of the
assaults on the second amendment are state supported. Many of the
lawsuits against the gun manufacturer have been organized, filed
and supported by government officials (Mayors and
Prosecutors)
Applying state power to defend the constitution against others
using state power to attack the constitution seems very sensible to
me.
|8.5.05 @ 12:12PM|#
Joe,
Excerpt below was from an editorial found doing a google search on
"school shootings stopped by armed bystanders" Did not do much
digging but I believe the gist of the article is correct
"We all remember the horror of the rash of school shootings that
happened several years ago. Places like Columbine, Edinboro,
Pennsylvania, Pearl, Mississippi and the University of Virginia
became household names and gun control buzz words. Each incident
garnered media attention and brought cries for stricter laws. The
only problem with the reporting is that some very important facts
were left out.
Of these four incidents, three were stopped by armed
bystanders.
The Edinboro incident was stopped by a person with a shotgun. The
Pearl, Mississippi incident was stopped when the assistant
principal retrieved his gun from his truck and stopped the killer.
As for the Virginia incident, that was concluded when two students
brandished their own guns and forced the killer to drop his."
|8.5.05 @ 12:13PM|#
joe:
I've heard of a number of workplace shootings.
Can anybody please find me a story about a workplace shooting
that was foiled, or ended, by another employee getting his gun and
shooting the shooter?
Just one? Anybody?
Can you show me just one case of a
workplace shooting that was foiled, or prevented by a "no guns"
policy?
Perhaps the reason that so many happen is that the "good" employees
are following the rules, but the murderous nutjobs aren't?
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 12:17PM|#
joe,
www.keepandbeararms.com has daily stories about defensive uses of
guns. Unfortunately, their Operation Self-Defense
(www.keepandbeararms.com/opsd/default.asp)archives are not
operational, and I don't think ever have been, so home defense is
mixed in with workplace defense, and it's not searchable at
all.
The case of Joel Myrick
(http://www.davekopel.com/2A/OpEds/HeroesOutlawed.htm) is a
well-known situation when a worker stopped a shooting, though it
was a student shooter, not a fellow employee. I'd argue that given
the tiny number of workplace shootings, it would be tough to find
many cases where the shooting happened to take place in the
vicinity of a good guy with a gun.
Based on my poking around the numbers on this, guns are used far
less in workplace homicides (30 out of 900) than in other homicides
(about 10K of 20K in non-workplace killings). So a good guy with a
gun has a better chance to outdo a bad guy in the workplace, I'd
argue.
In any case, a prevented killing is a killing that (duh) didn't
happen. So there's no way to convincingly argue that a good guy
with a gun ever stopped a killing (how do you KNOW the killer would
have killed anyone else if not stopped?). It's attempting to prove
something that did not happen. Which is a permanent frustration for
folks who argue in favor of self-defense.
|8.5.05 @ 12:17PM|#
M.J. Basial,
What do you think of trucking companies that put this sign on the
back of their trailers:
"Don't like my driving? Call
1-800-EAT-SHIT"... or words to that effect?
|8.5.05 @ 12:20PM|#
Can anybody please find me a story about a workplace
shooting that was foiled, or ended, by another employee getting his
gun and shooting the shooter?
Joe,
Well here is one. Most interesting part was the lack of accurate
reporting.
http://www.lpva.com/Archives/Editorial/Ferguson/20020128.shtml
http://johnrlott.tripod.com/apla2.html
As most major employers prohibit carrying ANY weapons, how likely
is it that the employees would HAVE firearms to defend themselves
with in the first place.
A more insightful question would have been "Has anyone heard of a
case where a workplace shooting happened despite the fact that the
employees were allowed to carry guns?"
|8.5.05 @ 12:20PM|#
I agree with Thoreau, which kind of scares me. The answer is to fix the tort system. I get tired of people parading out the "sure these lawsuits are bad, but we must balance that with states rights and federalism." I am great beleiver in state's rights, that said, when states begin to completely abuse the legal system and the common law and use this abuse to affect policy in other states, that is where the federal government needs to step in. These lawsuits are about two things, lining the pockets of state and local authorities and effectively banning the sale of guns in this country by putting the producers and sellers out of business. If New York wants to ban guns, good for them, that is federalism in action. If New York wants to ban guns by currupting the common law and putting gun makers out of business so that guns are effectively banned in my state, that is not federalism and the federal government has an obligation to put a stop to it.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 12:29PM|#
Ruthless,
I must be running slow today -- not sure what the point of the
trucking thing is.
But I won't let that stop me . . .
I would be surprised if an actual corporation put a fake number on
the truck. I think the "800-BITE-ME" kind of stickers are only on
private vehicles (never seen one on a company truck, but doesn't
mean it doesn't happen). I think it flags the vehicle owner as
being of fairly poor manners.
If it were on a company truck as a matter of policy, I don't think
I'd want to do business with them. If there were a problem with
their goods or services, I don't think there'd be any satisfactory
appeal process. How am I going to out-annoy a guy who puts
pre-emptive profanity right next to his logo? Easier to find
someone sensible and polite to deal with.
|8.5.05 @ 12:36PM|#
TJIT,
joe asked for one incident, not four. Obviously you have trouble
listenting.
|8.5.05 @ 12:38PM|#
"Can anybody please find me a story about a workplace
shooting that was foiled, or ended, by another employee getting his
gun and shooting the shooter?"
