Sunday, April 01, 2007

New WarOnGuns Poll: Property Rights vs Gun Rights

The debate over employee guns in cars parked on company property is once again in the news. We've had this discussion before here at WarOnGuns and it's always a spirited one. Check the left margin for the new poll and record your view.

Here are the results of last week's poll (click on image to enlarge):

Whose political ratings do you trust more?



To the 10 people who voted "NRA," will one of you step forward and promote your position and reasoning? I'll give you up to 500 words in a standalone post to explain why you genuinely believe as you do. Email me at codrea4 at adelphia dot net if you'd like a forum to instruct those of us who voted differently on why yours is the superior position.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

In my mind, my car is like my rolling embassy: a sovereign little piece of my castle I can drive onto foreign lands.

Preventing me from carrying in my car also places significant restrictions on my ability to defend myself while traveling to and from work, and on my ability to engage in gun-related activities (such as range practice) before and after work.

Kent McManigal said...

Mere possession of something can never be a legitimate crime. Only improper usage. Therefore what you have in your pockets or in your car is never anyone else's business, even on private property. By allowing you access, they must take all of you. It would be like them forbidding your access if you had a pacemaker or fillings in your teeth, unless you left those things at home. If you choose to display or use the items, then the property owner may have a right to complain.

E. David Quammen said...

This is what the "Rights of the Colonists", the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution are BASED upon:

"Sect. 135. Though the legislative, whether placed in one or more, whether it be always in being, or only by intervals, though it be the supreme power in every common-wealth; yet, First, It is not, nor can possibly be absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people: for it being but the joint power of every member of the society given up to that person, or assembly, which is legislator; it can be no more than those persons had in a state of nature before they entered into society, and gave up to the community: for no body can transfer to another more power than he has in himself; and no body has an absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take away the life or property of another. A man, as has been proved, cannot subject himself to the arbitrary power of another; and having in the state of nature no arbitrary power over the life, liberty, or possession of another, but only so much as the law of nature gave him for the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind; this is all he cloth, or can give up to the common-wealth, and by it to the legislative power, so that the legislative can have no more than this. Their power, in the utmost bounds of it, is limited to the public good of the society. It is a power, that hath no other end but preservation, and therefore can never have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the subjects.* The obligations of the law of nature cease not in society, but only in many cases are drawn closer, and have by human laws known penalties annexed to them, to inforce their observation. Thus the law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men's actions, must, as well as their own and other men's actions, be conformable to the law of nature, i.e. to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and the fundamental law of nature being the preservation of mankind, no human sanction can be good, or valid against it."

- John Locke, "The Second Treatise of Government" - Chapter 11 - Of the Extent of the Legislative Power. (1690).

NO POWER on earth has the power to disarm us PERIOD. Self-Preservation is the First Law of Nature.

E. David Quammen said...

"The Right of the business Property owner to Keep and Bear Arms, and limit the right of fellow citizens to Keep and Bear Arms on their property, shall NOT be infringed."

"To Secure the Blessings of (the property owners) Liberty to the property owner and their posterity".

Kurt '45superman' Hofmann said...

This one posed some difficulty for me. I finally settled on the "what's in my car is my business" option, but it wasn't easy.

I think that if I were drafting legislation to protect the gun rights of employees (and/or customers, etc.), I would take a different route.

Rather than outlawing the banning of guns, I would outlaw vehicle searches.