I could swear I remember reading a case very similar to this where the ATF was smacked down on this theory on what constitutes a machinegun under the NFA and GCA. Anyone remember what it was?
DC Lawsuit Dismissed
I guess the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act actually works when it’s not considered before Judge Weinstein’s court.
DC Incompetence Pays off Big Time
I’m guessing these guys Dave Hardy is talking about don’t have much experience filing briefs with the Supreme Court. So the Supreme Court actually pays someone to sit there and count the words to make sure it’s just within the right limit?
Speaking of Property Rights
Apparently the State of California doesn’t have much respect for them. There a guy in my neighborhood that has a giant boat in his driveway. I don’t mean a small outboard motor boat, I mean a rather large vessel, that’s been up on blocks for several years. Various thoughts go through my mind about this huge eyesore in my neighborhood:
- Is he expecting one day the Neshaminy Creek will actually flood that high?
- Christmas is coming, is he going to decorate the boat?
- I wonder if the paint chipping off it is lead based?
But one thing I woudln’t presume to do is ask the government to force him to remove it. It’s his driveway. I wouldn’t even presume to ask him to remove it privately. I certainly wouldn’t dream of asking the government to trespass on a man’s property to ticket it.
Of course, I doubt anyone asked. They just decided. No doubt parking ticket revenue dried up when they banned overnight parking, forcing them to seek out new sources of banditry revenue.
There Will Always Be a Loophole
Joe reminds us that there will always be a loophole for the gun control crowd. He’s right. The United Kingdom is the petri dish, and I’m frightened of what’s growing. We don’t want to run this experiment here too.  We can’t let it run here.
The Heart of the Matter
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.
HR 4900 Criticisms
SayUncle is asking what we think about GOA’s criticisms of HR 4900. My response to that is if GOA can push better legislation thorough Pelosi’s Congress, I’ll applaud them.
The criticism that ATF will abuse their power to levy these civil penalties is a legitimate one, but would we rather have ATF abusing fines, or abusing their authority to shut down gun shops? If I were a gun shop owner, I’d rather have to fork over a few thousand bucks in a civil penalty than have to fork over tens or possibly hundreds of thousands in legal fees fighting a license revocation. GOA also makes this claim:
The problem is that — in virtually all of the most aggressive regulatory agencies in the federal government — “civil penalties” are the central engine whereby the agency has expanded its jurisdiction.
I’m not sure what they are talking about here to be honest. Expanded its jurisdiction how? How does HR 4900 enable this? The law actually does a pretty good job of spelling out what types of violation constitute serious ones. It’ll make fighting an unjust fine a lot easier in court than it currently is fighting a revocation in court.
By no means do I think that HR4900 will fix everything that’s wrong with the ATF, but it’s a reasonable step forward. If GOA can do better, they are welcome to try.
More Cases of Employer Nonsense
Florida’s bill was spawned by something Disney Corporation did.
I represent Doug and Linda Gray, a husband and wife who were both employed by the Walt Disney World Company. They worked similar shifts, and traveled to work together. The Grays had to begin their commute before sunrise, and had to travel through some less than safe areas. In fact, they had been accosted on their commute to work in the past. They contacted law enforcement about this and were advised that they should purchase a firearm for their own protection during their commute. Based on this advice, Mr. Gray purchased a revolver to protect he and his wife. When the Grays arrived at work, the revolver was locked in their vehicle.
The Grays were both hired by Disney on November 13, 1996. They met at Disney during the final entry interview process, and were later married. Just 17 days before their 10th anniversary of employment at Disney, they were both terminated. While Mrs. Gray was being asked about an absence from work, she responded that her husband was unable to attend, and she didn’t feel safe traveling into work without him. Upon further questioning, Mrs. Gray revealed that Mr. Gray had the firearm in their vehicle for their protection. Disney had the vehicle searched, and the firearm was found, locked in the vehicle where the Grays indicated it was. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gray were terminated. Additionally, Disney had the Orange County Sheriffs issue a trespass warning against Mr. and Mrs. Gray, so that neither could step foot on any Disney property again.
Well, I can tell you, if we win Heller, I hope the attorneys won’t be going to Disney World. But I think this is a good lesson in keeping your mouth shut about how your provide for your own personal security. It’s a bad idea to blab about your carry status; there’s just no reason to mention it. You’re not doing anything wrong or illegal, and it’s none of their damned business anyway.
Random Conversation About Fingerprinting
Friend: I know you are at work.. but you are good at tracking things down too. My mom now has to be fingerprinted for work as a crossing guard…. they claim its a Michigan state law that all people working with children must be… but i don’t think so. I don’t have to be, and my daycare was just relicensed in December. So.. i wondered if you had any ideas how i could go about looking this up and if she really does have to be fingerprinted.
Friend: Never mind.. i found it already. The Student Safety Initiative.
Me: Most police departments will do it for you
Me: Nowadays, they can use electronic fingerprinting too
Friend: The school is doing it for free for her
Friend: but, she is just really against it… let me see if i can quote her:
Friend’s Mom: Are you being asked to be fingerprinted for your work? The school says it’s the law this year and all employees that work with children – church, schools, day cares, have to be fingerprinted….
Friend’s Mom: I don’t like it – that’s for criminals and I don’t like the FBI keeping my fingerprints on file
Me: But it’s For the ChildrenTM
Me: Ze innocent have nazing to fear
Friend: bleh
Me: Tell your mom now she knows how gun owners feel ;)
Friend:
Friend’s Mom: Yeah – I still feel like a criminal and I don’t carry a gun
Friend’s Mom: My only weapon is an orange vest
Me: It’s hard for me to have sympathy :)
Me: I get routinely treated like a criminal every time I want to buy a gun or renew my license
Friend: She’s all mad that i said something comparing her to a gun owner
Friend: BTW, she’s very anti gun.
Me: Welcome to the police state. Vere are your papers!?!?!?
Friend: heh ;~)
Savor that one folks. What goes around, comes around. You can’t expect to empower the state to take away liberty from people you find undesirable, and then expect the state to respect your liberty when you end up in the cross hairs. When you find yourself in that situation, the people who’s liberties have already been trampled on may not be sympathetic enough to help you.
Parking Lot Bills
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.