Joe
I have seen many security camera videos's on t.v. that show workers
at gas stations and convenience stores etc shooting it out with the
bad guys. I have seen the bad guys lose more than once.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 12:40PM|#
Thoreau,
It's hard to get good data to compare with, because our
idealized model may (ironically enough) be closer to what happens
in the body than any experiments we do in a petri dish.
I absolutely LOVE that! As a modeler of poorly-known systems, I can
appreciate that like crazy.
|8.5.05 @ 12:41PM|#
Joe--
I used to be 100% pro-gun-control; what made me change my mind (or
at least what started me down that road) was the legal responses to
Columbine.
So I am curious to know what you think of the law that declares
schools to be "gun-free zones." Are these good laws that will help
protect schoolkids from gun violence, or are these stupid laws that
basically tell gun-toting psychopaths: "If you want to kill a
shitload of people whom you know won't be able to fight back, this
is the place to do it!"
(As to the main topic of this thread, I do NOT think that any
company should have the right to take away its employee's right to
self-defense.)
|8.5.05 @ 12:45PM|#
joe-
First, the policy in question involves a ban on even keeping a gun
secured in a car. Now, personally, I doubt that a gun secured in a
car will do much to stop office shootings.
But I also don't see any harm in having a gun responsibly stored in
a parked car either. So why hassle somebody who packed his car
Friday morning so first thing after work on Friday he can drive to
his hunting lodge for the weekend? Why hassle somebody who was
hoping to go to the range after work and shoot with his buddies?
Yes, yes, I know, the property owner has the right do hassle the
employees, but if I don't think it's a cool thing to do I have the
right to not buy from the company.
So, we have a policy where a boss is hassling workers without
actually making them any safer. I thought you'd be all over
that.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 12:46PM|#
Bobster,
I think the classic counter-argument to that is "How do you know
the bad guy would have shot if the clerk had just given him the
money? The violence could have been avoided if the clerk hadn't
been a gun-toting crazy who escalated the situation."
I'd argue that a citizen has a moral duty to NOT simply pass the
thug along to the next victim, but I'm like Spider-Man that
way.
|8.5.05 @ 12:50PM|#
Wow, joe siding with an idiotic policy by management that
doesn't make anybody safer but causes hassle for employees!
And in another thread on this topic, an oil company employee
remarked that the company policy means he can't even have guns or
alcohol in his car when he stops at the gas station on the weekend.
If he's heading to a vacation spot with his hunting rifles and a
cooler of beer, he can't buy gasoline from his own company. joe,
are you really going to praise management here?
And obviously they should have the legal right to do that as
property owners, yadda yadda, but in a free society you have the
right to boycott a company whose policies you find idiotic.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 12:50PM|#
joe/Thoreau,
For what it's worth, in the Joel Myrick case, he sprinted to his
car and back to get the gun he wasn't allowed to have on school
property. If he'd had it on his person, there might (unprovable) be
fewer dead people in the world.
The Wine Commonsewer|8.5.05 @ 12:51PM|#
While I fully buy the property rights argument and disagree with
the NRA's boycott--tangent here, Jesus Chrysler, if you boycotted
every company with bad policy you'd never get to do anything. You
couldn't shop at Target, Costco, or Sam's Club. And you'd have to
skip the movies too. Don't get me wrong though, I have my own lines
in sand and my hypocrisy is not unbounded, I would never bank at
Wells Fargo.
Unfortunately the mish mash of hog snot that we call the "legal
system" is full of inequities and stupidities. Employers are both
compelled to behave in certain ways and prohibited from acting in
other ways by law.
In the pragmatic corporate sense of the law, the Ok work parking
lot gun law is far less onerous than, say, laws that force
employers to allow union organizers on their property without
company permission. Yet everybody is perfectly content with legally
enforced trespass. Well, maybe not anti-union Republicans and a few
libertarians that is.
And I suppose, in that context, the NRA is content to take what
they can get.
The Wine Commonsewer|8.5.05 @ 12:55PM|#
Thow-row, I think NRA would do better if they made a big stink using the exact points that you brought up. They could still boycott but then they would have the moral ground too.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 12:58PM|#
TWC,
I suspect the NRA's strategy is to make an example out of someone,
to get other companies to change their policies, too (as in, You
could be next, so shape up). As opposed to boycotting every company
with anti-gun policies, which would make life's normal commerce
impossible.
|8.5.05 @ 1:05PM|#
Joe,
Everybody has done answered your inquiry already, but I feel I must
add (like the kid in class that knows the answer).
Did you ever hear about that one jeweler that the local street
gangs had tried to rob? He defended his life and property something
close to 30 times. Thats ONE man.
The NRA magazine that I used to read had every week copies of
newspaper stories that were about citizens protecting themselves
with firearms.
There was also reported the statistic that I can't remember, about
how many more times citizens use guns legally every day, that
police officers do.
If your question was not answered before, I hope that it is
now.
|8.5.05 @ 1:15PM|#
This is OTS, but your comments remind me of a movie I watched
last night "I Heart Huckabees", and how it's impossible for one to
be perfectly moral in their consumption. That movie totally blew my
mind.
