News Florida lawmakers pass take your guns to work law

[drankin]

I feel absolutely no need to carry a gun. I don't not feel that I live or drive in an unsafe place. Do the people here that feel they live in an unsafe place live in a dangerous inner city gang area? That's a relatively small portion of the US.

Evo, it dawned on me as I was driving back to Seattle from Spokane (300miles, I do this every weekend) that you might be thinking one feels they might need a gun to protect themselves while driving. This is not what I meant. I don't even think the police are allowed to fire their weapons while driving. That's extremely crazy and an unsafe use of a firearm. Maybe that isn't what you meant, but just in case...

Whether one feels they need to carry while going to and from work isn't so much the point. It's whether we have the ability of protecting ourselves in public or if our employer can determine that we cannot because he/she doesn't want them in their parking lots. Because we are in public before we get to work and in order to get home after work, it makes sense that those who are licensed to carry shouldn't be restricted by their employer during those times.

 

[drankin]

Yes, this is what I meant with a "cultural thing". Visibly it is important to many American citizens, as a principle, to have a gun. But to most Europeans, for instance, this sounds very bizarre (as most cultural differences do, I understand that). It must be some "liberty feeling" or something, which is totally absent in most European populations. I'm just guessing here, but I would think that most of my fellow citizens would bluntly *refuse* to have a gun even if one offered them one legally. Just as a matter of principle.

Of course, weaponry can be job-related, and police and security functions might require one to have a gun available, and can even provide for some real protection. Also, as I said, sometimes one can feel quite insecure, like when one is alone in a remote place, and having a weapon can, in certain cases, provide for extra (true or imagined) security.
But these are normally rare cases. Most of the time, there is no objective need for a gun. Personally, I prefer not having a gun, and knowing that my rather bizarre neighbour also doesn't have a gun. I tend to think that most of my fellow citizens think about the same, although this is guessing.



So this argument is rather: guns have only in rare occasions a *real* use, but we adhere to our right in principle to carry one. Ok, this is the cultural thing I talked about. Here it would rather be: I prefer not to have a gun, but if it is really necessary for my security, then I will, if I really have to, take one.



Personally, I'd prefer to pay a bit more taxes, and walk around in security, rather than pay a bit less taxes, and having to walk around armed, with the genuine risk of being shot every minute...

But we are mixing here apparently two totally different topics. One is a cultural thing, and is "we Americans, enjoy the right to carry guns, and we don't like to give it up, we feel naked without".
The other point, not much related to this, is: "there's a lot of insecurity, and police protection isn't adequate to protect me and my relatives ; I need to be armed to protect them, for real".

I would say, if I were in the second case, I would also carry, reluctantly, a gun, but I would prefer the situation to normalize, and to delegate physical protection to police forces, rather than do it myself. I am totally strange to the first case, but I can understand that this is different in the US.

Yep, that is a good objective view of it. It's a difference in cultural or our social environment.

 

[lisab]

I feel absolutely no need to carry a gun. I don't not feel that I live or drive in an unsafe place. Do the people here that feel they live in an unsafe place live in a dangerous inner city gang area? That's a relatively small portion of the US.

The few people I've known who are what I would call "rabid" gun people don't live in what I would consider dangerous areas, but they all seem to live with a generalized, vague fear of being a victim.

One guy in particular, a former coworker, was absolutely irrational about having his guns "taken away." He called in one day, saying he wasn't going to make it in. Turns out he heard a sound in his house in the middle of the night, so he grabbed his gun and spent the whole night slinking room to room looking for the boogeyman.

We all got a laugh comparing him to Elmer Fudd...what a dork.

 

[edward]

In Arizona a person can carry a weapon just about anywhere as long as it is in plain sight; In a holster, stuck in your belt, you name it.

Recently a state law maker came up with a guns on campus bill.

