Fight back!

[UnderratedF00l]

I think this could depend on what you are specifically talking about. Are you saying that if you are on private property, I should be able to allow thievery of any item on my property

How can you "allow" theft, exactly? Wouldn't that just mean... well... free stuff?

You have the right to protect your property from theft. Someone else does not have the right to come on your property without your permission, or without following your rules. I guess I'm confused what your argument is.

I think any place that removes your ability to defend yourself should be required to provide trained and armed security guards in many locations.
Now, refusing someone service is within their right, and asking me to leave is too for many reasons, like me screaming and causing too much noise in a theater, opera house or play, or me waving a gun around in the open. but Iif they dont provide protection at all, they should not remove my best tool for defense.

This isn't a question of how we think things should be -- on that we'll probably agree. I'd love for every business I frequent to allow lawful carry of a firearm by anyone who so chooses, but I also don't believe that the .gov should force all businesses to allow the concealed carry of firearms. In this case, I think that Utah has it perfectly right. Businesses are allowed to prohibit firearms on their property, and they can ask you to leave should you be found with one. The signs and policies have no law attached to them, but you can be charged with trespassing if you chose to stay after being asked to leave. This, in my mind, is as close to a perfect balance as we'll find.

Is private security the answer? Sure. I'm in for that. We don't need more security theater, however. We have enough of that going around already.

I dont think those that wear offensive t-shirts or signs are really being kicked out because of free speech related issues, more disruption of service.

The ability that you have to wear an offensive t-shirt or promote an offensive sign is a 1st Amendment right. A police officer can not ask you to leave public property for wearing an offensive t-shirt, but a private business can -- regardless of whether you're being disruptive or not. We don't have (nor have we ever had) 1st Amendment rights on another person's private property -- that's why protesters are always confined to public areas on public lands.

[crwly]

So you argue for their rights but refuse to abide by them, and openly disagree with a petition to uphold your right because you disagree with the idea that their right is an infringement upon your right? I get where you're coming from and don't completely disagree, it just seems like an oddly circular way to view the situation.

As I demonstrated earlier, I don't have a right to carry on private property. At all. If a business allows the lawful carry of firearms, it's a privilege. Not a right.

I don't follow the direction of individual businesses who post signs because, as you know, there is no law that says I can't carry while on their property. I simply couldn't care less about their policies, and since there's no legal ramifications or other consequences to ignoring the signs, I carry as I want any way. It may seem illogical or circular, but I abide by the law while carrying everywhere. If I worked for a company that prohibited carry, I wouldn't relegate my firearm to my car just to keep a job regardless of their policies (unless I worked in an area that had the protections of law). The best way to say it is this: Concealed is concealed. No one knows but me.

My point isn't to openly disagree with your petition or be confrontational. If your petition were to ignore the Constitutional aspects all together, and simply say that "we'd like to petition your business to allow lawfully carried firearms, because <list of factual reasons>", I'd be signing it in huge handwriting (just like good ol' John Hankock), and would happily promote it, too.

I just want to make sure you understand that the protections given by the Bill of Rights don't extend to private property, and by saying it does, it could devalue any potential effect the petition might have.

I guess your position confuses me because you say that property owners should have the right to limit your constitutional rights on their property, but when they post signs to exercise that right those signs should not be enforced by law, and you're not going to respect that right anyway but that's okay because they won't know that you are carrying against their wishes, but property owners should have the right to limit your constitutional rights anyway.

I like to think that the reason Utah doesn't enforce those signs is because the state legislature understands that we have a right to carry that cannot be infringed upon by private property owners when they open their property up to the public. But I can see why that is debatable because of how other states have decided differently.

I'll refer back to my analogy of the fireman and the cat. If you want the cat out of the tree, how the fireman climbs the ladder is a trivial detail. I feel that if you want businesses to allow concealed carry, the wording of that part of the petition is trivial. The issue is already controversial, and though the legitimacy of this one sentence is clearly debatable, does it really completely invalidate the purpose of the petition if you really want the result it is trying to get?