And Naomi Watts.. I love that woman. She must be mine.. yes, she
must.. I wonder if it's an Australian thing. Both she and Nicole
Kidman can easily smoke girls 10+ years younger then them.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 1:16PM|#
Just had a thought: Conoco might actually be anti-gun, rather
than just trying to avoid lawsuits.
If state law is that you have to allow guns on company property,
you certainly can't be successfully sued on the basis of having a
policy that the state prevents you from enforcing.
Until further evidence arrives, I retract giving Conoco the benefit
of the doubt.
|8.5.05 @ 1:17PM|#
you certainly can't be successfully sued on the basis of
having a policy that the state prevents you from
enforcing
Or so you hope.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 1:18PM|#
Mr. Nice Guy,
I believe Nicole was born in the US. We just lent her to the
Aussies. Weep, ye nation!
|8.5.05 @ 1:28PM|#
thoreau:
Dating myself here. The last time I plugged in for pde solutions, I
used Mathematica ...
|8.5.05 @ 1:37PM|#
M.J. Basial,
Thanks for taking a swing at my query, but I was just kidding about
the EAT-SHIT part.
Let me put it this way: Say the trucking company puts a big,
shining cross on my trailer, and I'm an atheist.
|8.5.05 @ 2:05PM|#
Speaking of boycotting stuff;
I was boycotting Fox News for a while because they refused to get
rid of Geralo Rivera after his lines in the sand episode.
I generally try to boycott the most America hating communist actors
like Sean Penn. But the girl wanted to watch "The Interpretor" or
whatever it is called, so I we watched it.
I boycott McDonalds for donating money to HCI.
I boycott Colt for being retards.
Boycotting is a hobby in itself.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 2:34PM|#
Ruthless,
That's OK, I think, because it's company property, not yours.
Now I think I know where this is going ('scuse the strawman if
that's what I'm creating). The company parking lot is company
property, too, so the company should be able to ban guns from their
property. Right?
To which I say, well, my car is a bubble of MY property that is
geographically enclosed by the company's property (like Vatican
City inside Italy, which YES! makes my car the PopeMobile). The
company should have no authority or liability for my car or its
contents (Should DEA be able to confiscate Conoco if I have a brick
of heroin in my trunk? I'd hope not.). Likewise for my person and
clothing and whatever I've got in an ankle holster. Just because
I'm within the property line does not mean that I surrender all my
rights.
Now, if you want to wear an "Atheist" trucker cap while driving the
CrossMobile, sure, I've got no problem with that.
Suppose you were on company property, and the company told you,
well, you're our slave now. You can't ever leave, we changed your
contract. Obviously, that's not OK, so you DO retain some rights,
even on company property (the right to leave, for example). I'm
saying that effective self-defense is another one of that sort: so
fundamental, that it trumps certain other rights (but not all; I
can't use a 20-ft-diameter perpetual poison gas cloud as my means
of self-defense).
|8.5.05 @ 2:50PM|#
M.J.,
You must have consulted a rabbi to get that answer, but it seems
reasonable.
|8.5.05 @ 2:52PM|#
Hey, you found some! That's great.
thoreau, kindly point to where I defended the policy.
kwais, a shopkeeper keeping a weapon in his business to protect
himself, particularly in a high-crime area, makes a lot more sense
to me than someone bringing a gun into an office building or
warehouse just in case.
Mr. Baisal, your car is not a bubble of real property. When you
drive onto someone else's property, you are on their property,
whether public or private, not your own.
|8.5.05 @ 2:56PM|#
I'm surprised nobody has pointed out that the Protection of
Lawful Commerce in Arms Act is perfectly justifiable as regulation
of interstate trade. And a lot more so than must of the crud that
goes under that cover. Preventing one state from disrupting legal
trade in one or all of the other 49 is the point of the regulation
of interstate trade power, and just what Congress has done
here.
It may have been argued as federal tort reform, but it sure seems
to be in Congress's power to execute interstate tort reform in
response to interstate tort lawsuits. Like a Delaware company doing
business with a customer in California who sues in Texas to get a
friendlier jury. Sounds to me like the plaintiff's bar is engaging
in interstate forum shopping, then complaining when Congress steps
in to regulate this trade. They have the delegated power to do
this.
On Conoco? So the NRA has picked Conoco to hold up because they
enforce there policy so strongly. Makes more sense to me to do that
than to pick another company that isn't so fixated. I don't see it
as boycotting Conoco because Conoco is sueing to protect their
rights. I see it as fighting Conoco over their policy, and picking
them because they are already fighting about it.
And imagine, the NRA is a single issue advocacy group, and some
people are amazed that they have only one issue.
|8.5.05 @ 2:59PM|#
M. J. Basial-
I know everybody else will disagree with me, but I think you raise
a good point: The land is private property, the car is private
property, and when the owners of those 2 pieces of property bring
their property together for a mutually beneficial purpose, why does
every presumption go in favor of the landowner? Why can the
landowner say "Well, we've decided to add a new rule"?
Yes, yes, I know, freedom of association. And maybe that should
trump everything in the end. But I'm not convinced of it yet. I
can't help but wonder whether the private nature of the car should
also entitle that owner to a certain amount of discretion and
privacy.
