We’re getting close to half, as Tennessee becomes the 19th state to adopt constitutional carry. From Governor Bill Lee:
Law-abiding Tennesseans will soon be able to carry a handgun in our state without unnecessary permission from the government. Tennessee becomes the 19th state with constitutional carry and it is core to our public safety agenda this year. I firmly believe that penalizing law-abiding Tennesseans is not a solution for reducing crime—we must stiffen penalties on those who break the law. This legislation protects Tennesseans’ rights while significantly increasing penalties on those who steal or unlawfully possess a firearm. I thank the members of the General Assembly for their support and commitment to Second Amendment rights in Tennessee.
“..we must stiffen penalties on those who break the law. This legislation protects Tennesseans’ rights while significantly increasing penalties on those who steal or unlawfully possess a firearm.”
Gee, I guess on balance I’d take it, but can legislators ever do anything without wetting corporations’ beaks at the same time?
Private prisons seem to be running out of rope in Tennessee and may be on the verge of being shut down.
So, who are these people going to be who “unlawfully possess” firearms? Any chance they’re going to be the same citizens who were railroaded in order to (over)fill those prisons in the first place?
Somehow I just knew that “law and order” was going to be hiding in there somewhere, and where to look first to find the $motive$ behind it.
I guess I don’t care for constitutional carry being used as our thirty pieces of silver.
Tennessee’s new law includes:
(1) Increasing the penalty for theft of a firearm to a Class E felony;
(2) Providing a sentencing enhancement for theft of a firearm in a car;
(3) Increasing the minimum sentence for theft of a firearm from 30 days to 180 days; and
(4) Increasing the sentences for unlawful possession of a firearm by violent felons and felony drug offenders, possession of a handgun by a felon, and unlawfully providing a handgun to a juvenile or allowing a juvenile to possess a handgun.
I guess I don’t have too much problem with those first three (though I personally don’t know what a Class E felony is in Tennessee, or what the purpose of (2) is) but (4) seems to be chockablock with landmines. That bit about “allowing a juvenile to possess a handgun” sounds particularly dangerous to rural parents to me; or to parents who go out for the evening and leave the gun safe unlocked. Maybe TN gunnies are thinking that the law isn’t intended for people like themselves.
Don’t laugh; I heard Real Gun Rights Advocates support a similar law in Pennsylvania because “those kids in North Philadelphia are all drug dealers and their parents are all drunk in a bar somewhere…” It didn’t occur to those jackasses that the law would apply to them and their own kids, too. They seemed to assume it wouldn’t be enforced with their own kind. Maybe they were right.
Good, now let’s stop corporations from establishing their own little gun free zones. Can you say “public accommodation”?
“Good, now let’s stop corporations from establishing their own little gun free zones.”
Now you’re thinking!
One philosophical problem I see, and I admit I’m just being argumentative:
Corporate property is private property. In theory the owner of private property can establish the rules for trespass on their private property.
“Public accommodations” more implies the public is openly invited onto the property to engage in commerce. “Discrimination” of any sort is the denial of engagement in commerce after entering upon the private property. Would a supermarket be said to be discriminating against shopping cart racers, if it stopped and ejected trespassers who were racing up and down their aisles with shopping carts?
That’s a deliberately silly example, but one to illustrate that a property-owner maintains some freedom to act upon perceived dangers to their property and customers. There is not much proof that racing up and down supermarket aisles with shopping carts is dangerous. The problem is that most people perceive it as dangerous, and would not patronize a store that allowed it. Thus commerce would be perturbed by shopping cart racers, and the property owner would have an interest in limiting trespass on his property to people who don’t race shopping carts. He would establish no-shopping-cart-racing as a rule for trespass on his private property, and violation of the rule would be “defiant trespass.”
I’m not saying our system of law isn’t inconsistent on such matters; just that the balance for what defines acceptable “public accommodation” always has evolved with the culture.
I remember open-carrying a .45 revolver on my hip into the post office and the stores in town when I was 18, and no one batting an eye. If I did it now I would expect someone to bat an eye.