The lawmaker, State Senator Karen S. Johnson, has sponsored a bill, which the Senate Judiciary Committee approved last week, that would allow people with a concealed weapons permit — limited to those 21 and older here — to carry their firearms at public colleges and universities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/us/05guns.html

Since concealed carry is limited to those 21 and older I was wondering who was going to protect the underclassmen.

The law didn't pass, but the legislature did pass a law that allows a person without a concealed carry permit to have a gun concealed in a vehicle.

 

[drankin]

In Arizona a person can carry a weapon just about anywhere as long as it is in plain sight; In a holster, stuck in your belt, you name it.

Recently a state law maker came up with a guns on campus bill.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/us/05guns.html

Since concealed carry is limited to those 21 and older I was wondering who was going to protect the underclassmen.

The law didn't pass, but the legislature did pass a law that allows a person without a concealed carry permit to have a gun concealed in a vehicle.

That's unfortunate that students are required to be victims on an Arizona campus. If someone decides to initiate another massacre on a campus in Arizona, no one will be able to stop them.

 

[BobG]

Err... how often do citizens bust out their guns to stop a crime or to defend themselves?

How often do citizens fire their guns to defend themselves or to stop a crime?

It could very well be that simply pulling out a gun can end a conflict peacefully (i.e. someone trying to rob you, but runs away, someone assaulting someone else and runs away), but when shots are fired all hell could break loose. As far as I can tell, these incidents don't happen very often at all, so to draw any kind of conclusion from them would be hard.

Having someone know you have a gun before the situation develops can certainly defuse the situation, even if the other person has a gun. If the motivation is just money, a gun battle for the money isn't all that attractive of a proposition.

Having a potential victim pull out a cell phone can defuse the situation, as well, provided the situation hasn't developed very far. It doesn't take much time to dial 911 if a person feels sufficiently threatened.

If the other party has already drawn their gun, it's a little late for either option. If the other party has already assaulted you, even without a gun, it's a little late for either option since using a gun in that situation is going to be dangerous for both parties.

Of course, the other person wouldn't have near as much fear of trying to knock a cell phone out of your hand before you could dial 911 as they would of trying to knock a gun out of your hand before you could pull the trigger. So, a gun does have some benefit in self-defense, just not a lot. And, as you mentioned, these incidents only rarely occur in most places. The benefit of having a gun for self-defense is just very small.

How small is small enough is open to debate. I had my Jeep broken into just this weekend and I'd consider my neighborhood to be pretty safe, if you could call the first incident of any kind I've had in 8 years as pretty safe (in fact, one person or group of persons victimized quite a few vehicles in the neighborhood in one night).

 

[cristo]

That's unfortunate that students are required to be victims on an Arizona campus. If someone decides to initiate another massacre on a campus in Arizona, no one will be able to stop them.

Well, apart from the people you pay to uphold the law!

I just love the emotionally loaded comments that this sort of discussion brings. One can bet any money on any thread slightly related to gun ownership ending up in the "I want to carry a gun; it's my constitutional right" vs "You shouldn't carry a gun it's just asking for trouble" argument. :zzz: It's pretty dull hearing the same thing for the ninety-ninth time!

 

[wildman]

I'm not looking at this thread again and not answering any other input. However this is the input from my cousin who has been in law enforcement for quite a while:

"What I understood for a number of decades is that a person who buys a handgun (I do not remember it being other guns like rifles) is more likely to kill a dear one or innocent party (like a spouse coming home early from a business trip or a kid coming home unexpectedly late at night) than to kill a criminal inside their house. It has been a number of years since I read the latest stats, but that data held up for so long that I see no reason it would change now. The NRA denies it, but they haven't yet made a sound counter argument to my mind."

"Remember, the criminal is prepared to use lethal force without remorse or hesitation, "amateurs" aren't and that split second makes all the difference. When the homeowner brings a gun into the equation, the criminal will react with lethal force. If a gun is not brought into the equation, the criminal is more likely to flee. In a home invasion the homeowner very likely will have no time to arm himself."