To put it in perspective, if you're driving your car around the
mall parking lot, looking for a spot, and a passenger starts doing
something you don't like, you have the right to say "Get out of my
car." The passenger can't say "This is mall property, and the only
authority here is the mall owner."
And while the mall owner can, say, do what he wants with his own
car on mall property, if he started going through your car you'd
call the police. Unless you gave him permission to go through your
car it would be understood that he was trespassing, and all the
"it's my land!" excuses in the world wouldn't change that.
We can all agree that if the car owner agrees to something that
limits his use of his car, well, too bad for him. But if a
limitation on his use of his vehicle isn't explicitly listed in the
contract, why does the presumption go in favor of the land owner
rather than the car owner? Both are private property owners.
To put it in perspective, as M.J. Basial said, if you have
something illegal in your car, would anybody here seriously argue
that the land owner should automatically be held responsible? If
the land owner doesn't bear full responsibility for your vehicle,
why does he have complete power over it?
Maybe free association does trump everything here. I need to think
about it. But I want to at least consider the possibility that the
car owner also has some property rights here. If wanting to think
about things before drawing the ideologically correct conclusion
means that I lose my decoder ring, well, too bad.
|8.5.05 @ 3:03PM|#
kwais:
I'm going OTS again, but you raise an interesting topic of
boycotting.
I want to continue eating meat, but am very disturbed by factory
farms and dispatch. I recently visited a chicken processing plant,
and though I was quite impressed how clean it was, I was bothered
by how the animals were handled during the last hours of their
lives. Plus I think using animal products for livestock feed is
disgusting. The way I look at it, if an animal lives a stressful
life, is fed shit, and dies with very little regard to its comfort,
then one might as well eat a turd.
But I'm a bit flummoxed at the hippy Fresh Fields mart.
"Free-range" is pretty much a no-brainer, but does "Organic"
necessarily mean a more humane upbringing and dispatch? I'm also
curious about the ethics of "kosher" food.
|8.5.05 @ 3:08PM|#
If I entered a restaurant wearing a t-shirt saying "Bush Is A
Lying Chimp," would the conservative Republican owner have the
right to throw me out? Doesn't that violate my First Amendment
rights, even though it's a private establishment?
And if it doesn't, why couldn't that same owner prohibit his
employees from bringing guns to work? What's the difference?
|8.5.05 @ 3:26PM|#
In the end I guess I do grudgingly come down on the side of free
association in this one, even though I still have sympathy for the
fact that the car is also private property. Here's why:
1) The principled reason: The property owner never had to even let
you onto his land in the first place. If he doesn't have to admit
you at all, then why can't he make admittance conditional?
2) The pragmatic one: Anything that makes it harder to eject
somebody from property makes the property owner less likely to
admit you in the first place. Which has all sort of negative
economic consequences.
Now, it's not that a law protecting gun owners would be the straw
that breaks the camel's back, but it all adds up. We can point to
any individual law and say "Oh, this one isn't so bad." And maybe
it isn't (in a pragmatic sense, although in a principled sense it
obviously is, yadda yadda). But multiply that by a few thousand
pages and pretty soon you've got an onerous legal code.
So I reluctantly do come down on the side of companies that won't
even let you have your gun secured in your parked car. You can say
that my moment of doubt means that I have to hand over my decoder
ring, but I prefer to think that the unexamined ideology isn't
worth espousing.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 4:07PM|#
joe,
I hope you're not saying that they own my car while it's on their
property. No, my car's not a bubble of real property, but it's a
bubble of my property. And in my property, what I say, goes. Or can
I pack heat while in a company truck when it's off-site? Because
that's not real property, either.
(Aside: If I remember right, old common law held that a barn could
be used by travelers to spend the night. Not so many barns these
days, so I think it doesn't come up much. So "traditional"
protections for real property may not be as absolute as everyone
seems to be thinking. Or my memory's bad.)
OK, here's a counterargument to the "don't come on the property/get
a new job" folks: If the corporation doesn't like the fact that
customers and employees retain rights even on company property,
then they should lock the gates. There are lots of businesses that
require no employees, go into one of those.
Corporations don't have the same rights as people. A corporation
can be sold. A person cannot. I can sell them my time, but not my
life. I also think I can't sell them my right to self-defense
(among others).
Thoreau, come back to the wavering! The property owner can't make
the admittance dependent on you abdicating your fundamental rights.
How about a vampire analogy? No permission, no entry. Once
permission is given, a vampire can take certain liberties. And
people are just like vampires. Once you say I can come in, my
bubble of rights travels with me. A difference would be that a
property owner could revoke permission to enter.
Suppose a mall owner posted a sign saying, "All persons entering
these premises are subject to enslavement." If you walk onto the
property, yes, you'd be kind of dumb, but I'd say that when they
try to slap the manacles on you, you're within your rights to fight
back, signs and contracts notwithstanding.
|8.5.05 @ 4:19PM|#
Cor, at least give credit for your source for the picture! The very funny web site http://www.bustedtees.com/
|8.5.05 @ 4:19PM|#
thoreau, the mall owner can absolutely say that have to allow
your passenger to act like an asshole, or you must leave his
property. Freedom of association has nothing to do with it.