[UnderratedF00l]

I guess your position confuses me because you say that property owners should have the right to limit your constitutional rights on their property, but when they post signs to exercise that right those signs should not be enforced by law, and you're not going to respect that right anyway but that's okay because they won't know that you are carrying against their wishes, but property owners should have the right to limit your constitutional rights anyway.

A couple of things:

1 -- Private property owners already have the right to limit Constitutional rights. It's been this way for a long, long time.
b -- It's not that I don't think they have a right to not allow me to carry a firearm, it's that I don't really care if they do or not. I literally just ignore the signs all together. If they catch me with it, there is no legal penalty for having on their property -- which, frankly, just encourages me to be armed more often -- and, If they ask me to leave, I will comply. However, concealed is concealed.
4 -- Yes, private property owners DO have the right to limit Constitutional rights.

While you certainly didn't use my words... yes, that is my position.

I like to think that the reason Utah doesn't enforce those signs is because the state legislature understands that we have a right to carry that cannot be infringed upon by private property owners when they open their property up to the public. But I can see why that is debatable because of how other states have decided differently.

Utah is following previous court precedence, not protecting your right to carry. Further, it's not just other states, but the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) that's ruled on the matters of private property rights vs the Bill of Rights countless times. Feel free to read some of the case law I've already linked.

The point is, this is really a dead issue. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean it's not factual.

I'll refer back to my analogy of the fireman and the cat. If you want the cat out of the tree, how the fireman climbs the ladder is a trivial detail. I feel that if you want businesses to allow concealed carry, the wording of that part of the petition is trivial. The issue is already controversial, and though the legitimacy of this one sentence is clearly debatable, does it really completely invalidate the purpose of the petition if you really want the result it is trying to get?

No, it certainly doesn't invalidate your proposal, but I don't think the issue is controversial... nor the wording trivial. SCOTUS has already ruled on the matter, and there's a mountain of case law that says your personal rights do not extend to another person's private property. I don't really see how it's a controversial topic, but is it trivial to provide incorrect information? I guess that's up to you.

As I said in an earlier post, I think that Utah has it as close to perfect as possible. Private property owners have the ability to restrict the right to carry as they wish, but the restrictions carry no weight of law. In my opinion, that's as close to a perfect balance as we can get.

All I'm suggesting is that you consider the weight of decades (literally, decades...) of rulings by Federal Courts and the Supreme Court of the United States in the wording of your petition. If any one of the companies you send this petition to decides to consider it, they're going to run it by their legal team first. If their legal team sees how you're attempting to blur the lines between private property rights and personal rights -- and doing so with inaccurate information -- they're probably going to be less likely to endorse it. I found the information I needed with 10 minutes of google-meditation. Do you think a really REAL legal team can find what is accurate and what's not?

If you want to petition businesses to allow lawful carry of firearms, by all means... I'm on board, but let's just provide them with accurate, up-to-date information when we do it.

[crwly]

Okay, I think I see better where you are coming from now. I wasn't able to check the links yesterday because I was on my phone. Since you make a very good point about the legal perspective of that statement and the precedence set by the Supreme Court, I have gone ahead and reworded it.

Thanks for the insight.

[medicblue]

Signed it

[Snurd]

Only 43 signatures so far.

[crwly]

Yeah. It kinda tapered off. I'm hoping that it's just because it's the weekend. I've set the deadline for November 5th and will submit it as long as I get at least 200 signatures. The goal of 1,000 is just to make sure I can get as many as possible. In the meantime I'll look for ways to better promote it on Facebook without just annoying my friends, and look for more related news stories to mention it in the comments. If anyone else has any ideas for what I could do I'd definitely welcome the input!

[Snurd]

I chucked it on my FB page.


(Sent from iSnurd)

[crwly]

Thank you!

[SAMI]

Some of YOUR rights end at the beginning of MY property. Why should this be the same for private property from a business standpoint? It's their property, they can prohibit firearms if they like. Do I agree with it? Nope. YOU have the option to patronize another theater, or other place to spend your money and be entertained.

