Month: January 2008

I noticed in the comments over at Kim’s:

At the same time as HB89 was introduced in the House, the NRA bill – SB43 – was introduced in the Senate. This bill would allow employees to keep a gun locked in their vehicle in company parking lots while they were at work. GCO not only did not oppose this bill, but offered support for it as well.

While HB89 made its way through the House and was passed by a fairly large margin, SB43 brought about very focused opposition from two very large and well funded lobbying groups – the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the insurance industry. Business and insurance companies feared the lawsuits that might result from a shooting and specifically and massively focused on defeating this bill. They succeeded and SB43 was voted down in the Senate.

At this point, HB89 was in committee in the Senate and it looked very favorable for passage by the Senate as well. The NRA then focused their lobbying efforts on amending the GCO bill – HB89 – by adding the wording of SB43 to it GCO politely and strongly urged the NRA to leave the bill alone so it could pass and was completely ignored.

So HB89 was not really the NRA’s bill, they hijacked it (yes, I used that term deliberately). And once they added SB43’s wording to it, it was also doomed to fail. The amended bill never left the committee, which is why it was already on the docket at the beginning of this year’s session, picking up where it left off last year.

Read the whole thing.  This is an unfortunate circumstance, for certain.  Georgia activists aren’t the first state level group to get pooped on when NRA decides it has different priorities. Sometimes NRA is going to sacrifice a state or local issue for the sake of it’s national agenda.  It sucks, but I don’t know how to change that.  NRA can’t always put its priorities on hold to accommodate everything a state or local group wants to accomplish.  That was a case where it was either going to be NRA who had egg on their face or GCO.  I don’t blame GCO’s feathers for being ruffled over this, but it’s not irreparable damage.

I still stand by my analysis that the “private property” clause in HB 915 jeopardizes HB 89.  I had made the assertion that this seemed deliberate.  That would not appear to be the case, according to GCO and the legislation’s sponsor.  NRA is going to be particularly sensitive to clauses that could be grounds for a court challenge to their parking lot bill, which is practically a guarantee if it passes.

I think the ironic thing in this whole issue in Georgia is that I’m actually not in favor of the parking lot bill, and would prefer a bill like HB 915 to be passed in its place.  But I find myself defending NRA’s position on the bill, which I don’t agree with, because I think the criticisms that it won’t get behind HB 915 are unfair.

Gun owners should take a hard look at the situation that got this whole “Parking Lot” thing going:

On October 1, 2002, the company sent detection dogs into the parking lot of their Valliant, Oklahoma paper mill plant looking for drugs in vehicles in response to an employee drug overdose. They found no drugs, but the dogs alerted on 12 cars with guns in them.^[8] Some of the employees were provided by sub-contractors, including Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) and Kenny Industrials.^[9] The company then asked the employees if they would open their vehicles for a hand search, two of them refused, of the remaining 10 vehicles rifles, shotguns, and handguns were found.^[8][9]

…

On November 14, 2002, the vehicles in the parking lot were searched for a second time. All employees were warned that if contraband, either drugs or firearms, were found a second time, they would be terminated. 12 employees were found with contraband and were immediately suspended.^[9]

Whether you agree with the Parking Lot bill or not, the gestapo tactics employed by Weyerhauser in this case are despicable, and I can tell you I would never do business or work for Weyerhauser because they treat their employees with this level of disrespect.  It’s unprofessional on the part of Weyerhauser to violate their employees privacy by conducting random searches of employee property.  I would have told them to get bent.

But as I’ve said, I think an employer has a right to make an ass of themselves in this manner.  While government does rightly interfere with the Employment at Will doctrine to prevent discrimination against certain classes of people, in most cases, we don’t for behavior issues, and I don’t like the idea of opening the door up to that.   I also think the problem has been overstated; are that many employers going as far as Weyerhauser has in terms of searching employee vehicles?  Is it worth the energy and resources to solve this problem legislatively?   These are the things I question.

But if you’re NRA, and you have members worried about situations like Weyerhauser, do you tell them too bad, because NRA is going to stand up for property rights and employer rights?  They are an organization that represents gun owners.  They are not the CATO Institute.  They’re also not Reason Magazine, no matter how much I might agree with Reason’s take here.

I don’t agree with NRA on the parking lot bill, but I won’t blame a tiger for its stripes.  A lot of gun owners see things differently on this matter, and the National Rifle Association represents them every bit as much as it represents me.

Ahab notes an e-mail he received from the GeorgiaCarry.org folks:

I have been working closely with the NRA trying to get them to join the other groups that have already given their written endorsement to HB 915, including GCO, GSSA (the NRA affiliate in Georgia), SCCC, and GOA. I still hold out hope that the NRA will endorse HB 915 in the near future. If somebody at the NRA with whom I have been working is actively at the same time passing out misinformation, I would like to know about it.

I am probably the person that originated this with my post.  I also hope that NRA will endorse HB 915, but I suspect that 915 will have to be modified to not pose a threat to HB 89.  I’m still not convinced by the folks who say there’s no danger there; I think there is.  I will try to get one of our attorney bloggers to weigh in on this matter.

I’m not in agreement that the parking lot carry bill should be a priority, but this parking lot carry bill is important to a lot of other gun owners.  The NRA has staked its reputation on the car carry bill, and they aren’t going to abandon it at this point.  As much as I think that sucks, because carry laws affect me more than a parking lot law would, I’m not the only gun owner out there.  I think there needs to be a little understanding that sometimes the powers that be will push the interests of other gun owners over yours.

Ed over at the comments on Jeff’s site responds to my comments on HB 915:

Go back and read the bill again. We have literally been working on this bill for years, and we last worked through this portion some time ago (before the NRA ever dreamed up a parking lots bill for Georgia). Removing that section would change the bill. Here is why. Section 4 of HB 915 is an express authorization for license holders to carry “in all areas of this State, except as specifically limited in this Code Section.” While this language was also stolen directly from the senate bill that the NRA pushed into law in Colorado, it was good language for Georgia because of the odd case law here pertaining to criminal trespass and government property. This authority to carry “in all areas of the State” language will ensure that local government officials cannot simply use criminal trespass law to eject lawful firearm carriers or arrest them.

BUT IF SUBSECTION C IS REMOVED, then Section 4 would mean that a person with a firearms license would be authorized to carry in all areas of the state, including any and all private property. That means your private property, Sebastion. Do you think that is a good idea? Would such a bill be likely to pass? If not, then why do you suggest the language be removed?

In other words, the language to which you point is integral to HB 915 and has NOTHING to do with the NRA’s parking lots bill. You need to be more careful in looking at the effects of your suggestions.

GCO’s Secretary informed me that he went through the time stamped drafts of the bill, and that provision appears in every version, INCLUDING THE VERSIONS THAT PREDATE THE NRA’S PARKING LOTS BILL. In light of this evidence, please QUIT claiming that anybody had any designs to “scuttle” anything the NRA is doing. You are simply wrong, and I wish you would take affirmative steps to correct the misinformation you have been publishing and distributing.

Please correct your statements on your blog and here.

I do apologize if this was not deliberately intended, and have put this here in its entirety in the interest of fairness on that issue, and I will update the original post with a link here.

But I still don’t see how this section doesn’t interfere with the parking lot bill NRA is pushing.   I am not, however, an expert on Georgia firearms law, but based on my reading of both bills, HB 915 could interfere with HB 89.  Can some of our attorney types on the blogosphere weigh in with what they think?