Your set of dirty playing cards are your property. (That's right. I
know. We all know.) If you show them to my kid in my yard, I'm
going to throw you off my property.
Somehow, I suspect that the confusion here has something to do with
the tendency of libertarians to conflate the two definitions of
"property" (a piece of land, and something that is owned in a
capitalist system), but I'm not exactly sure how. Anyway, your car
is the latter, not the former.
|8.5.05 @ 4:23PM|#
Mr. Baisal,
The company gains its right to fire you for posessing a gun in
their truck, contrary to company policy, because it's a contract
violation, not because the truck is their property.
"The property owner can't make the admittance dependent on you
abdicating your fundamental rights." Wrong. If you start saying
nice things about President Shrub in my living room, I'm throwing
you out. If you don't leave, I'll call the police. And your
protests about your First Amendment rights won't make a bit of
difference.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 4:57PM|#
SPD,
Excellent example. And I'm not completely sure.
My first gut feel is "No one ever got killed by losing their right
to free speech, unless they'd already lost the means of
self-defense, first." But people do end up dead when they find
themselves without the means for self-defense (google Suzanne
Gratia-Hupp and Luby's). So I'd place self-defense as a "more
fundamental" right than free speech. That's one reason banning
self-defense tools could be different.
I'm thinking that the owner could revoke his permission and tell
you to leave, because HE has a right to free speech, as well. When
those rights collide, he wins because it's HIS property and your
shirt infringes on the all-conservative message he's trying to
convey in his restaurant. You each have an equal right to free
speech, but he's got an ace in the hole, which is that it's his
restaurant. So it's two rights against one, and you have to stand
out on the sidewalk with your shirt. Or on joe's sidewalk, because
I'm pretty sure he's got a first amendment right to not hear about
Dear Leader in his house (I think that silence is a form of speech,
too, as in "I don't want to hear that crap in my house." My right
to free speech doesn't include firing 2000 watts of amplified Bush
speeches at joe's house at 3AM.).
(Of course, anyone who can't handle the appearance of an opposing
point of view is a poof. By that, I mean the restaurant owner, not
joe, who handles them just fine.)
In contrast, me carrying a gun does not infringe on an employer's
right to self-defense. I don't mind if they carry, and they
shouldn't mind if I do. So it's self-defense versus property
rights. I say self-defense wins the contest.
(And, um, for the record, please let's not get me pigeonholed as a
Bush supporter. I happily waste my vote each cycle.)
|8.5.05 @ 4:59PM|#
M. J. Baisal-
See, I have to side with joe here. (Wait, did I just side with joe
on a matter concerning property rights? The land owner certainly
doesn't have unchecked authority over the car with the gun in it.
That car and gun don't belong to the landowner, so he can't
arbitrarily destroy them at whim. He can, however, insist that the
car and gun be removed from his land ASAP, and refuse to let the
car and gun (and owner of said car and gun) return to his land
thereafter.
As an aside, is it entirely a coincidence that joe takes a
libertoid stance on property rights when a gun regulation is
involved? joe, what would you say if the company said that
employees can't have, say, copies of your favorite magazine
(whatever it might be) inside their parked vehicles?
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 5:36PM|#
joe,
Suppose your contract with your employer states that you have to
abide by the employee handbook, and any subsequent revisions (not
uncommon). And then they revise it to say "All employees must send
$500 to W's campaign. If this makes you decide to quit, you still
have to send the money."
Your response, I imagine, would be "As if!" And if they tried to
sue for the $500 after you quit, they'd lose, because those
contract provisions would be null and void. I'm arguing that there
are other (less silly) contract provisions that are also null and
void, such as surrendering the right to self-defense, and
surrendering the right to control your possessions (car in lot).
Certainly, an employer should be able to fire you at will. But an
employee should ignore invalid portions of a contract without
feeling unlibertarian for it, rather than voluntarily fire himself.
Liberty belongs to those who sieze it.
Thoreau and Anvilwyrm,
I like the magazine/seat belt thing! How arbitrary can the bans of
legal items get? Employees may not have child safety seats in the
lot? That could make the commute pure hell, if you have to go home
to get the seat, then go pick up the kids.
And before anyone says that gun bans are safety-related, I've
mentioned above that workplace shooting deaths are nearly
nonexistent, even according to those who want bans
(http://www.workplaceshootings.com). So a gun ban IS arbitrary, and
directly comparable to a ban on child safety seats.
As I think I've said before, I'm looking for what's right/maximizes
liberty, not what's legal or supported by court precedent. So if I
seem to advocate violating contract terms, yes, that's correct,
just as I would advocate violating a law that said I have to vote
for W. Any law or contract term repugnant to the Constitution is
null and void, and should be ignored.
M.J. Basial|8.5.05 @ 5:38PM|#
And now I'm gonna go expend a little liberty out on the
lake.
Once this issue fades, I'll probably revert to lurking -- usually
things don't seem as difficult/fun as this issue to me.
Intersecting rights is fun!
|8.5.05 @ 5:45PM|#
joe, what would you say if the company said that employees
can't have, say, copies of your favorite magazine (whatever it
might be) inside their parked vehicles?