[crwly]

Some of YOUR rights end at the beginning of MY property. Why should this be the same for private property from a business standpoint? It's their property, they can prohibit firearms if they like. Do I agree with it? Nope. YOU have the option to patronize another theater, or other place to spend your money and be entertained.

I do think that some of my rights should be protected when a property owner opens their property to the general public. But regardless of that I'm not telling them that they cannot prohibit firearms on their property, I'm asking them not to and asking others to join me in asking. We have a right to petition their business, that doesn't mean the business is being forced to change their policy. It's a simple show of support for the right to carry in the hope that they will change their mind. That's pretty reasonable.

I do exercise the option of patronizing other theaters, and will continue to do so unless they change their policy. However, the only theaters that have IMAX have policies that prohibit the lawful carry of firearms on their premises. So I'd like to ask them to change that policy so that those of us who respect their property rights and go elsewhere can take our business there and enjoy that particular kind of movie theater.

A petition isn't a confrontation or an attempt to force someone to do something. It's just supposed to express the wishes of a group of people in the hope that the recipient will see the amount of people that would like them to make a change. They then have the option of changing their policy if they think that it might benefit them to do so. If a business that prohibits lawful carry realizes that they are losing a significant amount of money because of that, they can choose to change it and possibly increase their revenue.

If YOU think a petition is inappropriate then YOU don't have to sign it. But please don't act as though a petition is some kind of violation of anyone's rights.

[althor]

If YOU think a petition is inappropriate then YOU don't have to sign it. But please don't act as though a petition is some kind of violation of anyone's rights.

I don't think that anybody is.


Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

[UnderratedF00l]

If YOU think a petition is inappropriate then YOU don't have to sign it. But please don't act as though a petition is some kind of violation of anyone's rights.

I don't think that anybody is.

Agreed.

No one is saying your petition is inappropriate, Crwly. Sami is just trying to point out that your Constitutional protections do not extend to private property -- and he's right, even though you may not agree with it. You don't have Constitutional protections on another individual's property.

[Daeyel]

Crwly, you seem to be having trouble placing the Constitution within its proper context. I will try to put it in another way for you.

Simply put, the Constitution is a social contract between you, and the government. It tells you what the government cannot do.
It cannot tell you what you can and cannot say. It cannot tell you you cannot bear arms. It cannot barge into your house and look through your underwear unless a judge says they have a good reason for doing so. And so on. It also stipulates what the government will do for you, namely, provide for your defense, and general welfare. I have the same contract with the government. So does every American citizen.

This contract does not apply between you and me. I can tell you what to say and what not to say - on my property. I can tell you whether or not you can have a firearm - on my property. I can look through your underwear drawer - on my property. (This may be important when dealing with teenagers!)

If you try to pull your Constitutional contract out on me when I limit you in any way, I am merely going to scoff at it and inform you that I am not a signatory on that contract. I am neither you, nor the Government.

The contract that exists between you and me is contained in the federal, state, and local legal code. These consist the social contract between us. And that contract explicitly says I can control all manner of conduct on my property, speech, behavior and firearms. Your options are to comply, or depart. In fact, I can even forgo compliance, and demand that you depart. Such is the scope of my power, and your powerlessness, on my property. King of mine own castle, indeed!

Now we get to the stickiest portion, contracts between corporations and government, and between citizens and corporations.
The Supreme Court took a cop-out* and decided the easiest (though certainly not proper!) way to deal with the issue, is to treat a corporation as a person. Therefore, the same social contract exists between you and a corporation as exists between you and I. Thus, the corporation has the same right to restrict your behavior and conduct and speech on their property as I do on mine, and you on yours.


* In defense of the Court, however, can you think of any other way they could have ruled that did not immediately throw our legal system into disarray?

I hope this helps you understand that businesses need not concern themselves with Constitutional rights, and instead worry about the proper contract between the two of you - the law. For instance, this contract says they cannot refuse to serve you because of color, race, religion, marital status, etc etc. There are hundreds of other rules in this contract, some directly applicable, some not.