TEXAS: Gov. Sign Guns In Employers Parking Lot Bill

[GreenStormCloud]

http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/NewsReleases.aspx?ID=15241

Gov. Rick Perry Signs Legislation Protecting Texas Workers’ Right to Self-Defense

Fairfax, Va. – Governor Rick Perry signed a National Rifle Association backed measure that allows employees to store legally owned firearms in their locked, privately owned motor vehicles while parked at workplace parking lots into law.

“I’d like to thank Gov. Perry for signing this bill and for recognizing that a worker’s individual and constitutional right to self-defense does not end when they drive onto their employer’s property,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director, NRA Institute for Legislative Action. “This common-sense effort has been a top legislative priority for the NRA, because it is good public policy that provides workers with a means of viable self defense while commuting between their homes, their workplace and anywhere in-between.”

Senate Bill 321 prohibits employers from adopting and enforcing policies against employees who safely and lawfully store a firearm in their privately owned, locked vehicle while on an employer’s parking lot. This includes concealed handgun licensees who carry their firearm during their commute to and from work for personal protection, Texas sportsmen who hunt before or after work and competitive and recreational shooters who stop at the local shooting range before heading home for the day. The effective date of this legislation is September 1, 2011.

“Thanks to Governor Perry and bill sponsors Sen. Glenn Hegar and Rep. Tim Kleinschmidt, Texans now have the option to have a firearm in their car for self-defense, for recreational pursuits after work or for any other lawful purpose,” concluded Cox.

Another win for gun rights. During the next session in 2013 we will be back to get concealed carry on campus and maybe open carry for CHL holders.

[sharesunited]

1. Texas, home of the Guns Galore store? Fort Hood and Luby's shootings.

Draw and fire first with the most bullets and you get the high score.

[Bold Lib]

10. Odd that you mention the Fort Hood and Luby's incident. They happened in a GUN FREE ZONE.

But you knew that didn't you.

On edit: I'll let a witness to the Luby's incident tell it in her own words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f12XrQ6H0Og

[rl6214]

12. Fort Hood and Lubys shootings, gun free zones where no one

could protect themselves. That's the place, where concealed carry is now legal and we can defend ourselves. Why are you so against self defense? Why do you protect and defend the criminals? Why do you want the children to die at the hands of the criminals?

Why, why, why?

[sharesunited]

21. The horror begins with the gun in both of those incidents.

And your answer is more of the same poison?

Let's revisit the definition of insanity, shall we?

[rl6214]

27. I would say insanity is hiding behind a table and begging

not to be shot like you would do.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

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[Bold Lib]

36. Right, soldiers should not have any access to guns. Do you actually

read what you are posting? It is every free man's RIGHT to defend them self. You may want to look that one up. Why would you deny the weak, old, or infirm the MOST AFFECTIVE means of self defense?

[lawodevolution]

14. Yep you pointed out two gun free zone shootings.

[Hoyt]

2. Glad all those who can't leave home without a gun can feel "safer" and complete at work.

[spin]

9. I remember a co-worker who successfully stopped an attack ...

with his 9mm pistol while on his way to work.

He had managed to anger another driver. They both stopped at an intersection for a red light. My co-worker had a car in front and beside him and on the passenger side of his car was a deep hurricane ditch.

The aggressive driver left his vehicle and approached my co-worker's car with a tire iron in his hand. My co-worker drew his 9mm pistol and placed his hand with the weapon on his steering wheel. When the road raged individual looked through the driver's window and noticed the firearm, he turned and walked back to his car.

One nasty situation successfully resolved without violence. My co-worker told me that he would have just drove off but he was blocked in.

A person probably will never have a legitimate reason to use a firearm that's in their car in the employee parking lot while they are work. They may need a firearm for self defense during the drive to and from work.

I started carrying a firearm with me to work when I was on the graveyard shift and a number of "bump and rob" incidents had happened in my neighborhood. That was years ago before I retired but criminals still use the tactic in Florida.

Recent 'bump and rob' cases turn more violent
Two men rear-ended by armed robbers early on Thursday, then shot
May 19, 2011|By Wayne K. Roustan, Sun Sentinel

The latest in a recent rash of "bump-and-rob" incidents in Palm Beach County turned more violent early Thursday.

Within 30 minutes, one man was shot in Delray Beach and a second man was shot and robbed in West Palm Beach, police said.

***snip***

The suspects are typically driving a stolen vehicle when they bump the back of the victim's vehicle. When the victims get out to check for damage, they are robbed at gunpoint of their cell phones, purses and other valuables, investigators said.

Many times it happens at night on quiet residential streets, where there is little or no traffic and few witnesses, Olsen said.
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-05-19/news/fl-bump-and-shoot-robbers-20110519_1_bump-and-rob-west-palm-beach-police-suv-shot

[rl6214]

13. Fixed it for you

Glad all those who don't leave home without a gun can feel "safer" and complete at work.

[slackmaster]

3. OMG! What horrors await Texans as they descend down the slippery slope of automotive privacy?

Will employers be forced to accept PORNOGRAPHY in their workers' locked vehicles?

[DrDan]

4. why stop there - if they are legal in parking lots, why not in the workplace

what could go wrong?

[slackmaster]

5. The argument in favor of making them legal in cars is based on privacy

Your locked car is your personal space; an extension of your home regardless of where it's parked.

The seat you fart into at work and the cubicle walls around it typically belong to someone else.

[DrDan]

6. so if the gun were concealed . . . . is that not "personal space"?

or even simply hanging on one's belt- is that not "personal space"?

or slung over a shoulder?

[gejohnston]

7. there is a difference between legal "personal space" and

cultural personal space. I am guessing on some level you realize that and just wanted to see how someone would respond.