Or a John Kerry sticker. :)
Larry A|8.5.05 @ 6:43PM|#
Joe: Can anybody please find me a story about a workplace
shooting that was foiled, or ended, by another employee getting his
gun and shooting the shooter?
Consider the string of multiple murders earlier this year.
Courthouses, schools, a night club, a church in a state that
prohibits carrying, etc. Every one of them was in or just outside a
location where concealed carry is prohibited. In the case of the
band that was shot up in the nightclub, two licensees were directly
in front of the stage, unarmed because of state law. According to
Lott, the vast majority of multiple murders take place in similar
locations.
Parking lots: Yes, in some cases they are company property. But the
ramifications of a prohibition policy extend outside the parking
lot. I used to commute 60 miles each way to work at a company that
prohibited firearms on company property. Luckily it was a small
outfit renting office space, so we parked in a non-company-owned
parking lot and I could leave my legally concealed handgun secured
in my car. Prohibiting me from doing so would also have forced me
to make the commute unarmed.
In Texas, as in 43 other states, I have not only a Federal right to
keep and bear arms but also a state constitutional garantee. Mine
says I have the right to keep and bear arms in lawful defense of
myself and the state.
Liability lawsuits: If I make a belt, and sell it to someone, and
it's stolen from him, and the thief sells it illegally, and the
person who buys it illegally uses it to commit suicide, should his
NOK be able to sue beltmakers and put all of them out of business?
I think not.
My quibble with firearm manufacturers lawsuit prohibition is that
it isn't broad enough. It ought to protect any legal
business from such nonsense.
Should Congress get involved? Absolutely. Because one
judge in one state could write an opinion that would shut
down manufacturers in all fifty states. In addition, judgements
that impact private firearm manufacturers also hamper their ability
to provide firearms and ammunition for the military and law
enforcement. This is both an interstate commerce and a defense
issue, both of which fall within the Constitutional purview of
Congress.
|8.5.05 @ 7:25PM|#
Larry, I see your point about interestate commerce and defense,
but I'm wary. Interstate commerce is used to regulate everything
under the sun, and national security is used to shred the bill of
rights. I mean, yes, there are times when those rationales are
actually valid, but given their sordid history I think those claims
should be subject to extra scrutiny. So I see your point but I need
to think for a while before I'm convinced.
Maybe the best counter-argument to your point is that, as Jacob has
pointed out, none of the gun lawsuits have yet resulted in a jury
verdict against a gun manufacturer. Whatever one might think about
principles, in reality one should not pass a law unless a problem
actually occurs in practice and not just in theory. Now, I'm not
saying we should wait until all of the gun manufacturers are shut
down before Congress does something. But given the facts that Jacob
laid out, is it too much to ask that we wait for the first verdict?
The first verdict will almost certainly be small, a "warning shot."
At the very least, let's wait for the warning shot before the
politicians act.
(And to those who say that Congress still shouldn't act because
it's a state issue, well, fair enough. I see your point as well. My
point is more generic: Instead of letting ANY politicians rush in
and "fix" a problem that hasn't popped up in practice, let's at
least wait for some empirical evidence of a problem.)
|8.6.05 @ 12:42AM|#
Crap. I just wrote a mini-essay, then hit the wrong key and lost
it. Here are the highlights.
Kudos to M.J. Basial for opening up an interesting can of worms
with the "I have a bubble of property over which I still retain
some control, even if I bring it on your property" concept. That's
interesting and rather reasonable. But Dr. thoreau and joe also
bring up interesting counterpoints.
I generally take the side of, "When you visit another's property,
you agree to abide by his rules." But usually all the rules are not
(or cannot be) spelled out in advance. Therefore, the visitor's
consent is more implicit than explicit, and the terms of the
"contract" are rather vague. This is where conflicts arise.
If a hot girl agrees to enter my home, I would not presume that she
thereby agrees to consent to my ripping her clothes off. Even in
AnarchoCapitalistan, that seems to be presuming too much. It feels
like a violation of her rights. If so, this implies that there are
limits to the authority a visitor implicitly surrenders to me, and
some fundamental rights over her own person and property that she
reserves to herself, even when she enters my property.
The problem is, how much authority can I assume she has granted me,
and what control can I assume she has reserved to herself? In an
ideal libertarian world, there would be some kind of common-law
understanding or custom that would provide this kind of guidance.
Something that would give both me and my visitor an idea of what we
can safely presume we're each consenting to.
But at present, this is a murky gray area in
propertarian/libertarian thought. There is some principle here that
remains to be discovered by some libertarian thinker. Maybe it's an
elaboration of MJB's "nested bubbles of property rights."
Now here's an original idea from me, I think. In an
anarcho-capitalist or highly libertarian/property society, to avoid
conflicts like this, one convention that might arise and be adopted
is what I call "The Law of the Lobby." This would be a
presumptively universal custom or convention that would apply to
all "entry areas" of property -- lobbies, driveways, entry halls,
and maybe company parking lots.
This is the Law of the Lobby:
1) While in the designated Entry Area, Visitors may do anything
without fearing a penalty from the Property Owner, except the
following: use of force against other person, or another person's
property; theft of property; or property damage. This is subject to
the further provisions that follow.
