No Gun Sign - Taken Down at Hospital

[TexasJustice7]

I want to update my posting earlier on this forum regarding the No Gun Sign at a civilian hospital that was not the required 30.06 sign. I had planned to identify the hospital if they did put up legal signs. I had occasion to speak with the same person about an unrelated person, so I asked her what did they ever decide regarding the No Gun Sign. [ She said they took it down!

She indicated that the legal signs required by Texas are too big and they decided not to put them up. I was not contacting her about the sign but when I called her about a problem relating to an ER visit there recently it turned out to be the same lady. I am speculating that probably some doctors there do not want a legal sign put up. I think in the future if I see such a sign I just will ignore it rather than ask any questions, unless it is the legally required 30.06 sign. And I will carry unless I am informed or asked not to in which case I would just find another medical provider where I can carry. I have decided not to identify the hospital since I think the current situation is perfect.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Congratulations on making some small inroads for the local Second Amendment community! The whole "Think globally, act locally" concept at work.

[KMAX]

Sounds like freedom and justice have may have prevailed, even if it was by fluke.

[serf 'rett]

Thumbs up!

I detest having to return to my vehicle after seeing one of those signs.

[Frank Ettin]

Not really Tactics and Training, however.

[jrothWA]

the proverb: "better to use honey, than vinegar, for catch flies."

or for the TR advocates: "walk softly and carry a big stick"

Remember we are not the occupy wall street crowd!



GOOD JOB!

[LordTio3]

Fantastic. You should write them a letter telling them how much you appreciate it. Establishments that openly respect our rights publicly should hear from happy citizens just as often as oppressive extablishments hear our dissatisfaction. I think it would help grease the wheels on the attitudes of new businesses.

Thanks for the update. It added to my good day.

~LT

[BGutzman]

Its always nice when lawful citizes are legally allowed to carry where criminals carry at will...

I think places that ban you from carry should be legally liable and criminally liable for your protection if they do no allow the legal carry of firearms...

[WyMark]

I'm pretty sure someone will take this the wrong way, but I've got my flame retardant knickers handy, so flame away.

I fully support 2A and RKBA, but I also firmly believe in property rights, and I happen to think that my property rights trump your 2A rights every time.

Whether it's my house or my business, it's my property. If I say no CCW or no guns period on my property, then just don't come on my property in violation of my rights as a property owner and my wishes w/r/t the use of my property. If you do, you're trespassing.

And if you don't respect my property rights, how are you any better or different than OWS or any other trespasser?

Not looking to start a big flame war, just honestly confused about the apparent dichotomy every time the "no ccw" signs issue is raised.

[MTT TL]

But without a sign the hospital will be completely unprotected!!!

[MLeake]

WyMark, your theoretical business would get spanked if it barred blacks, Asians, or Sicilians from entering, assuming it were open to the general public otherwise.

Why should racial and ethnic protections be held more important than 2nd Amendment protections?

Just to play devil's advocate, as I'm on the fence on this one...

[Frank Ettin]

Remember that there are laws specifically prohibiting businesses open to the public from discriminating against persons on certain specified bases. Having gun is not one of those bases. A business may legally exclude an armed citizen.

[WyMark]

Because I'm not the government, so I don't have to respect your 1A or 2A rights. I'm free to impede the free exercise of religion, abridge the freedom of speech, infringe on the freedom of the press, and interfere with the right to peaceably assembly to my hearts content. Likewise I can infringe on your right to keep and bear arms if I so choose, on my property.

I may or may not get spanked for it, but that would depend to some extent on the nature of the business I own. I really doubt that a "No Guns" sign would hurt Whole Foods too much, but it sure wouldn't help a place like Home Depot.

[MLeake]

fiddletown, I do realize that. I am saying that on a moral or philosophical basis, there should be no such distinction.

WyMark, note fiddletown's comments. No, you aren't the government; however, businesses open to the public still have additional legal burdens, as compared to private residences or clubs. They don't enjoy full 1st Amendment protections, with regard to treatment of protected classes.

[MTT TL]

You know, when I first read the title my mind went elsewhere.

Good to see a happy ending.

[Brian Pfleuger]

I'm with WyMark on this one. On private property, only "innate" qualities are protected.

