Rich and a few others are far better at answering these than I, but, I can summarize to some degree.
The way I understand things, we all know that a private property owner/business can say "no firearms". We may not like it. It may make our heads hurt, but, that's life, we deal with it.
Now, we all also should know that State preemption makes it illegal for any county or city government/organization to govern firearms. Period. Only the State of Florida can prohibit you from carrying your firearm somewhere.
Now, what is not as cut and dry is the question, does that same preemption apply to a private tenant of county/city owned property? ( i.e. the private company running the gun show, renting the city/county owned property) In other words, can the owner of the property (the county/city) give their tenant (the company leasing the fairgrounds to run the gun show) a right they do not have themselves (govern firearms)?
From what I understand, that question hasn't been answered in court yet. Meaning, it's kimd of open to speculation and a whole lot of forum discussions like this. LOL
I do know that Rich and the folks over at Florida Carry are working hard to find the answer, if it's out there.
Very good JeepSeller! That indeed is the issue. Florida Carry has been exploring this issue for several months, and have found no case law in modern juris prudence on point. In fact, we have people exploring English Common Law to find precedent there as well.
The question will likely rise to a court challenge or some legislative action (which will probably end up in court as well). There are several factors to consider.
1. Does a private lessee of public property have the right to impose a restriction which the lessor does not have? We believe not. A parallel to this is would a tenant (not residential) be legally allowed to forbid an activity that his landlord has not forbidden? Take for example, a strip mall owned by a development company. Can a store owner designate and enforce parking spaces for his store without permission of the landlord?
2. Does the characteristics of the lease or contract come into play? In other words, if the lessee is "managing" the property on behalf of the lessor (government), are they then considered to be "state actors", subject to the same restrictions as the lessor? What if it's a short term lease, such as when a radio station sponsors a concert in a public park, charges admission, and has their own private security enforcing a firearms ban during the term of the lease? This happened to me in Fort Myers. The police lieutenant I spoke to said that the city considered the park to be "private property" for the duration of the concert.
3. And finally, with regard to gun shows, do we really want to attack that right now? It's irksome to me, but given there are still local governments with unlawful ordinances out there, Florida Carry needs to concentrate limited resources where they will do most good.
But please, continue with the discussion. I'd like to hear all opinions, but preferably those which can be backed up by case law or statute.
