Stop The Insanity

Published April 13th, 2008

The Boca Raton News promised you a follow-up to its editorial last Sunday about lawsuit abuse.

And that will appear next week -- but an immediately more pressing issue needs your attention and your e-mail and phone calls to Governor Charlie Crist.

What you need to tell the governor quickly and without hesitation is that he should veto the so-called Guns at Work bill (HB 503).  He has just seven days (this coming Wednesday) to either veto the bill, or allow it to become law by default.

That’s right.  An insanity of sorts has invaded Tallahassee.  Passage into law of HB 503 would permit employees who otherwise don’t need a gun in the course of work, to in fact bring one to work – locked in the car, but nonetheless, now located at work.

You read right -- every Tom, Dick and disgruntled employee would be legally permitted to bring a gun to work.

Proponents of this insane legislation argue, “Nowhere in either the US Constitution or the Florida Constitution are businesses given this mythical right they claim they have to control everything on their property. No such right exists. And nowhere are businesses authorized to usurp constitutional rights of individuals.”

What about opposing just plain stupidity?

This isn’t about preserving the rights of gun owners under the Second Amendment.  This is about not giving the car keys to a six-year old.  This is about not introducing into the workplace the opportunity for a simple argument to turn into instant tragedy.

Put another way, the logic of the proponent’s arguments would mean we no longer need, for example, stop signs?

What? No stop signs?  People would get killed.

Exactly.

The proponents of HB 503 also argue “Nor do businesses have the right to search private vehicles of customers or employees or to ban the lawful possession of firearms or any other legal property in a private vehicle simply because the vehicle is parked in a parking lot provided for customers, guests and employees.”

Of course -- then let’s also permit employee pit bulls and pet rattlers to roam around that same parking lot.  Nothing wrong with that, according to the HB 503 proponent logic.

Again, this isn’t about government denying Second Amendment rights.  In the same way that the First Amendment doesn’t permit someone -- and just for the hell of it -- to yell “fire” in a crowded theater, the Second Amendment is likewise not a blanket authority for guns in the workplace or anywhere else.