Sadly, I have to side with the business owner here. It is their place, and they can allow guns or not. It is your choice to enter or not. Trying to hold them responsible for what a criminal might do is kinda like holding gun owners to blame for what a criminal might do.
It is their property, they can do as they wish. I can choose to enter or not. I do feel a little differently when you get into federal no gun zones. Sometimes you have no choice BUT to disarm and enter.
How can we demand freedom while restricting someone else’s freedom?
@Hailey
Jeff Yang obviously is not a legal scholar or a historian. The people owned guns that they brought with them well before they joined in the rebellion against England. The Second Ammendment has nothing whatsoever to do with military service. Never did.
This was confirmed by the Supreme court in 2008.
District of Columbia v. Heller , 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
They affirmed that the ruling applied to the states under McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U.S. 742 (2010
So no, I don’t think Jeff Yang’s idea holds water.
First, look at the source. Second, as others have said, he is not well versed in constitutional law. Third, under federal law, all makes age 17 to 45 already fall under the definition of militia, along with all females in service.
I would counter that ‘‘tis is the solution for the socialist desire for free stuff. Want 4 years of college, serve 4 years. And the the VA may be available for healthcare.
And here we have it coming to a head. Late year, Gregory Bush, after trying to gain entry into a predominantly African american church, went down the street to Kroger and killed two customers at the store. He has been charged with murder in state court and a hate crime in federal court. Yesterday, the family of one of the victims decided to sue Kroger because it does not prohibit firearms in their store. After all, they have had 25 shootings in all of their stores since 1991, nearly 30 years.
The moral of the story is if you don;t post and someone gets shot you will be sued and if you do post and and someone gets shot you will get sued.
I read the complaint, and, WOW. Ordinarily I wouldn’t give much credence to a “deep pockets” action like this, but the specifics of the allegations are truly stunning. The complaint specifies the Kroger CO., but by extension could be applied almost verbatim to any business open to the public, and possibly any piece of private property to which the public has ready access.
(I’m not a lawyer so forgive me if I’m not 100% correct on my legal interpretations.)
The complaint makes several assumptions from which their cause of action follow.
That the Kroger Co. has no duty or obligation to comply with local law regarding firearms carry, as well as 4th amendment concerns. (Such as unreasonable search, unlawful detention, invasion of privacy [CC], etc.)
It mischaracterizes the shooter as a de facto “invitee” from whom the company would gain benefit. (They make no statement that the shooter entered to the location to engage in lawful commerce… By this logic a burglar might be considered an invitee because Kroger notoriously maintains a stock of desirable goods with the intention of providing them to the public.)
That the Kroger Company is obligated to maintain a private police force to ensure the safety of all persons entering their property.
That the mere presence of a firearm, in any mode of possession by any person, constitutes an inherent, imminent danger to all persons present.
That the Kroger Co., by holding title to and conducting legal activities on a property, is required to take actions, even unlawful actions, to prevent even the possibility of any person entering the property from committing a crime.
By reason of holding title to a property which becomes the site of a criminal perpetrated by a third party, the Kroger Co. becomes financially liable for damages caused by said third party, as well as being financially punished for failing to prevent the actual criminal act or even its possibility.
I read no allegation that Kroger was in breach of any law, ordinance, regulation, or common practice which resulted in a heightened state of danger to persons entering their property, or that they operated in a manner significantly different from the customs and practices of their locality. This complaint implies that every publicly accessible property is, or should be, required to maintain a private security force, metal detectors and x-ray scanners at every entrance, and to perform body searches and background checks before allowing any person to enter. after which they would still be liable for the criminal acts of a third party.
There are all sorts of other inferences which may be drawn from the specifics of the complaint and extended to include other situations. For instance, they blame Kroger for not allowing their employees to carry weapons which would allow them to respond with deadly force to a shooting incident. Couldn’t that be understood to mean that teachers, librarians, carnies, and anyone else employed in a public setting should also be armed and required to respond?
They also say that Kroger should have reacted on a national scale to incidents occurring many hundreds of miles and as much as 28 years removed from this location.
As a local lawyer once told me, “This is America. Anyone can sue anybody for anything at any time. You can try to make it less likely, but you can’t prevent it. All you can do is defend yourself when it happens.”
