Gun Advocates Won't Consider Conflicting Rights
By JOSHUA HORWITZ and CASEY ANDERSON
Published: Oct 21, 2005
The National Rifle Association likes to say that the Second Amendment is America's first freedom because the right to bear arms protects all of our other rights.
The NRA's latest maneuvers in Florida, however, suggest it is ready to sacrifice our other rights whenever they come into conflict with their expansive view of the right to carry and use guns.
This month a new NRA- backed law took effect in Florida that allows individuals who reasonably believe they see a serious crime in progress to use deadly force to confront the aggressor, even if the crime could be stopped simply by calling the police or leaving the scene. The NRA has portrayed the law as a necessary protection for law- abiding citizens who may face criminal charges or civil lawsuits simply for trying to defend themselves or someone else.
The NRA is now turning its attention to pushing a bill that would prohibit private employers from banning guns in the workplace, or at least in employer-owned parking lots. Passage of a similar law in Oklahoma prompted ConocoPhillips to go to court in an effort to keep guns off its property.
Nobody can be sure whether Florida's make-my-day law will produce many cases of reckless vigilantism, and it's impossible to say whether the guns-at-work statute will lead to a substantial increase in workplace violence. What's beyond doubt, though, is that expanding gun rights has come at the expense of other fundamental rights.
The rights guaranteed by the Constitution include the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial. It is one thing to uphold the right to self-defense (as Florida law did well before the make-my- day statute was adopted) and another thing entirely to encourage vigilantes, as the new law does, to take the law into their own hands even when violent confrontation can be avoided.
For example, if a bystander with a gun mistakes an undercover police officer attempting to subdue a suspect for a criminal committing an assault, the new law gives the bystander a green light to shoot first and ask questions later.
If the guns-at-work bill passes, private employers will no longer be free to decide whether their workplaces are safer without guns, violating their right to set basic rules for their employees.
Every employer has had to deal with disgruntled employees and workplace safety issues, and some - like ConocoPhillips - operate highly sensitive facilities such as oil refineries, chemical factories or nuclear plants. These employers should be entitled to decide for themselves whether to allow employees to bring guns to work.
What's happening in Florida speaks to a broader problem: For all of its talk about defending civil rights, the NRA has little respect for any rights that might be in tension with pervasive and unaccountable ownership and use of firearms. The danger of this vision is not so much that it will lead to more violence, but that it brings us closer to a society where everyone is armed and nobody is really free.
Joshua Horwitz and Casey Anderson are lawyers for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington.