Speech is not protected on private property. Religion is not protected. Being black is protected because you can't "turn it off" and on. No matter what you might want to say on my property, you can "turn it off" if I tell you it's not allowed.

Now, I do think it's unwise and ill informed for businesses to ban lawful firearms. I can and have boycotted them for so doing (Chuck E Cheese). But, it is their right... as much as it is mine to boycott them for so doing.

[MLeake]

Innate qualities... such as the universal (for aetheists) or God-given (for others) right to life, liberty, and self-defense, that each person has?

Remember, the point of the Constitution was that the Bill of Rights were based on innate, inherent rights that were endowed by a power higher than that of the government.

If that isn't innate, then what is?

Conversely, schizophrenia and pedophilia are probably innate qualities, but nobody is going to protect those.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Being a certain "race" (I hate the word race. There is only one race.) or gender are innate.

Religion, and I am deeply "religious", is not.

Carrying a particular type of weapon is not.

I can't deny you your right to defend yourself. I can only control what you bring onto my property.

You can't bring signs that say nasty things, no matter that you have freedom of speech.

You can't come to my business and convert everyone to MLeake-ism because I don't allow it, no matter that you have freedom of religion.

You can't put on a press badge and nose around looking for stories, no matter that you have freedom of the press.

Firearms and weapons are no different. They're not "innate". There was a time when they did not exist.

Self defense is the innate right. I can't take that from you. Guns are not "innate". They are an invention and they are not the only, or even necessarily the best, way for you to defend yourself.

I can preclude them from my property.

Further, you are not required to be on my property. Just like I boycotted Chuck E Cheese and go elsewhere, so can you. Doesn't matter if I'm a car dealer, pizza shop, car repair or bowling alley. You can boycott me and go somewhere else or no where at all.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by MLeake

Innate qualities... such as the universal (for aetheists) or God-given (for others) right to life, liberty, and self-defense, that each person has?

Remember, the point of the Constitution was that the Bill of Rights were based on innate, inherent rights that were endowed by a power higher than that of the government....

So tell it to your legislature(s). Any change will need to come by way of a change in the law.

In the meantime, you might reflect on the fact that in some States, at least, recognizing a property owner's or business' right to exclude folks with guns was part of the trade off for "shall issue" in the first place.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Some points:

1. Religion is not innate but a free choice.

2. I have yet to see a business owner protest on property rights issues the need to have a toilet for staff and customers or the need to keep the food at a safe temperature.

3. If there is one thing that is innate, it is the right to protect your life. In another debate on shooting to protect your property, I summarized the common legal view that the bad guy's right to life trumped your right to protect your property. That is unless protecting your property also entailed a real and immediate threat to life

4. So why is it that the property owner, who accepts that he can't have unsafe food in his restaurant, not accept that you have the right to protect yourself? Life trumps property.

5. Fiddletown is correct. Businesses feared the liability risk of a defensive shooting on their property somehow costing them a buck. They don't give a whatever about civil liberties in most contexts. It is only the money, but they use it to get the business is my castle crowd all hot and bothered. Suckered.

6. Property bans were and are an explicit strategy by antis to make carry such a pain to be useless.

7. Why do property owners want my taxes to protect them with police, etc. if they deny me the right to protect themselves? BTW, property owners means to me those who open a business to the public. Protect yourself on your own dime.

8. I totally agree that the rationale that prevents discrimination on race, religion, national origin, etc. clearly should include the right to protect oneself.

9. Legislation is needed for such protection. In TX, we passed the parking lot bill with businesses screaming all over. Businesses that fired their American works and brought in folks from overseas to replace them - all hail their respect for American rights.

[WyMark]

This may be the first time I've ever clicked into a thread on this site when the last poster was Glenn, and his post didn't end in "closed".

As a property owner (just theoretically in your context, I don't own a business) I pay taxes too. Property taxes, sales taxes, workers comp, unemployment, etc. etc. I have a right to expect some basic level of protection from the police/local LE. If I feel the need to protect myself or my business/employees/customers I can arm myself, my employees or even hire off duty police as armed guards.