2) The Property Owner may eject any Visitor from the Entry Area for
any reason, at any time.
3) The Property Owner may not use force, or pursue any other
penalties, against the Visitor -- unless the Visitor fails to
comply with a request to leave the Entry Area.
4) In the Entry Area, the Property Owner shall post the name of the
Legal System to which he/she subscribes, if he/she subscribes to a
commercially available or well-known Legal System. If the Property
Owner is not such a subscriber, that information shall also be
posted. The Property Owner may also post any particular rules
he/she especially wishes to emphasize to Visitors or bring to their
attention.
[Because they would be designed to minimize conflicts rather than
promote them, I would expect commercially produced legal systems to
have a high degree of commonality and not be overly picky or
eccentric. Although the property would have the right to post, "I
subscribe to Mormon law. ALCOHOL AND CAFFEINE PROHIBITED." Or "I
subscribe to Sharia. WOMEN WHO DRESS IN THE MANNER OF PROSTITUTES
ARE SUBJECT TO STONING."]
5) In the Entry Area, the Visitor has the right to request further
information and clarification about the Property Owner's rules. The
Property Owner shall provide this information truthfully or, if
unwilling or unable to do so, may require the Visitor to leave. In
the Entry Area, the Visitor may also request to negotiate
exceptions to Property Owner's rules.
6) Leaving the Entry Area and entering more deeply into the
Property Owner's property is taken as consent to follow the
Property Owner's rules, stated or unstated.
7) [If any conventions have arisen to specify what rights visitors
customarily retain even while visiting other people's property,
here the owner would post whether or not he follows those
conventions.]
In real life, I expect people would just breeze right through the
entry area without reading the fine print 99% of the time -- and
99% of the time, this would be no problem. Most of the time we
interact with each other, we aren't looking for a fight. But the
"Law of the Lobby" would be an opportunity to minimize the chance
of conflict by making the "contract" between visitor and owner more
explicit, and also give the visitor a chance to clarify rules about
carrying weapons, drugs, or any other area where he or she has a
particular concern or fears the likelihood of conflict. Same for
the property owner.
By the way, if the property owner's entry area conveys the
impression that he is a weirdo, nutcase, power-tripper or asshole,
people will avoid his property. If the property owner is in fact a
weirdo, nutcase, power-tripper or asshole, but his entryway
conceals this, sooner or later people will discover he cannot be
trusted, and avoid his property.
OK, that was a mini-essay anyway. But originally it was even
longer.
|8.6.05 @ 12:49AM|#
Errata I missed while previewing:
Section 3 of the Law of the Lobby should read:
3) The Property Owner may not use force, or pursue any other
penalties, against the Visitor while the Visitor is in the
Entry Area -- unless the Visitor fails to comply with a
request to leave the Entry Area.
Section 5 should read:
5) In the Entry Area, the Visitor has the right to request further
information and clarification about the Property Owner's rules. The
Property Owner shall provide this information truthfully or, if
unwilling or unable to do so, shall require the
Visitor to leave. In the Entry Area, the Visitor may also request
to negotiate exceptions to Property Owner's rules.
Also, I think the Law of the Lobby itself should be posted in the
entry area.
M.J. Basial|8.6.05 @ 12:50AM|#
Stevo,
I'm back from the lake, but since I was on the lake, I have to wait
until tomorrow to think clearly about The Law Of The Lobby.
|8.6.05 @ 12:56AM|#
Interesting essay, Stevo. I like your observation that even on
private property, there are still limits to what the property owner
can subject his visitors to. As you observe, you can't simply
remove a girl's clothes without permission. I observed that a land
owner can't just go into your car and destroy your gun without
explicit permission.
So, even on private land, the owner's power over visitors is
limited. He can't do anything to them without their consent,
although he can ask them to leave if they don't consent. In other
words, a landlord is not a "lord" in anything even vaguely
resembling the literal sense of the word.
|8.6.05 @ 1:00AM|#
thoreau - just because there hasn't been a jury verdict yet
doesn't mean there's no problem. You've apparently never been the
victim of a baseless lawsuit. The eventual outcome in court doesn't
matter much if you're spending thousands of dollars that you'll
never get back to defend yourself. In these cases, probably more
like 10s or 100s of thousands. The other side is also running up a
bill, but guess what? If they win, you pay that bill for them. So
the lawyer takes a few high stakes, low likelyhood cases might win
the legal lottery on one of 'em. You wind up negotiating a
settlement just to stop the bleeding, and you also try to figure
out how to avoid a repeat performance. Even if you're right.
As soon as the first suit was filed, we had a problem. When the
state AGs started piling on, we had a serious problem. Now is the
right time to act.
Larry A|8.6.05 @ 2:37PM|#
Thoreau
We also have the example of Smith & Wesson. A Federal agency
(HUD) threatened to file a lawsuit, jumping on the pile of lawsuits
cities had already filed. Then they blackmailed S&W with a
promise of getting all the suits dropped if S&W would sign a
"voluntary" agreement wherein they agreed to force distributors and
retailers across the US (can we spell "interstate commerce") to
adopt a wide variety of "business practices" that consisted of many
of the gun control proposals anti-gun folks couldn't get through
Congress or state legislatures. In addition S&W's business
practices would be subject to approval from an "impartial" board
consisting of four anti-gun types and one (1) industry
spokesperson. And the agreement was even open-ended, in that
S&W would be subjected to any restrictions in any subsequent
agreements with other manufacturers.