"The NRA likes to publicize successful resistance by homeowners, but do you notice that they don't do that too often?"

"Unless stats have changed recently, homeowners are much more likely to kill some innocent with friendly fire than kill a criminal, but the NRA will never give on that point. Think of the remorse those fathers/mothers feel when they shoot their own children or spouse? It is very sad."

"We talked about this before at your house and there is one hell of a big difference between shooting at targets and panic shooting in a split second situation."

 

[NeoDevin]

Is anyone going to post an argument which is not subjective or anecdotal on this topic?

 

[drankin]

Is anyone going to post an argument which is not subjective or anecdotal on this topic?

Permit holders should not be restricted on campuses because they are already trusted to carry everywhere else. What makes a campus any different? It can only help. And there are documented cases where faculty and students have stopped school shootings. I'll dig up some sources.

Does that qualify?

 

[NeoDevin]

Once you find the sources supporting it. If you could find sources which list that alongside the number of times a permit holder was involved in such a shooting as well, that would be even better.

I don't actually have a strong opinion either way, I was just pointing out the (nearly) complete lack of facts presented in the last 5 pages of discussion here.

 

[Andre]

I remember reading "on aggression" of Konrad Lorentz

In short, his take is that aggression within the same is a normal element of the evolution, those who prevail pass on their genes. However if aggression amongst strongly armed species causes too many fatalities that's bad for the survival of the species too, therefore these species may get a build-in resistance to kill the opponent at the sight of surrender or alterrnatively the fights get symbolic, like a running contest.

When species are not equipped with deadly weapons, they have usually enough possibillity to flee, and that's enough for the winner. Those species don't need a build in restistence. He then gives an example that two doves in a cage, unable to fly away, may peck each other to death.

So in what category is a man with a gun?

 

[turbo]

Here is a fact sheet with sources and citations regarding gun deaths (not specifically related to concealed-carry, but to gun ownership, population growth and incident rates).

http://www.nraila.org/issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=120

* Firearm accident deaths have been decreasing for decades. Since 1930, their annual number has decreased 80%, while the U.S. population has more than doubled and the number of firearms has quintupled. Among children, such deaths have decreased 89% since 1975.
* Firearm accident deaths are at an all-time annual low, while the U.S. population is at an all-time high. Therefore, the firearm accident death rate is at an all-time annual low, 0.2 per 100,000 population, down 94% since the all-time high in 1904.
* Today, the odds are a million to one, against a child in the U.S. dying in a firearm accident.
* Firearms are involved in 0.6% of accidental deaths nationally. Most accidental deaths involve, or are due to, motor vehicles (39%), poisoning (18%), falls (16%), suffocation (5%), drowning (2.9%), fires (2.8%), medical mistakes (2.2%), environmental factors (1.2%), and bicycles and tricycles (0.7%). Among children: motor vehicles (45%), suffocation (18%), drowning (14%), fires (9%), bicycles and tricycles (2.4%), falls (2%), poisoning (1.6%),environmental factors (1.5%), and medical mistakes (0.8%).

 

[drankin]

Unfortunately, a great deal of people have an unreasonable, unsupportable bias regarding gun ownership. These same people have very little, if any, experience with guns. Not more than four years ago I shared the same view towards guns as many of you that find gun ownership unneccessary or unreasonable in our society.

And then one night my fiance at the time was chased from college campus several blocks to her car (she's frugal, parked off campus) after a late class. She is a small woman and thankfully she recognized the situation was able to get far away soon enough that nothing came of it. I bought my first gun and gave it to her to keep with her. I was then intrigued about the whole idea of owning a gun and studied up on it. I had very little experience prior. Since then I've had training, gotten a permit and carry regularly. I KNOW how to safely possesses and operate a firearm (there is always more to learn, of course) and have educated my children and often take them target shooting. This experience gives you a proper context to understand a persons rights and obligations concerning ownership. And you quickly begin to see how unreasonable and ignorant the bias that many folks have. Statistics alone show how insignificant guns are in comparison other dangers we contend with everyday.

