Disney fires security guard for violating gun policy

Posted | Contributed by Jeff

Walt Disney World fired a security guard on Monday after he protested the company's decision not to allow people with concealed weapons permits to keep guns in their cars on Disney property. Disney terminated ___, 36, of Orlando for violating three Disney employee policies. At issue is Florida's new law that allows people with concealed weapons permits to keep firearms in their vehicles in employee parking lots.

Read more from The Orlando Sentinel.

You've greatly distorted Disney's claim on exempted status. The law allows companies that posess a permit to use or store controlled explosives (including fireworks) exemption from the law. Regardless of the lawmakers' intention, that's how it reads, and that's why Disney claims exemption (click here fore more).

Disney does not allow their security guards to carry weapons regardless of the concealed carry law. Their security guard will *never* have a weapon in hand when performing duties of their job. So let's not pretend that not allowing a security guard to keep a gun in his car is going to somehow place him in danger due to his job.

On an unrelated note (and in response to Sam), since when is the Bill of Rights not a part of the constitution? I'd also be interested to hear what freedoms Democrats are hellbent on destroying...

-Nate
*** This post was edited by coasterdude318 7/9/2008 9:47:37 PM ***

From your OWN link:

"The company's position stunned backers of the new law, who said Wednesday that they never intended to exempt Florida's largest single-site employer.

"You've got to be kidding me," said state Sen. Durell Peaden, a Panhandle Republican and one of the authors of the bill."I intended it to exempt places like defense plants, Air Force bases, things like that," said Peaden, who sponsored the bill in the Senate. "But not Disney. Not at all."

NOT DISNEY, NOT AT ALL.

And also QUOTE:

State Rep. Stan Mayfield, a Vero Beach Republican also involved in crafting the final legislation, said lawmakers had agreed to insert that exception at the request of a small group of lawyers representing several businesses and business groups -- including Disney.

But Mayfield said nobody ever intended for the language to spare so much of the Disney resort, which covers about 30,000 acres.

"I don't think anybody that voted for that bill expected Disney to be exempt," Mayfield said.

NOT DISNEY, NOT AT ALL.

I don't get why law abiding citizenx that lawfully PROTECT American Citizens Daily, even assigned to Disney's County, can't legally protect themselves, and family, if they take a part-time job at Disney.

Lets spin this one again,

Vanna, I'd like a "G" .... a BIG G for GUN ...

Jeff's avatar
It's a private business. If they don't want their employees carrying guns on their private property, they are damn well entitled to decide that. Your cowboy attitude scares me more than the "bad guys."
coasterdude318,

Can you show me where in the Bill of Rights the right to privacy is protected?

And no, the entire Bill of Rights is not part of the constitution, if I remember correctly. I think that only 11 of 12 amendments made it in. (1-10 and 27). The Constitution (Including amendments) does not explicitly protect a right to privacy. Such a protection was invented by the Supreme Court in Griswald v. Connecticut.

Jeff,

Since when are private businesses allowed to do what they want? I don't know about states, but Congress can tell businesses to do whatever they want, thanks to Article I, section 8 of the US Constitution.

-Sam (who thinks at least one person may be confusing the right against unreasonable searches with a right to privacy).

*** This post was edited by Avalanche Sam 7/9/2008 10:45:02 PM ***

As I said, regardless of the lawmakers' intentions, they wrote an exemption into the law for companies that posess permits for fireworks. That includes Disney. Yes, it was an oversight on their part. Yes, it was written with defense companies in mind. But with the way it's written, Disney is EXEMPT, and that was exactly my point. You can't make a law and then pick and choose which companies it applies to if you screwed up the wording of an exemption.

The Bill of Rights are amendments to the constitution. Hence, they are a PART of the constitution. In the case you keep referring to (Griswold v. Connecticut), the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution does, in fact, protect an individual's privacy. Hence, the constitution has ALWAYS protected an individual's right to privacy (or at least it has since 1868, when the fourteenth amendment was added to the constitution).

-Nate*** This post was edited by coasterdude318 7/9/2008 11:03:56 PM ***

Jeff's avatar
Don't be a tool, Sam. You can't even figure out that amendments are the Constitution. Nearly every instance of state laws that have recently been passed to pacify the gun lobby (i.e., concealed carry laws) have left provisions in to say that if you don't want to the firearms on your property, then you're entitled to prohibit them. That's why in Ohio every last business you walk into has the little signs with the no guns logo.
Wow!

I give an argument, and am attacked personally (by Jeff)!

How mature!

I never said the Amendments of the Constitution were not part of it. I commented on the actual document known as "The Bill of Rights." I was, and still am under the impression that not all of the proposed amendments in that document made it into the Constitution!

Yes, what we now know as "The Bill of Rights" is part of the Constitution. But not all the proposed amendments were ratified. Only 11 of the 12.

The right to privacy was not protected until Griswald v. Connecticut. And what does the 14th Amendment have to do with this discussion? The main thing the 14th Amendment does, in addition to defining citizenship (and some other things), is it extends the protections of the constitution so that states must also not infringe on people's rights. Considering it was a private company denying this person his right to bear arms, and not the State of Florida, the 14th Amendment does not apply here (though you could possibly argue otherwise, thanks to Disney having its own local government in the form of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, and the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista).