He chose El Paso to make a statement with his attack as it’s one of the busiest border crossings in the country and EP has been utterly flooded with illegals/asylum seekers that had to be dumped on the streets due to overcrowding which as been making big news all over the country.
That is infuriating even rational Texans and naturally can drive the nuts right off of the edge.
I agree, it is ridiculous. The fact there were 25 shootings in or around Kroger’s in 6 states over 28 years should put every grocery store on notice that grocery shopping is extremely dangerous. To resolve what they are alleging would require x-ray and magnetometers at each entrance along with instant background checks to see if someone is allowed to possess a firearm. Now that Kentucky is a constitutional carry state, looking for permits would not be enough.
The fact that it is widely known that Kroger does not prohibit firearms, the victims should be held responsible for choosing to shop there with that knowledge and fault appropriately apportioned against them. We are a pure comparative fault state.
And best of all - Kroger has 2 services where you do not even need to step in their stores. The first is the ClickIt service where you order online and pick up at a later time. There is a parking area where you park and your groceries are brought to your car. Option B is home delivery service through a private service for an additional charge.
There are also several Costcos and Targets in the area. They prohibit firearms but do not have anyone searching people entering the store.
No one has to go to Kroger, Meijer, Walmart or Sams Club.
And yes, if Kroger is found liable, every commercial establishment will have a debilitating duty to assure the safety of their patrons.
Under Kentucky law, an business has a duty to warn if there is a hidden hazard. Considering everyone knows Kroger is not a gun free zone, they will have an open and obvious issue to overcome.
Likewise, a criminal act is generally considered an intervening, superseding event which is not the responsibility of the property owner.
I have put this case on my watch list in the electronic court system. This will be a circus.
What happen to don’t mess with Texas? I was shocked that a citizen with a CCP did not respond. Then to hear about the rule/signage preventing CCW on the property.
Hey, on any given day I can’t confirm or deny if I’m the 6 million dollar man, or Stevie Wonder when it comes to seeing signage!
@MikeBKY … well the texas governor said there were NO red flags in the El Paso shooter’s background, so of course we need red flag laws to stop it happening again.
Whenever something bad happens, the answer is to run out and punish the uninvolved.
I am not settled in my mind concerning these “red flag” laws. On the one hand I understand and appreciate the pro-active efforts to get ahead of a situation in order to prevent a tragedy.
That being said, I am very concerned about the potential for abuse and malicious reporting, as well as the apparent lack of due process available throughout the process. I do like the call for prosecution against false reporting which has been raised here in KY.
These laws need to be very carefully written and applied in order to protect everybody’s rights, particularly the rights of the gun owner. In today’s climate it is far too easy to vilify the gun owner and thereby devalue their rights in favor of opinion.
Yes I actually can and we have a long standing precedent for doing so called the civil rights act.
Places of public accomodation cannot discriminate on our other protected rights under the BOR so why should the be able to discriminate against us because we choose to exercise our 2nd Amendment rights?
This type of discrimination also directly violates our 14th Amendment Equal Protection rights as well.
Unlike the rights protected under the civil rights act, denying people their 2nd Amendment Rights because they want to come into your store and shop can actually lead directly to our death or dismemberment.
At a minimum if they are going to deny us our 2nd Amendment Rights on their property they should be required to assume the mantle of responsibility for protecting our very most basic rights which are the right to life and right to self defense.
Exactly. It’s also the kind of thing that is exacerbated by groups that want to pull stunts in states like Texas where it is perfectly legal to carry a long gun, while slung of course, in public.
This guy however rightfully triggered alarm in people by “Tacking Up” with the vest, fatigues etc signaling he was coming for a fight.
I think if’/when they look into his school records we’re going to find some serious issues. In one of the interviews I saw with a few of his former classmates they indicated there were some.
Otherwise he apparently was flying under the radar until he posted his ranting manifesto online.
Politically he’s what I’d call a Political Schizophrenic because he was literally all over the place and while stuck on I believe voting for either Warren or Sanders, whole hogg on the green agenda, was a rabid racist and xenophobe who thought death was the appropriate penalty for illegal immigration.
I’m a hardliner on illegal immigration but damn, that’s just crazy. Most of those illegals are not coming here to harm us intentionally, they just ruin the economy by flooding the labor pool falsely suppressing wages and benefits.