I still have the right, as it is my property, to prohibit weapons if I so choose. If you choose to not to patronize my business because you feel unprotected, then we have reached a working agreement and the free market reigns supreme. It may or may not be the best business decision, but it's my right to make it.

[Frank Ettin]

What we basically have is the rubbing together of two important rights -- property rights and the right to self defense. We can argue forever, without hope of resolution, over the question of whether one or the other has, in some cosmic sense, a natural priority.

In a political world, when two rights conflict, it will be up to legislatures to decide priority. Some States have enacted laws prohibiting employers from enforcing "no guns" policy with respect to guns locked in cars parked by employees on company property. A few State, I believe, prohibit a landlord from including a "no guns" clause in a residential lease. But other States have, at least in some respects, given the nod to property rights.

If you live in a State in which you don't like the law, you have an opportunity to work through your local RKBA organizations to try to change it.

[MLeake]

Luckily, the state I live in has a compromise with which I can live: With exceptions, posted properties only matter if 1) the owner or his agent notices the weapon, and 2) I refuse to leave if asked to do so.

At which point, the first infraction results in a fine.

As a matter of principle, though, I normally go with the "take my business elsewhere" approach advocated by peetzakilla and WyMark. I don't always do this, though, as sometimes it's impractical. (And since it's a matter of conflicting principles, I don't feel hypocritical about making it a judgement call.)

"Sorry honey, I won't go Christmas shopping with you, because the only shopping center in town is posted." Doesn't really cut it.

Ironically, there was a shooting by an unlawful carrier at one of the nearby malls shortly after Christmas. Unlawful as in under age, and felon... Good thing the mall was posted...

[Glenn E. Meyer]

When one says it is one's right to do X, Y or Z - as Fiddletown mentioned - there is no cosmic law of physics that determines your view of rights is correct. It is merely your opinion that is in enforce by the societal contract within which you live.

Thus, legislation is need to enforce my correct view of rights over your incorrect view of rights.

Again, you do not have absolute control over your property. You have the control granted to you by the societal contract where you reside. Absolute control of property is not unalienable and universal as a natural right in most places. However, the right to defend yourself would be considered as such by most (except in certain states and by certain senators! ).

Closed because I have the right - Hahaha - just kidding!

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

...Absolute control of property is not unalienable and universal as a natural right in most places. However, the right to defend yourself would be considered as such by most...

The devil is, and a thing that continues to befuddle and infuriate me, that there is not universal acknowledgement and acceptance of the right of self defense.

See, for example, Armed by Gary Kleck and Don Kates (Prometheus Books, 2001). On pages 116 - 121, they discuss various liberal, moral objections to the notion that one may be justified to defend himself.

Feminist Betty Frienden is cited as denouncing the trend of women to arm themselves for self defense as, "...a horrifying, obscene perversion of feminism...." Her ridiculous notion that , "...lethal violence even in self defense only engenders more violence and that gun control should override any personal need for safety...." is probably widely held in liberal circles. Indeed, according to Kleck and Kates, Mario Cuomo avowed that Bernie Goetz was morally wrong in shooting even if it was clearly necessary to resist felonious attack.

Kleck and Kates also report that an article was published by the Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church condemning defensive gun ownership. In the article, Rev. Allen Brockway, editor of the board's magazine, advised women that it was thier Christian duty to submit to rape rather than do anything that might imperil the attacker's life.

Kleck and Kates also note that the Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.) has taken a strict anti-self defense view. Rev. Kathy Young testified as a representative of that group before a Congressional Panel in 1972 in support of handgun control that the Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.) opposes the killing of anyone, anywhere for any reason (including, in the context of the testimony, self defense)

While these positions appear to us to be nonsense, they have some following. Note, for example that self defense is not considered in many countries to be a good reason to own a gun. Indeed in Great Britain, the natural right of self defense has been significantly curtailed by law. For an excellent study of the erosion of gun and self defense rights in Great Britain see Guns and Violence, the English Experience by Joyce Lee Malcolm (Harvard University Press, 2002).

(However, the Roman Catholic Church takes a much more sensible view of things. Under its doctrine, one's life is a gift from God and one has a moral obligation to preserve it even if doing so means taking the life of an attacker. Unfortunately, as outlined by Kleck and Kates, this rational perspective is not universally accepted either.)