@oralloy,
oralloy wrote:
Yes. And also when people go out in public.
What I mean is does the 2nd amendment protect the right to bear arms for anyone on private property, regardless of what the owner/manager of the property says?
I.e. if you look at 1st amendment free speech protection, it is limited on private property when the speech is considered to be possible off the property, e.g. outside a shopping mall instead of inside it.
By the same logic, it would be possible to suppress the right to bear arms by saying that people in a shopping mall are able to bear arms outside the shopping mall so therefore the mall management can limit their right while they're inside the mall.
That logic doesn't really work from the POV of personal protection, because if you're shopping in a mall and someone attacks you, you're not going to be able to relocate the attack outside the mall to bear arms against your attacker.
So by that logic, anyone on private property should have the right to bear arms, but then you would have places like airports and nightclubs that would not want to allow people in with firearms. So in that case, the question becomes whether to enforce the right to bear arms in those otherwise-arms-restricted places, or whether to allow the 2nd amendment to be suppressed in certain places in the interest of security, such as in airports and nightclubs.
Then, if you are allowing the 2nd amendment to be suppressed for airports and nightclubs, how far can such exemptions be extended? E.g. can people exempt entire gated communities, mixed-use residential/commercial areas, etc. from the 2nd amendment and, for example, mandate gun-checks for people entering the area?
If so, what will determine the limits to when the 2nd amendment rights cannot be suppressed? I.e. when are people absolutely allowed to bear arms without restriction? Will it become like the 1st amendment where only governments are restricted from making laws against weapons and any private corporation/government is allowed to issue as many restrictions on weapons as their governance allows?
Another issue will be whether states and municipalities will be able to require property owners to post signage as to whether or not weapons are allowed in their venues. So, depending on what city/state/jurisdiction you are, you would have a sign at the entrance of a store or restaurant stating explicitly that weapons are allowed there and otherwise the default would be that they aren't allowed. Likewise, a government might say that businesses have to post signage explicitly prohibiting weapons and otherwise they are allowed. So if you enter a business with no sign, you should assume that weapons are allowed on the premises (that's probably the way it is in most places currently anyway).
