Judge: Florida Gun Law 'Odd' and 'Irrational'

"There is no constitutional right to bear arms on private property against the owner’s wishes.."

Florida Retail Federation v. Attorney General of Florida, No. Dist. of Fla. Case No. :08cv179-RH/WCS (July 28, 2008)

Yesterday, U.S. Northern Florida District Judge Robert Hinkle released a 39-page ruling [pdf alert] giving his preliminary views on the constitutionality of the new Florida Guns-at-Work law. The statute, which was to go into effect July 1, was drafted by Northwest Florida's village idiot, Durrell Peaden and passed by the legislature earlier this year.

The court's decision is "preliminary" because plaintiff, the Florida Retail Association, had asked for an injunction against the law pending a full trial on the merits. Essentially, the case pits the constitutional rights of property owners -- in this case, businesses -- against the constitutional right "to bear arms."

Most media news accounts are representing the ruling as a "draw." That is simply not true. Applying familiar principles of equal protection and due process of law to the language of Peaden's guns-to-work statute, the court's ruling essentially eviscerates all parts of the statute that would have changed prior state law.

To be sure, the judge did decide that the law is "valid to the extent it compels a Florida business to allow a worker — if he or she has a permit to carry a concealed weapon — to secure a gun in a vehicle in a parking lot." But as the judge also notes, that was the state of Florida law before Peaden began sucking up to the gun lobby.

"The only change the statute makes," the opinion concludes, "is that, if a business chooses to provide parking, the business may not keep guns from being secured in a vehicle. "

The more salient part of the ruling strikes at the core of the new statute because the judge holds that --

the statute is unconstitutional to the extent it compels some businesses but not others — with no rational basis for the distinction — to allow a customer to secure a gun in a vehicle.

As the judge's opinion notes, under prior law "private property owners in Florida had the unfettered right to ban members of the general public from bringing guns onto the property. *** [T]he decision whether to ban or allow guns rested with the property owner."

That remains the case today. Peaden's new law would have changed that only insofar as it attempted to extend the privilege of packing weapons while on the employer's premises to an "employee." But in defining who is an "employee" Peaden and his fellow gun-hugging legislators used words that "do not comport with ordinary English usage nor with the terms’ commonly applied legal definitions."

Instead, Peaden's statute defines an “employee” as --

a person “who possesses a valid license issued pursuant to s. 790.06”— that is, who has a valid Florida permit to carry a concealed weapon—and who is either an employee (as the term is ordinarily used) or an independent contractor or a volunteer. § 790.251(2)(c). The statute defines “employer” as a business in any form — including, for example, a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation— or public-sector entity “that has employees.” § 790.251(2)(d) (emphasis added). Thus a business is an “employer” as defined in the statute only if it has one or more workers who have a valid Florida concealed-carry permit.

The judge adds, "In plain, unambiguous language, the statute defines an 'employee' as a person with a valid Florida concealed-carry permit." That is an "odd" definition, he says with admirable understatement, but a court is powerless to re-write the law even if it leads to "absurd" results.

The logical result of Peaden's drafting is that "a business that does not have at least one worker with a concealed-carry permit is not subject to any of these provisions." In other words -- no surprise, here -- Durrell Peaden can't read or write well enough to draft a valid law.

Legally speaking, the court's opinion is most notable for recognizing that any constitutional "right to bear arms" applies, when at all, only against unreasonable governmental regulation:

[A] private business’s banning of guns on its own property plainly is not unconstitutional; there is no constitutional right to bear arms on private property against the owner’s wishes. [emphasis added]

Politically speaking, the court also found evidence that the "real world" effect of Peaden's law is negligible.

[C]ommon sense conclusions might lead a reasonable legislator to conclude that allowing workers with concealed-carry permits to keep guns in business parking lots would have either a small net positive or small net negative effect on overall public safety.

It would "rarely make any difference at all," the court concludes.

That should concern Durrell Peaden's constituents, in this time of rising prices and unemployment alongside plunging house prices and tight credit.

"What is Peaden doing in Tallahassee," they may well ask, "wasting time on laws that have a 'negligible' effect while back here in the 'real world' we are suffering an economic crisis?"