The best answer to this really is creating a liability to provide reasonable defense against attack. So if someone is killed or injured by violence on the job, your company could be sued if they weren’t either permitted to carry a means of self defense or armed security provided. The current situation exists mainly because companies fear being sued if someone brings a gun to work and shoots either a fellow employee or a third party, but no real liability occurs the other way. So several employees are actually better than one dead shooter from a corporate liability perspective.
So several employees are actually better than one dead shooter from a corporate liability perspective.
More that the company can point to the corporate ‘no guns’ policy and argue they did all they reasonably could, if the employees families suing Very Big Corp because their family member was shot and killed. HR exists to prevent the company from being sued. But the point they care little beyond that is true. The worst thing in the world would be for Very Big Corp to get sued. Having a few employees killed? Well, as long as no one thinks it’s our fault.
I would add that, in my limited experience (i.e., actually interviewing representatives of Very Big Corp regarding their product liability concerns vis-a-vis a product we were seeking to develop), they are not very worried about any particular product liability suit, as they are by the trends of the thousands of liability suits they know they are going to experience. They regard product liability suits as just coming with the territory, and the price of doing business; they employ/engage specialized actuaries for calculating liability costs as part of their pricing. It really is a brutally cynical line of reasoning.
I guess what I’m driving at is that I never got the impression that REALLY Big Corp with hundreds of thousands of consumers would care for a minute about a tiny handful of liability cases such as we are discussing. If anything they would be more concerned about the publicity and effect on their “image.”
I don’t want to change the subject, but I think that’s what we’re seeing with Big Corp like Delta and Coca Cola right now; they checked the polls and decided which political side to take in Georgia. For Delta, a little thing like the Georgia fuel tax is inconsequential compared to “image.”
Statute trumps precedent. Make them liable. And use civil rights law for criminal prosecution.
“Statute trumps precedent. Make them liable.”
Good luck with that! Government exists to serve and protect them, and little gets done unless some Big Corp somewhere is making a buck off it.
See our initial thread above: Nothing would have changed in TN unless it contained an element to subsidize the private prison industry, which allegedly is in trouble there. Concern with the “general welfare” is a cruel joke.
And then, on the other side of things.
Delaware is about to fall.
They’ve literally rammed permit to purchase and a magazine ban through with no public input. Passed it in less than 2 days.
And the PTP is just for Handguns.
They’re even considering copying the NJ FID Card System for Long-Guns.
If we don’t end up with a FID / Permit applying to handguns, long guns AND ammo sales within the next 2 years I will be shocked. The permit is also “may issue.” Did you used to date a local cops wife and he doesn’t like you because of that? No permit to buy a gun then.
I’ll also be surprised if we don’t end up with a near ban on CCDW soon. They’re already making unofficial changes in what they want new applicants to provide, and since it’s “may issue” then can start blanket denying at any time.
The legislature passed measures protecting mail in voting and other measures to help Dems keep power, the state is getting bluer due to NY/NJ residents flocking here. A ton of them buy vacation homes down the beach and are now coming here for good and bringing all the bad with them.
With Iowa, doesn’t Tennessee make 20?
OC is definitely a cultural acceptance issue.SJW have loud voices . Since the media is against guns the big companies do not want to go against that.
Public accommodation is one way. But I am not comfortable with that. I can see that not all civil rights can be be used in stores and supermarkets. Can a person stand up and preach in a store? Not really. They will be escorted out.
A statute requiring private business not ban CCW or OC is one way, I guess. Liability will not be effective.
“Since the media is against guns the big companies do not want to go against that.”
Do you really believe they are not all members of the same milieu, with the same motivations? That the “big companies” require some sort of coercion to be in the same bed with their big media brethern?
Remember when S&W adopted its own anti-gun platform, because it didn’t think it needed the civilian market anymore?
“Remember when S&W adopted its own anti-gun platform, because it didn’t think it needed the civilian market anymore?”
Flashabck Lane. Damn, who thought it’s been 21 years? Seems like only yesterday!