Well, your employment agreement with your employer includes, generally, behavior standards and other restrictions to your Rights. These restrictions are very different from those that a government might attempt to compel via the force of law. The employment agreement includes assumed things like wearing clothes to work, bathing once in a while, not screaming at the customers, etc.. Also, some companies choose to restrict the behavior of their employees more than others. That's Freedom.
The key is that no one MAKES you work there. You CHOOSE to work there, under the restrictions placed upon employees by the owners of the business. If you were a slave then you would be correct in your assertion, but since that probably isn't the case, you chose your place of employment.
I don't personally see the conflict here. Let's go to McDonalds. See the drooler behind the counter? Want him to be packing a weapon under that stupid uniform? He look like someone you would trust with your safety? As a business owner who is forced to employ these dorks, would you feel safe allowing them to have a handgun while flipping burgers? Come on.
Now, if my local government decides to outlaw firearms at the workplace, then I would bark. That would remove my ability to choose and would be tyranny.
Don't you think you're kinda contradicting yourself going on about business-owners' freedom to run their business as they choose, then say they're "forced" to employ "dorks?" If the owner has a choice whether or not to permit firearms, why not just make the choice NOT to hire "dorks" in the first place? If you think a potential, or current, employee doesn't have the wherewithal to use a firearm, it's probably not the safest thing for them to be manning an industrial deep fryer either (which have, on occasion, been used and defensive tools even).
I worked fast food and other retail, all my managers were (generally) good folks who gave a rat's pa-toot about their job, and did their best to hire good people. IF a business won't allow it's employees to carry firearms because they're dorks, why'd they hire them in the first place?
To touch on something else you said, yes in a "perfect" or even just
ideal world your assertion might be valid, because there actually would be
choice in the work place. Right now, in this world, and especially this are, there ain't none. In another thread a while back, I challenged ANYONE to come back with an employer who affirms the rights of their employees to lawfully carry for self defense, as a matter of official policy,
other than employers in the firearms industry. Never did get a response. It's SOP at my employer that merely bringing a weapon onto the property can get you canned, and that's at a union job mind you (despite all their talk about fighting for worker's rights, unions tend to be pretty quiet about their right to self defense. Go figure, but I digress...). And I know for a fact every other transit agency in the region has a similar policy. Talking to one fellow driver, I guess back in the day KC Metro actually DID allow their drivers to carry. Now they can't, and their drivers & passengers routinely get assaulted. Go figure.
My wife's employer, in a completely different industry and work environment, also forbids the mere presence of a weapon on property, even locked in thee different safes in the employee's armored car. Any employer who does not have an official set policy, if ever asked about one, suddenly comes back with the negative, as some folks on here have found out.
So no, there IS no choice in the work place. Anyone who won't work for an employer who forbids carry is going to be looking for a job for an awfully long time, ESPECIALLY in this depression.
Since the chances of all of us one day waking up to find America has become a grand libertarian utopia overnight are, shall we say, slim, I think laws like the ones in Arizona & Oklahoma that prohibit employers from prohibiting employees from storing their lawfully possessed firearms in personal vehicles on company property,
while also exempting that employer from any legal liability, are a step in the right direction. Personally I'd like to see laws prohibiting employers from prohibiting carry its self,
while also exempting that employer from any legal liability. An employer should never be responsible for an employee's
criminal actions.
Dave_pro2a, I'm a little surprised at your comments actually. I kinda figured you for the
laissez-faire type as well.