[slackmaster]

8. If you can't see any difference between a firearm carried on one's person and one locked in a car...

...then I lack the patience that would be required of someone willing to help you understand the issue.

[GreenStormCloud]

19. A lot could go right with armed employees.

Consider the recent armed employee at Walgreen's. When I used to work alone as night cashier at a C-store I kept a Kel-Tec P3AT in my pocket. I choose that gun because it didn't print at all. I had decided that I would not get into a gunfight over the companies' money but if the thug made me think that I was going to get hurt anyway then I would go down fighting.

[Straw Man]

42. "What could go wrong."

The epitome of meaningless, hackneyed snark.

[rl6214]

11. Nice, well done.

[lawodevolution]

15. Awesome. This pro gun law will effect me.

Power to the people

[GreenStormCloud]

18. Both the place I work and where my wife works ban guns in cars.

It is in both of our employee mauals. However, the managers have never searched any cars. Neither my wife nor I have mentioned the guns we have in the cars to our bosses. DADT has been the unofficial policy. Even with this bill we will remain silent to our bosses about guns.

[Logical]

16. My company requires you to notify them that a gun is in the car. n-t

[lawodevolution]

17. It passed and was signed on the 4th session it was introduced into which means 8 years

So now you understand the future of CHL on campus. It will also pass but like any bill in Texas it takes a while.

[nichomachus]

20. One more reason to avoid Texas.

[DonP]

23. Stick around, I'm sure someone will give you a list of other states to avoid

Oh, wait! 48, soon to be 49 states allow some form of concealed carry.

I guess you'll just have to come to Illinois to feel safe. The streets of Chicago are a gun free paradise for people like you. Come on down!

Or was that supposed to be a snarky, sarcastic comment that failed dismally from ignorance of facts?

[gejohnston]

24. corporate power over the individual rights, how progressive of you. n/t

[gejohnston]

25. You don't visit Vermont much do you?

[rl6214]

30. Yeah, stay out

We don't want you here.

[PavePusher]

37. Don't be a bigot. It makes others puke. n/t

[ileus]

22. Another good reason to find a job in Texas...

[GreenStormCloud]

26. Easier to find a job here. 40% of the nations new jobs are created in Texas. N/T

[DanTex]

31. Plus, far fewer "anti-business" annoyances like unions and healthcare benefits...

I'm used to seeing right-wing arguments about guns, but the "Texas economic miracle"? Really?

Right-wing gun policy and right-wing economic policy go hand in hand.

It's one thing to celebrate the right-wing gun laws. But let's not let CCW-fueled pro-Texanism blind us to the reality of what the right-wing economic policies are actually accomplishing. I'll hand this one off to Paul Krugman.

Part of the answer is that reports of a recession-proof state were greatly exaggerated. It’s true that Texas job losses haven’t been as severe as those in the nation as a whole since the recession began in 2007. But Texas has a rapidly growing population — largely, suggests Harvard’s Edward Glaeser, because its liberal land-use and zoning policies have kept housing cheap. There’s nothing wrong with that; but given that rising population, Texas needs to create jobs more rapidly than the rest of the country just to keep up with a growing work force.

And when you look at unemployment, Texas doesn’t seem particularly special: its unemployment rate is below the national average, thanks in part to high oil prices, but it’s about the same as the unemployment rate in New York or Massachusetts.

...

Yet Mr. Perry wasn’t lying about those “tough conservative decisions”: Texas has indeed taken a hard, you might say brutal, line toward its most vulnerable citizens. Among the states, Texas ranks near the bottom in education spending per pupil, while leading the nation in the percentage of residents without health insurance. It’s hard to imagine what will happen if the state tries to eliminate its huge deficit purely through further cuts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/opinion/07krugman.html

[gejohnston]

32. So Vermont is even more right wing than Texas? Learn something new

everyday. Hate to break it to you, but the gun laws that you are defending were right wing anti union 100 years ago. Of course, you won't believe it until until VPC puts it in a press release.

[DanTex]

33. Yes, your ideas do seem to be pretty much 100 years out of date...

Come to think of it, missing out on the last 100 years of knowledge would really explain a lot of the strange things you have been saying. Hmm....

Next we'll be hearing about how the Republicans are the "party of Lincoln".

Meanwhile, back in 2011, right-wing nuts like Rick Perry are passing right-wing laws...

[gejohnston]

34. right wing laws that they passed back then

I take it you did not read closely. I noticed that is your habit.

[gejohnston]

35. While Krugman is correct, but this is a case of

putting the individual above corporate power. It will be his only case, most likely, but it is an exception to right wing core values (profits above people, individuals to serve the corporation and state, people are basically bad so they need the power of the church and crown to keep the unwashed masses in line.)

[jpak]

38. GOP moran Rick Perry signs stupid GOP/NRA gun bill

the RW suckage parade marches on

yup

[Bold Lib]

39. Too bad there was not a Democrat to sign it. But the people of Texas are just as happy.

Need I remind you again of the Ann Richards saga?

[lawodevolution]

44. Ann Richards really screwed up.

Bush signed concealed carry in Texas and then became president of the US. Take note.

There's a californian republican politician that pretty much shot down his chance of ever being president. Who am I talking about?

[rl6214]

40. Yeah, the parade keeps on marching and you are at the back

49-1 now for concealed carry vs no carry. Your side is losing in case you hadn't noticed.

[lawodevolution]

41. It's the backlash, Moran

[Bold Lib]

43. I think you are closer to the truth than most will admit.

For decades the anti's have had the momentum and the "moral high ground". The truth has been coming out now for the last 10-15 years and people are not buying their bilge any more. The "gun issue" is getting anti's tossed out of office and our party needs to come around to what the people want. We really need to get the assault weapon ban pulled from the party platform.