I would encourage anyone here (of sound mind and maturity) to get themselves a pistol or rifle if for no other reason than to shoot for fun. You will quickly get a rational perspective on what it's about and what it's not about.

 

[daveb]

If the guy is coming at you with a gun and you fire in self defense without premeditation that's one thing, but if you get a gun and go after the guy, no matter how noble the cause, isn't that at least manslaughter?

This is an interesting point I've never heard in the whole gun debate. I know that self defense can be claimed if the person is threatening your own life, etc. But, in this case, if the person was able to get out to their car, they are obviously no longer in danger. Going back inside then means they are no longer acting in self defense.

 

[NeoDevin]

You seem to be making the assumption that everyone who carries a weapon is as smart about it as you. That every family does as much to educate their children. I don't know what the regulations are there (or here for that matter, not something I ever looked into), but I wouldn't count on your average gun owner to be much smarter than your average person, which is mildly disconcerting.

 

[drankin]

This is an interesting point I've never heard in the whole gun debate. I know that self defense can be claimed if the person is threatening your own life, etc. But, in this case, if the person was able to get out to their car, they are obviously no longer in danger. Going back inside then means they are no longer acting in self defense.

But, it is justifiable if you are defending others. Defending your own family members would be an obvious example, but you are justified in defending anyones life. You can kill someone who is trying to kill another. Don't even have to bring guns into the equation. The only way to defend yourself or anyone else against a gun toting bad guy, is with your own gun.

 

[daveb]

There are very few home-invasions in Maine because we have one of the highest rates of gun-ownership in the country.

That's a bold statement to attribute it to gun ownership. Do you have any studies that correlate the two? Perhaps other factors are the cause instead.

 

[drankin]

You seem to be making the assumption that everyone who carries a weapon is as smart about it as you. That every family does as much to educate their children. I don't know what the regulations are there (or here for that matter, not something I ever looked into), but I wouldn't count on your average gun owner to be much smarter than your average person, which is mildly disconcerting.

Gun owners are typically average people. Nothing to do with intelligence. But, you only hear about the stupid ones because that's what gets all the attention. It's the average owner who gets the bad rap because of the stupid folks. And the average makes the case that because there are stupid people with guns out there, all the more reason to not take ours away or unreasonably restrict them. This is why the idea of a permit is such a good one, we can distinguish between the average and the stupid.

 

[NeoDevin]

Provided the requirements for getting such a permit are sufficiently stringent.

 

[daveb]

Here's http://www.lectlaw.com/def/d030.htm" an interesting website that defines what self defense is and isn't. I particularly find this part interesting.

Secondly, if after having taken such proper precautions, a party should be assailed, he may undoubtedly repel force by force, but in most instances cannot, under the pretext that he has been attacked, use force enough to kill the assailant or hurt him after he has secured himself from danger; such as if a person unarmed enters a house to commit a larceny, while there he does not threaten any one, nor does any act which manifests an intention to hurt any one, and there are a number of persons present who may easily secure him, no one will be justifiable to do him any injury, much less to kill him

 

[turbo]

That's a bold statement to attribute it to gun ownership. Do you have any studies that correlate the two? Perhaps other factors are the cause instead.

It's common sense that if you want to burglarize a home, you would be hesitant about doing so in a state with 1.4 million guns (more than enough for every single resident). Though that 1.4M is the most commonly-cited figure, it is probably far too low because there are lots of families handing down lever-action hunting rifles, revolvers, shotguns, etc that are used for hunting and target practice and have been in the family for many years. It is not uncommon to see people out deer-hunting with Winchesters that are over 100 years old and nobody (except hardware store owners and gun companies) were counting gun sales back then.

