Lock and Load 2.0

Florida

Jeb Bush governor of Florida is about to sign a new law into effect that does away with the silly requirement to retreat when threatened. Hat tip to the NRA-ILA , and to Dummocrats.com. Previously there was (and still is in other states) an obligation under law (mallum en prohibitum) to retreat when faced with an aggressor, outside your home. Of course your first duty is to protect yourself and your family, which is to say that; should you resist an aggressor you might be guilty of violating some prohibition of law, but your higher obligation to protect yourself would not fail a higher moral test (mallum en se), that which is right in and of itself.

In ones home it is commonly held that the common law castle doctrine applies, "a mans home is his castle" and deadly force is warranted in the protection of same. Florida's law now extends castle doctrine to Floridians outside their homes. In other words, ones own body is their castle. Sounds good to me. Florida led the nation some years back by being among the first states to have "shall-issue" concealed carry sidearm permits. Hopefully other states will follow this "Stand Your Ground" legislation, as they have with Floridas "shall-issue" concealed carry permits. These shall issue permits are arguably responsible for saving many lives. To see if your state offers such a program you can go to the NRA-ILA webpage for gunlaws, a synopsis of each states gun laws is available here. If your state does not offer "shall-issue" concealed carry permits; move to one that does!

This is but a small battle in the political-cultural war to preserve liberty. And this is an important victory, especially if other states move forward as Florida has in codifying the castle doctrtine. From where I stand, it looks to me as though Florida has a very conservative and liberty minded set of legislative houses. Maybe next they shoud set about checking the Florida state courts (especially appellate) authority and jursidiction, as is within each the state legislatures authority to do. As was plainly demonstrated in the 2000 election debacle where the Florida supreme court almost Gore-Losered the whole country , and again recently with the Schiavo case, the Florida appellate courts could stand a good body-check, in the political sense. The legislatures, both federal and state have the authority to reign in out of control judiciary. Perhaps slashing their funding by half or three-quarters might serve to get their attention.

Oklahoma

Dummocrats.com also has this piece about Weyerhauser, that portrays a rampant anti-gun attitude prevalant in corporate America today. I have a good friend who has .38 caliber pistol that was issued to his grandfather by the company he worked for! Can you imagine such a scenario today? The legal department of any litigation sensitive corporation today would have a bloody fit. Needless to say, he does not carry it to work at his job with a major aerospace contractor.

Perhaps a more reasonable approach would be to say that if the employee can pass rigorous background checks by the employer, state and local law enforcement officials, and the FBI; obtain a state issued concealed carry permit. Demonstrate a high level of proficiency with the weapon, and thorough knowledge of appropriate use of deadly force, then that employee could carry a concealed weapon about on company property. In a post 11SEP01 world this does not seem so unreasonable. Having a competent armed citizen in the right place, at the right time can save lives and protect property. In the Dummocrats piece about Weyerhauser, it seems that company recently changed their policy and disallowed guns in employees cars on Wyerhauser parking lots, conducted searches with dogs then fired the offending employees.

So I pose the following question rhetorically, with the understanding that nobody is forced to work for Weyerhauser, or that they have to drive to or park on Weyerhauser property. But...

Does Weyerhauser now assume full responsibility and thus liabilty for the personal safety of their workforce as they transit to and from the workplace?

It seems to me that, given the very generous reading of contributory negligence doctrine we see today, that some enterprising litigation attorney might not now have cause to act should some employee be the unfortunate victim of violence in the course of their travels to and from the work place. I know there are attorneys who read this blog so if you have some thoughts, please sound feel free to sound off. -SpinDaddy