Travisgt45

This explains the law pretty well batch. (Taken from Yahoo...) TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The fallout from the worst one-day gun massacre in modern U.S. history tinged the atmosphere Wednesday as a Florida House committee quashed a bill that would have forced businesses to allow employees to keep guns locked in their cars in company parking lots. The shooting of 32 people at Virginia Tech University earlier this week was barely alluded to by members of the House Environmental and Natural Resources Council. But it surfaced when one lawmaker, without success, asked his colleagues to postpone a vote on the National Rifle Association-backed bill in the wake of Monday's tragedy. "All anyone has to do today is turn on CNN and MSNBC and any of the 24-hour news channels," said Rep. Baxter Troutman, R-Winter Haven, who voted against the bill. "I just think that this subject today in this committee meeting today in this Florida Legislature is a highly inappropriate subject." Other lawmakers said they had a job to do, despite the news. "The people in your district expect you to do your job," responded Rep. Stan Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, who also voted against the bill, "and part of your job is to vote on difficult issues and sometimes that's hard to avoid." Mark Wilson, executive vice president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce -- one of the largest business lobbies opposing the bill -- said his organization made a decision not to bring the massacre into the discussion at all. "That just wasn't going to be part of the debate," Wilson said. The bill (HB1417) was defeated by a 10-4 vote Wednesday, after being approved in two recent Senate committee stops by votes of 7-1 and 8-3. The bill was primed for the Senate floor, but now can't be taken up by the House, which means it won't pass before the end of the 60-day legislative session May 4. The measure has now failed two consecutive years in Florida. Even without the influence of recent events, the bill pitting the gun-rights lobby against the business lobby has been a wrenching one, particularly for Republicans who call the two groups part of their core constituency. The bill forced a debate over the property rights of businesses against the property rights of individuals. While businesses argued they have a right to control behavior on their property and a legal duty to protect employees, the gun lobby argued that an employee's Second Amendment right to bear arms doesn't stop at the pavement of a company parking lot. The bill, while the discussion surrounding it focused on guns, applied to any possession an employee is allowed to carry by law. The AFL-CIO, a key labor union, supported the bill because of what it viewed as the growing ability of businesses to rule over their employees. Some Democrats in the Senate committees voted for the bill. Marion Hammer, an NRA lobbyist and grandmother who never drives without her gun, said the bill was necessary to give employees the ability to protect themselves during their commutes. The Southeast Legal Foundation told supporters to expect a lawsuit because the bill, if passed into law, would be unconstitutional. Hammer said she welcomes a lawsuit, arguing that business owners are trampling the property rights of individuals. In his final plea to lawmakers to support his bill, Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, said it boiled down to giving people the freedom to protect themselves. "This is not about us. It's not about my political future or yours, it's not about the people in this room and what financial risks they have," Baxley said. "This is about the people of Florida and their freedom is at risk." When asked whether the Virginia Tech tragedy influenced the outcome of Wednesday's vote, Hammer said she didn't know. "It should not. Nothing in this bill has anything at all to do with the sort of thing that happened in Virginia," Hammer said. Gov. Charlie Crist, however, said it would be difficult to separate the two. "How can you not be impacted at least in some way, as horrific a tragedy that was in our country," Crist said. Historically the NRA has been highly influential in the Florida Legislature, successfully pushing a law two years ago, for example, that removed a person's duty to retreat when attacked in a public place. It also successfully pushed a guns-in-parking-lots law in Oklahoma in 2004, although that law is now being challenged in court by businesses including ConocoPhillips. Associated Press writers David Royse and Brendan Farrington contributed to this report.

Don't get me started with this.... I am amazed at the last guy who actually had his firearms returned to him later on. Florida just shot down a bill not letting citizens who own and carry legally to leave their personal protection firearm in their car while at work. So now the state is making the employers property rights greater than our second ammendment!! So I guess now company owners can guarantee our security while traveling to and from the office now, eh? I hope Florida isn't slowly turning into another California or Pennsylvania... if so, I'm moving!!

Ditto what this guy said!