FL gun law upheld by courts

[divemedic]

Employees with concealed weapons permits can keep guns locked in their cars at work in Florida, but businesses are allowed to prohibit customers from bringing firearms on their property, a federal judge has ruled.

ETA: I guess this means that the property owner cannot discipline an employee, but can still ask customers to leave.

 

[F4GIB]

NRA loses in Florida parking lot lawsuit.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce's viewpoint.

http://www.flchamber.com/docs/Coalitions/GunsAtWorkCoalition/NR_Guns_JudgeRuling_072908.pdf

 

[divemedic]

I don't see how that will be a winner there. After all, any business that resorts to searching the cars of customers will be out of business in a hurry.

 

[green country shooter]

Just read the Florida opinion

Here is the actual decision:

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/files/guns_at_work_ruling.pdf

The judge views the law as pretty poorly written, which is hard to disagree with. But that's politics. A camel is a horse produced by committee, as they used to say, and compromises produce some strange results.

The outcome is positive for Florida CCW holders. They can keep their gun in the car while at work.

Living in Oklahoma, I like the way the judge dismisses the OSHA claim and shows how illogical it is. Here in Oklahoma we passed a similar law and it is suspended because a federal judge thought it violated OSHA.

As the Florida judge points out, under OSHA it is up to the state to decide which measures make the workplace safer if the federal law doesn't specifically name a measure one way or the other. In the Oklahoma case the judge just assumed that banning guns made the workplace safer without any evidence or logic.

I suspect a couple of years will go by, nothing will happen, and everyone will just accept it. In Kansas some folks are just now waking up to the fact that it is now legal to carry in church there and panicking about it. Others point out that it's now been legal for some time and nothing has happened!

I hope someone will push the Oklahoma case along now. Incidentally, one of the most interesting aspects of the idea that OSHA's "general duty" allows banning firearms is that if it does, then all employers would have to ban firearms!

 

[rainbowbob]

I just saw an article on the subject from which I copied this excerpt:

Dozens of workplace shootings occur every year in the United States. Studies have shown that job sites where guns are permitted are more likely to suffer homicides than those where guns are banned.

Has anybody hear of or read these so-called "studies" supporting the notion that there are more homicides at job sites where guns are permitted?

 

[ak645]

Technically the judge only rejected a preliminary injunction against that part of the law dealing with employees.Good News for permit holders! And I'm not sure which,if any,businesses have a policy banning firearms from customer vehicles.But the lawsuit challenging the law still goes forward.

I suspect that even if the law is upheld that a future OSHA secretary will,under a future left-wing administration,simply impose a ban on firearms in employee vehicles.

Andy

 

[divemedic]

Read the decision.

The customer portion of the law was struck down because of a poorly written definition in the beginning of the chapter. Nothing to do with the OSH Act. The Judge in the case makes a good case as to why the OSH Act is not applicable.

 

[ak645]

Obviously an OSHA rule would not apply to a customer.Hence I did not feel it necessary to point out the fact that the customer/invitee injunction was due to the peculiar wording of the statute.

The main thrust of my post was that...

1-No part of the law was upheld or overturned.This was only a hearing on whether or not to grant a preliminary injunction.

2-All that's required to preempt this law and any similar laws,in regards to employees,is a simple change to OSHA rules.The judge in this particular case opined the only reason OSHA regs did not override the law is because there is no specific mention of this issue in OSHA rules.I think an OSHA Administrator under President Obama (or suchlike) would be quick to remedy this happy state of affairs.

Andy

 

[Standing Wolf]

Has anybody hear of or read these so-called "studies" supporting the notion that there are more homicides at job sites where guns are permitted?

Just another leftist extremist lie.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn some self-appointed "concerned public health researcher" has "studied the problem of guns in the work place" and jury-rigged some numbers to support his thesis. Real peer-reviewed scientific study? Nope.

 

[SMMAssociates]

Standing Wolf:

(Long time no see - I've been busy elsewhere.... )

I'm guessing that the "researcher" you refer to didn't even bother to do that much work....

(My mystery of the month is how Tuner got to be a mod.... )

Regards,

 

[Jolly Rogers]

I just saw an article on the subject from which I copied this excerpt:


Quote:
Dozens of workplace shootings occur every year in the United States. Studies have shown that job sites where guns are permitted are more likely to suffer homicides than those where guns are banned.