Anyway, it is pointless arguing Constitutional Law here. Besides, I only took one class on it in college, and I did not go to Law School. Maybe I should.

-Sam

Yes, perhaps you should take a further courses before arguing what you quite obviously do not understand.

Read up on Griswold (with an "o") v. Connecticut. Both the 9th and 14th amendments (among other areas of the constitution) were used as defense for the right to privacy. The right to privacy (according to the Supreme Court) has existed at least since the 14th amendment, and quite possibly before. Griswold v. Connecticut was simply a case in which the court explained *why* the right existed.

The Bill of Rights is what we call the first ten amendments to the constitution. They are a part of that document (which you did attempt to dispute four posts up). Further, the Supreme Court cannot "invent" protections. They use the law to interpret and rule on cases brought before them. In the case you keep referring to, the Supreme Court ruled that the right to privacy IS, in fact, included in the constitution. They did not "invent" that protection; they simply affirmed that yes, it exists.

-Nate

Nate,

Thank you for that well written, and thought out argument. I take a little offense to you telling me what I interpret to mean that I obviously don't understand Constitutional Law, but otherwise, I appreciate your argument. I understand a little about the subject, but it appears as though you may understand it better than me.

No, I am not an attorney, and have no plans to go to law school any time in the near future (though that may change). However, I like to argue politics sometimes, and in an earlier post, I argued something insignificant, as you could call either the first ten amendments the Bill of Rights, or you could refer to the proposed amendments. In that case, maybe I was just being a jerk.

While I am no expert, I do like to have some understanding of what I am arguing. Unfortunately on forums like this, people often argue things with little or no understanding. It is people like you that make this forum a great place.

Now if only the person that runs this site could give me a good argument (on this topic) like you did instead of insulting me and falsely saying that "every last business" in Ohio has signs that don't allow guns...

-Sam (who does appreciate Jeff giving us this forum, even though I don't always agree with him)

Unfortunately for advocates of this silly law and fortunately for the sane... This guy really screwed up... He didn't get fired for having a gun at work, he got fired for refusing to cooperate in an investigation. Nice try, try to be a little more clever next time.
How can a private buisness do what they want? Ask the bar owners that want to allow smoking in ohio. LOL

And to answer some. Columbine and host of other random rampages could have probably been stopped or the casualties far less if someone else had a gun.

Sorry. I just don't trust law inforcement to protect me. They'd have to be everywhere all the time.

Gator, Militias were never intended to be under govt. Control as the states national guards now are.

rollergator's avatar
On the whole, I have to agree with Jeff that the biggest concern for me is the "cowboy attitude" (on behalf of the minority of gun-owners to be sure, but enough of them to be worrisome).
Someone intending to do harm isn't going to go buy a gun legally, Have a licence to carry it as this guy had and then keep it safely locked in the trunk of his car.

They'll use a ball bat, Tire iron, knife or even make their own weapon. You'd be surprised just how many people carry guns legally and just how little the crime rate is among them.

Why has Austrailias major crime rate risen 80 percent since the weapons ban? London (Also supposedly gun free) is also high in crime.

All I was trying to say is that a SECURITY GUARD WITH A GUN makes me feel safer than a security gaurd without one. Ask the guy at Kings Island how he felt after four unarmed except with mace security guards watched as he got beaten about 4 years ago.

95% of all gun crimes are committed by people who did not procure those guns legally, this includes cases like Columbine, to go along with that if someone had a gun at Virginia Tech to take out the shooter I think the casualties would have been far less.

The people who are going out and getting conceal and carry permits are not the ones we need to worry about. And on top of thgis we can blame the friggin welfare society that the liberals invented and have supported starting with the New Deal.

Jeff's avatar
Oh yeah, it's the liberals! Those damn liberals!

Food stamps helped my mom keep food on my plate, dick head, after my father split. And not surprisingly, she never had any illegal guns. You're talking out of your ass about unrelated things.


if someone had a gun at Virginia Tech to take out the shooter I think the casualties would have been far less.

I see this talking point recited over and over again (3+ times in this thread alone!) and yet nobody is ever able to provide one valid example of a time when someone carrying a concealed weapon has prevented a shooting rampage or the number of injuries/deaths has been reduced because somebody else had a gun.

The kind of people who fly off the handle and begin shooting up public places are not the kinds of people to be deterred by a threat of concealed weapons. And I have a pretty difficult time understanding how more bullets flying around is going to lessen the number of injuries and deaths. Until you're able to back up this talking point with some real life event, you sound like a toolbag.

-Nate

Man, I wished I'd bothered to read this thread before today! Is it too late to get pissed off?
Blah, forget it, I had a page long diatribe here but I will not change anyone's mind and no one will change mine and name calling will get us nowhere.

So before a riot ensues...
*** This post was edited by MagnumsRevenge 7/14/2008 4:30:39 PM ***

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