Hawkeye's Blog

Prepared by the National Rifle Association of America and the Unified Sportsmen of Florida.

July 31, 2008

The Florida Chamber of Commerce and The Florida Retail Federation argued for three years that business owners had an absolute right to control their employees. That’s why they kept calling it the,

"Take-Your-Guns-to-Work" legislation.

They claimed they could search employee vehicles and ban firearms from those vehicles in the employer’s parking lot.

When the argument came up about CUSTOMERS’ rights under the law,, They claimed businesses didn’t care if customers had guns in cars, they only cared about their right to control employees.

When the legislature passed the law protecting the rights of workers, The Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Retail Federation filed a lawsuit in federal court asking the Court to throw out the law.

They argued that the law requiring businesses to allow guns in vehicles in their parking lots constituted an unconstitutional "taking" of their property.

In court, the federal judge ruled against them – THEY LOST.

They argued that OSHA regulations require them to provide a safe work environment for their workers, which required them to ban guns in parking lots to comply with OSHA requirements.

In court, the federal judge ruled against them . – THEY LOST.

They argued that, as employers, they had an absolute right to control the conduct of their employees and could ban guns from employee vehicles in company parking lots while employees were at work.

In court, the federal judge ruled against them – THEY LOST.

Those are the three points argued by the Chamber and the Retail Federation.