Has anybody hear of or read these so-called "studies" supporting the notion that there are more homicides at job sites where guns are permitted?
__________________
Best regards,
Rainbowbob

Please supply a cite for this and let us determine the veracity of the source.
Joe

 

[divemedic]

That's funny, because the Judge had this to say:

Common sense and human experience suggest the truth lies between these
extremes. The statute will rarely make any difference at all but may sometimes
cause a result that is positive, sometimes negative.

or this one:

Fourth, a gun in the parking lot sometimes—though rarely—will be used by an irate worker to commit a crime that would not occur if the gun were not readily available. A worker who would do this would probably be among those least likely to abide a directive not to bring a gun on the property

 

[Rabid Rabbit]

The study that I read focused on stop and robs. IIRC they did not identify the dead as good or bad guy.

 

[Rabid Rabbit]

Here is the study:
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/95/5/830.pdf

comments about the study
http://newsbusters.org/node/11663

 

[XDKingslayer]

So basically nothing has changed. Workers can keep their piece in their car per the new bill. Companies can tell customers that weapons aren't allowed just like they've always been able to do.

 

[Happiness Is A Warm Gun]

So basically nothing has changed. Workers can keep their piece in their car per the new bill. Companies can tell customers that weapons aren't allowed just like they've always been able to do.

Basically yes. It was a defensive win. The chamber of commerce (working for business owners) wanted to strike the law down. The judge upheld the law. It is good it happened now, gets it out of the way and creates precedent. Most businesses who don't like it will "just accept it" since both legilature and courts have sided "against" them.

Other states may adopt similar laws since it has been upheld by courts. Some (certainly not DC ) legislatures don't want to pass laws that are likely to be defeated by the courts. It wastes time and makes them look foolish.

I hope a similar law comes to VA next year.

 

[SMMAssociates]

Here in OH, pending all kinds of legal possibilities, after September 9th, we have a slightly different tack on this.

While it doesn't say anything about businesses restricting their employees rights, and doesn't keep them from posting their parking lots, the "violation" becomes CIVIL instead of Criminal for non-employees.

That means they have to sue you....

While it could still happen, this pretty much negates posting parking lots, decks, etc.

(This doesn't mean that the stores in a strip plaza can't post their own front door, but they can't hide behind some fool posting the whole parking lot. If "Mom & Pop's Used Yak Shop" wants to keep us out, it's now more their responsibility to put up and enforce their own sign than it used to be.)

Regards,

 

[Coronach]

Has anybody hear of or read these so-called "studies" supporting the notion that there are more homicides at job sites where guns are permitted?

Just another leftist extremist lie.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn some self-appointed "concerned public health researcher" has "studied the problem of guns in the work place" and jury-rigged some numbers to support his thesis. Real peer-reviewed scientific study? Nope.

I dunno. I want to see these "studies", too. The only way to really understand what is being said is to read the study itself, not what some politician or media talking head says it says. Also, the only way to spot junk science is to read the study.

Another thought: are they including secured facilities on the side of "workplaces that do not allow guns"? If so, I can see why they would have less shootings there; there are actual security checkpoints with metal detectors and guards and such. That's great and all, but that doesn't mean that just having a policy of "no guns" confers the same safety as having an actual security force checking people coming in.

Mike

 

[rainbowbob]

This is an excerpt from the study cited:

Employers’ reasons for allowing guns in the workplace are unknown, but the belief that firearms offer protection against crime is one possible motive.

If employers set policies toward weapons in response to their experience with crime, then the workplaces at highest risk for crime also might be those most likely to allow guns. In response to this possibility, some studies have incorporated adjustments for history of crime as a potential confounder.

Although we collected data on workplaces’ experience with robbery and violent crime, we did not control for it in the models presented here because adjustment for a determinant of exposure generally is not appropriate.

However, exploratory analyses showed that if history of crime were controlled as a confounder, the fully adjusted odds ratio for policies allowing guns would have been 7.89 (95% CI=2.44, 25.46).

Do any of you statistics guys want to comment on this? apparently they did not adjust for the probability that businesses that allow workers to be armed are those that have experienced high crime rates are and are more likely to experience homicides. They apparently did not differentiate between worker on worker violence - and workers killed at the hands of a criminal coming into the workplace.

 

[.cheese.]

so wait, does this somehow make it possible for Florida businesses to give posted signs legal backing with customers?

 

[XDKingslayer]

so wait, does this somehow make it possible for Florida businesses to give posted signs legal backing with customers?

Not any more than they do now. The way I understand it is that they can still ask you to leave and the law is not forcing them to accept you as a customer if they do not wish.

Like I said, nothing really changed.