Search found 1 match

by jimlongley
Mon Oct 13, 2008 12:08 pm
Forum: General Gun, Shooting & Equipment Discussion
Topic: Property rights vs. gun rights re: parking lot law
Replies: 51
Views: 4866

Re: Property rights vs. gun rights re: parking lot law

Although I have a strong feeling toward property rights, in this case I feel that there are mitigating circumstances.

In my case I work at Home Depot, and THD says we cannot carry on company property, including the parking lot, which puts some of us in the sort of danger discussed before, but I have a quibble with this.

THD is not posted 30.06.

THD's parking lot is used by both employees and the public, including customers and just people staying overnight or having a tryst, which makes it a pretty public place for private property. While I think that THD should have control over their own property, I feel that in this instance, and in any such where parking is for public customers, that a different set of rules needs to apply. I think it should be against those rules for THD to declare the parking lot off limits for employees to carry, or Tom Thumb, or Sam's, or Costco, or any of those places where the parking lot is open to the public for use.

Having settled that, in my mind, then I come to the question of private businesses, like the one I used to work at, where the public walking in to shop is not going to happen. I divide this into two categories, those that own the property and those that do not, with those that do divided into sub-categories based on security of parking and alternative parking.

The private business I worked at had a set of "unwritten rules" that were not even clearly announced, and when someone noted (not me) to management that the rules were inconsistent and vague, they were published, and they remained inconsistent and vague. That business set down a rule against carrying dangerous weapons, including in the parking lot, but they didn't own the parking lot and weren't even guaranteed more than four parking spaces by the property owner, so I see that parking lot rule as being invalid on its face, but needing legislative clarification included in the above.

I also see a private business with an unsecured parking lot, like a couple of other places where I have worked as being a pretty close fit with the two examples above. If the lot is unsecured, or just has a walking security patrol, then there is no guarantee of safety of employees on that property, whether or not the employee manual uses that as an excuse.

The really sticky one in my way of thinking is the business owner that owns the land that the parking lot is on and fences it off with an attended gate (anything less is unsecured) and that one, to me, would be easily solved by having the business owner recognize that in preventing people from carrying on the way to and from work is depriving them of a right more basic than his property rights (2nd A vs 4th A) and that he either needs to provide: a) alternate parking where they can carry; or b) storage at entrance to the parking facility and failing that allow all those who may legally do so otherwise to carry onto his property, limited to the parking lot and its environs, without restriction.

Of course I don't really like the idea of having to take off and store my gun in a provided area, so that Idea is tempered, in my own mind once again, by requiring a property owner restricting a right to self defense being required to carry adequate insurance.

I don't know how to write this up in the appropriate legislative legalese, and I am sure others will come up with further modifiers, but this is just my own simplistic view.

Return to “Property rights vs. gun rights re: parking lot law”