Fortunately:
- The other firearms manufacturers told HUD to stick their agreement.
- The cities refused to drop their suits, even after S&W signed. When S&W was sold, the new owners could gracefully dump the agreement and get on with business.
As an example of the foolishness in the agreement, S&W promised
they wouldn't sell any more "unsafe" guns without features mandated
by the agreement. To ordinary people that is. If S&W sold any
of these "unsafe" guns to law enforcement or the military, they
would relieve the agency's liability worries by including a
certificate saying that the firearms were perfectly safe to operate
even without the mandated safety features.
|8.6.05 @ 3:23PM|#
Mr. Nice Guy,
For ethical eating my recomendations would be if you are going to
consume animal protein consume beef because cattle spend most of
their life in the open in a natural grazing setting. Even in the
feedlot environment cattle are in the open and have plenty of room
to move around and socialize with other cattle in the pen. FWIW
most chicken or pork is produced in totally confined
operations.
Most vegatarians make the mistake of removing beef from their diet
while they continue to eat eggs and dairy products. The production
of eggs and dairy products require putting animals into production
systems that are more intensive then those used for beef
production. Ethically they would have been better off by removing
the egg and dairy products from their diet and keeping beef.
If you are very serious about ethical eating go to a vegan diet
which means no animal derived products (not even honey) in your
diet.
Disclosure: I am involved in ranching. Animal care issues in the
beef business has been an interest of mine for years.
|8.7.05 @ 3:40PM|#
Well I have been reading the comments posted and didnt notice
anyone mentioning the fact that local school boards are restricting
gun possetion "On or Near" schools. Some cities are saying no guns
within 1000-1500 ft of any school or park, now to me that treads on
my property rights, and rights of friends of mine who may come over
and have a hunting rifle in the back window of thier truck. These
Drug/Gun/Booze laws are becoming more prevolent these days. These
laws really scare me because they can be abused by just about
anyone, the old lady across the street or the principal of the
school. Technically I am breakin the law when i run to the store to
get beer then drive next to the school yard, or leave my rifle in
the back window of my truck parked in my driveway across the street
from the school.
I think that this is on topic here considering you were discussing
companies banning possesion of firearms on company property. Now
lets talk about cities/school districts abusing the power. But i
would think its hard to boycott a school or city when you live and
pay taxes in the community.
M.J. Basial|8.7.05 @ 6:14PM|#
I suspect that most folks have moved along, but just to avoid
twisting stats, additional poking around has shown me that some
stats I found were misinterpreted by me.
So (I'll skip sourcing unless it really bugs someone), here's my
current understanding of the scale of the workplace-shootings issue
(all numbers rounded so I don't have to look them up again):
20,000 annual US homicides, 10,000 of which are with guns
900 workplace homicides, half of which are with guns, 30 of which
are perpetrated by employees.
M.J. Basial|8.7.05 @ 6:19PM|#
The lesson, I think, is that if you're worried about getting shot, you should work as much as possible.
|8.7.05 @ 9:31PM|#
activists so fond of the Second Amendment that they never
got around to reading the rest of the Constitution.
Who said this?
I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty.
Answer from the Reason can be found by clicking here.
Reason: What about the conflict between privacy or property rights and speech rights? For example, are owners of private shopping malls obligated to allow people to distribute literature on their property?
[Interviewee]: Our view is that there are certain fundamental individual rights which may not be intruded upon or violated. When ou Constitution was written, the state was the only entity in society that had sufficient power to deprive individuals of fundamental rights. Now we have corporate concerns with far more power over people's lives than the state ever had in the l 8th century. The market-liberal response is that if the individual doesn't like what their employer is doing--for example, saying that you cannot smoke at your home--then the individual goes off and gets another job. Our view is that's unrealistic.
And if people are not going to have fundamental freedoms at work, then they are not going to have them for all practical purposes, because that's where they're spending the vast majority of their time. Obviously, if you're talking about a mom-and-pop shop, or if you re talking about an owner-occupied housing unit, then vou have to recognize that there are significant personal rights involved, personal rights that are bound up with property rights. So we are striking a balance that would not allow lack of regulation in what we see to be the service of the individual rights.
Reason: So your position is that owners of shopping malls have to permit the distribution of materials?
[Interviewee]: Yes. They can disassociate themselves from the message so they don't seem to be endorsing it. They can have disclaimer signs. They can have counter-speech if they want. Individual stores do not have to serve as a forum. But the common area in the mall, which is the functional equivalent of a sidewalk outside the traditional store or a town square, should serve as a public forum. That's its function. Around the country, most of the human traffic and the opportunity for exchanging ideas is in shopping centers or sidewalks outside shopping centers.
This is one of those cases where rights come into tension with each other. There are some hard cases
M.J. Basial|8.8.05 @ 1:36PM|#
Well, I'd have to say that the ACLU does a lot of good work. Protecting 9 out of 10 amendments isn't bad. If they were neutral on the 2nd Am., I'd feel better about them, but my impression is that they work against it now and again.
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