Here is a study that concludes that states with shall-issue gun permit laws have lower overall crime rates, including burglaries. It also states in the conclusion that states that allow concealed carrying of handguns experience an increase in property crimes involving stealth, in which the possibility of the perpetrator confronting an armed victim is minimized. Bad guys are motivated by fear of getting shot and they modify their behavior.

http://hematite.com/dragon/Lott_ORDu.html

The results are large empirically. When state concealed handgun laws went into effect in a county, murders fell by 8.5 percent, and rapes and aggravated assaults fell by 5 and 7 percent. In 1992, there were 18,469 murders; 79,272 rapes; 538,368 robberies; and 861,103 aggravated assaults in counties without "shall issue" laws. The coefficients imply that if these counties had been subject to state concealed handgun laws, murders in the United States would have declined by 1,570. Given the concern that has been raised about increased accidental deaths from concealed weapons, it is interesting to note that the entire number of accidental gun deaths in the United States in 1992 was 1,409. Of this total, 546 accidental deaths were in states with concealed handgun laws and 863 were in those without these laws. The reduction in murders is as much as three times greater than the total number of accidental deaths in concealed handgun states. Thus, if our results are accurate, the net effect of allowing concealed handguns is clearly to save lives. Similarly, the results indicate that the number of rapes in states without "shall issue" laws would have declined by 4,177; aggravated assaults by 60,363; and robberies by 1,898. [26]

On the other hand, property crime rates definitely increased after "shall issue" laws were implemented. The results are equally dramatic. If states without concealed handgun laws had passed such laws, there would have been 247,165 more property crimes in 1992 (a 2.7 percent increase). Thus, criminals respond substantially to the threat of being shot by instead substituting into less risky crimes. [27]

 

[drankin]

Provided the requirements for getting such a permit are sufficiently stringent.

That is determined by the state of residence. All of which require actually going into a police station, getting fingerprinted and FBI background checked. This pretty much weeds out your typical wacko.

 

[lisab]

It seems this Florida law disregards the property owner's rights.

Of course citizens have a second amendment right to own a gun; I always thought their right stopped at my property line, though.

 

[drankin]

It seems this Florida law disregards the property owner's rights.

Of course citizens have a second amendment right to own a gun; I always thought their right stopped at my property line, though.

This is where there is a compromise. An employer cannot restrict the right of an individual to carry their firearm to and from work. If one cannot have their gun at work they wouldn't be able to have one getting to and from. It's a reasonable compromise that doesn't violate anyones right. No different than employer saying he doesn't want golf clubs on his property in my opinion. If it's in my vehicle, it's none of his concern.

 

[NeoDevin]

That is determined by the state of residence. All of which require actually going into a police station, getting fingerprinted and FBI background checked. This pretty much weeds out your typical wacko.

I was thinking of at the very least mandatory safety training, as well as available education for everyone in the family/household. Possibly also with a refresher exam or something every five years to ensure that everyone is still familiar with safety and regulations.

 

[drankin]

I was thinking of at the very least mandatory safety training, as well as available education for everyone in the family/household. Possibly also with a refresher exam or something every five years to ensure that everyone is still familiar with safety and regulations.

I believe most states require some training requirement as well, though my state does not. The state could certainly require this is if it shows to be an issue. Personally, I'd rather be responsible for my own education on my own time rather than have to jump through more hoops to make other people "feel" better to my expense.

 

[NeoDevin]

Not everyone will be as responsible about it as you are.

 

[drankin]

Not everyone will be as responsible about it as you are.

A reasonable compromise might be if the state ok'd a list of 3rd party training companies(which are generally better anyway) that could certify people. This would allow them to compete for the business via price and training times rather than having to schedule with a state run agency and pay that new beauracracy pig that's only open Saturdays at 7am pending available slots, etc. Take the burden off the state and it's taxpayers at the same time making the cost lower for better training at place that was designed for it. I'd be ok with that.

 

[NeoDevin]

As would I, as long as these 3rd parties were held to some standard in order to be able to certify people, and not just to the lowest bidder.