THE GUN POINTED @ AOL

Three former Utah-based employees of America Online have sued their
ex-employer for firing them. The issue this time, however, is not one of
sexual harassment, age discrimination, or some other cause dear to the
hearts of statists everywhere. No, this trio of angry men received their
pink slips after daring to carry ? and leave ? pistols and rifles in the
vehicles they had driven to work and parked in a lot leased by AOL.

Ron Kramer ? one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, Luke Hansen,
Jason Melling, and Paul Carlson ? is not seeking to void AOL’s right to
determine workplace rules. As quoted in an online Standard-Examiner story,
Kramer says, “An employer has a right to control the premises.” This
viewpoint is a valid application of property rights.

The strict observance of property rights is one of the chief guarantors of
peaceful coexistence among the various members of a society. When someone
exercises the right to control that which he owns, he is the sole
determiner of what he or others can ? and, just as importantly, cannot ? do
with a given piece of tangible or intangible property. (Of course, this
statement implicitly accepts the fact that this right is absolute only as
long as the property owner in question does not violate the identical
rights of others by coercive force or fraud. How he uses his property must
not materially damage someone else’s property. If this occurs, restitution
is in order.)

On the surface, defending AOL’s actions in regard to self-defense issues
leaves an unpleasant taste. Apparently, AOL has cut “access to some
gun-related Web sites.” They do, of course, have the right to control what
occurs in their virtual space as well as the physical space of the
buildings they own. Even if the political positions they support are
wrong-headed and fly in the face of facts, reality, and morality, the
owners of AOL are free to make stupid choices. After all, property rights
(or any rights) would be of little value if they were enforced only when
one acted correctly. (Not to mention the issue of who gets to make the
judgment of what is wrong or what is right.)

Perhaps the Founding Fathers missed a good bet by not adding another item
to the Bill of Rights: The right of the people to be wrong shall not be
infringed.

But of course, they could not reasonably have imagined the bizarre degree
to which a perfectly clear and straightforward legal document could be
distorted, ignored, and parsed beyond recognition. A large proportion of
the laws that currently infest this nation were promulgated in the belief
that people should, in fact, not be permitted to engage in activities that
might damage themselves physically or mentally. (For an obvious example of
each, consider, respectively, the Drug War and censorship.)

The politicians and their allies in the press, academia, and elsewhere
believe ? oddly ? that once you are elected to political office or
appointed to some bureaucratic position that you somehow become not only a
technical expert qualified to pontificate on any and all subjects but a
moral expert with not only the authority but the right to force your
judgments upon the less-well-mentally-endowed subjects, er, citizens who
voted you into office. (What in the world a lawyer ? and the number of
lawyers in office is frightening ? knows about obtaining oil supplies,
growing corn, or preparing for self-defense escapes me. I’d wager a fair
sum that most politicians have never worked an oil well, walked a corn
field, or fired a handgun.)

AOL, Morality Expert

In the Utah case, AOL is arguing that they ? and they alone ? should be
able to decide whether or not their employees can have easy access to
weapons. AOL would obviously not react favorably to someone else deciding
for them what conditions must accompany the use of their property. In
firing these three employees, however, for what they did on property AOL
merely leases but does not own ? the parking lot ? AOL officials seem to be
overstepping the bounds of legitimate rights and entering into the realm of
deciding for their employees what is or is not proper behavior.

In a totally free society, AOL might be able to (try to) insist as a
requirement of employment that its workers pledge to be “gun-free” even in
the privacy of their own homes. I suspect if AOL did so, they would face a
rather severe shortage of job-seekers. In a free society, education and
persuasion or boycotts and ostracism would be the proper avenues for
changing such short-sighted and ill-advised corporate policy. Given present
realities, however, AOL stands on shaky ground. The fired men posed no
threat to “workplace safety.” They merely transferred weapons from one
vehicle to another in preparation for a target shooting expedition.
Anti-gun hysteria grants AOL neither the privilege nor the right to
interfere with such actions on property they do not own.

Lawyer Mitch Vilos defends his clients by (accurately) stating that, ” …
in all these setting where people go in and commit mass murders, they’re
increasing the casualties, not decreasing them, when they take the guns
away from the people who would provide the first line of defense…. Any
amoeba that could reason logically would know that.”

But, of course, as I stated in my article, “The War on Self-Defense,” there
is no concern for logic, consistency with reality, or adherence to morality
in the strident and shrill cries to keep law-abiding citizens disarmed.
Power, control, and fear are what ultimately motivate those who diligently
attempt to impose their will upon the rest of us. Indeed, in today’s wacky
political realm, we are “treated” to the spectacle of a statist and
control-freak like Senator Ted Kennedy castigating ? and demanding an
apology from ? attorney-general designate John Ashcroft for daring to state
the truth: that a prime reason for owning guns and enshrining that right in
our Constitution via the Bill of Rights is to provide a check on the
potential tyranny of any government, ours included.

Regardless of what laws the Utah legislature have enacted or what the
courts there might decide, however, it is a violation of property rights
for politicians to say, for example, that only churches and homeowners may
ban guns on their property. (It is, of course, also a violation of rights
to require carry licenses, in the first place.) Laws that treat businesses
as “public” spaces ? as though such property existed in some netherworld
between state-owned and non-business-owned property ? have no moral
validity. A business-owner ? whether an individual, a group of people, or a
corporation ? still has property rights. Simply because you permit others
to enter your property does not void your control.

(Our increasingly fascist society, however, serves only to obliterate this
crucial fact. [Fascism here is defined as a private entity holding title to
a piece of property while the State dictates how that property shall be
used.] Unfortunately, our welfare state reinforces this notion by
sanctioning taxes, regulations, prior restraint, and other forms of
redistribution of and restrictions on what you own.)

As Ayn Rand said,”The right to life is the source of all rights ? and the
right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no
other rights are possible.” (“Man’s Rights,” The Virtue of Selfishness, p.
94.)

Here, then, we witness the ultimate aim of the gun-banners, the regulators,
and the cultural monitors. By shrinking and finally destroying any proper
understanding of ? let alone sympathy for or implementation of ? property
rights, the new fascists will curtail your right to your life. Every time
these statists violate your right to free expression, violate your right to
be free of arbitrary searches and seizures, violate your right to carry or
even own a weapon, or violate any other right recognized explicitly or
implicitly by the Constitution, they weaken respect for and observance of
your property and your life. Chaos and conflict are the inevitable
consequences of such evil actions.

If you want to live peacefully with your neighbors; if you want a civilized
world grounded in justice; if you want a safe society in which individuals,
their families, and their careers can flourish and prosper, then you must
adhere rigidly, confidently, and consistently to the right of all persons
to earn, keep, and use their property ? including their guns ? as they see
fit … even if you disagree.

As Rand observed, “There can be no such thing as ‘the right to enslave’”
(Ibid, p. 96, emphasis in original). With guns in the hands of a
well-informed citizenry, we can ensure that ? in the United States, at
least ? this is one “right” that will never again see the light of day.
=======

See Russ Madden’s articles, short stories, novel excerpts, and items of
interest to Objectivists, libertarians, and sci-fi fans at
http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/.

from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 5, No 6, February 5, 2001