Ignoring Bloomberg and Moms Demand Action, Kroger Continues Record Growth

Of course they shouldn’t be able to, Real estate as property is a derived right, not an inherent one, and thus must take second place to inherent rights. Unless they are willing to guarantee the safety of their customers, with severe economic penalties if they fail at that, they shouldn’t even be allowed to state their preference.

My body is my property. No one else has any authority to tell me what I may or may not do with my body, and that includes my choices concerning how to defend that body. If my choice is to carry a revolver on one hip, a semi-auto on the other, and a hidden backup gun, since they are on my property no one has any business saying I have to change my standard operating procedure just because I set foot on real estate with their name in the deed/title.

Roymond, they have every right to tell you to keep out. Whether or not it’s because you have a gun is irrelevant. If you don’t like their terms, then you can stay off their property and not give them your money.

Simple. Your rights are NOT being violated if someone asks you to leave his property.

From the sound of it, they do have the right to ask you to leave; it’s just that it takes them more work than other places where signs do not have the force of law but you will be trespassed.

At the other end of the spectrum, of course, there are some places (most famously Texas and Illinois) where you are committing an infraction of some sort (I believe in IL it’s a felony, though I’d love to hear otherwise if I am wrong) over and above potential trespass, if you carry your gun past a sign that meets legal spec.

“… and I won’t take another’s property rights (including Kroger) away from them.”

So, you won’t take my property rights away … although you will take my property rights away if my personal property is a firearm. Which is it? You do or do not take away other people’s property rights?

Now, let’s up the ante. Suppose a violent criminal beats a victim unconscious and dumps the victim over your property line. Without prompt medical intervention, the victim will die. Unfortunately for the victim, you hate other people. Since it is your property, you can legally forbid emergency medical services from coming onto your property to save the victim’s life, right? And you can forbid law enforcement from entering your property to recover the body and investigate the resulting murder, right? After all, your property rights take precedence over everything, right?

US, your property right is not being taken away, if a merchant tells you you aren’t allowed on his property, for whatever reason. Whether it’s because he doesn’t like the heat you’re packing or not, is irrelevant.

If the merchant were to try to *confiscate* your gun you might have a point, but he’s not–he’s asking you to either leave or keep out–so, quite frankly, you don’t; it’s the same bullshit strawman all the other spoiled brats, who think the second amendment entitles them to be on peoples’ property without their permission, have been using for as long as I can remember.

Steve,

It amazes me how many folks fail to understand the idea of “orthogonal rights.”

You point out that the property owner can ask you to leave…for any reason…yet cannot ask you to DISARM.

This is fundamental. That so many miss this basic point is….sad. Very, very sad.

Property rights don’t “trump” 2A rights because their abstract spaces don’t intersect. We’d all be better off if more people “got” this.

JR, I’ve noticed that when rights are properly understood, they don’t conflict. That whole concept is a bunch of bolshoi brewed up by people whose real agenda is to make the concept of rights so elastic as to be useless.

SteveInCo,

I see that you failed to respond to the scenario that I posed. A violent criminal dumps a mortally wounded victim on some person’s property. Does that person’s property rights mean that they can deny entry to Good Samaritans for saving the victim’s life?

If you answer yes, it indicates that you are a monster and that property rights are superior to our right to life. If you answer no, then you have to admit that our right to life is superior to property rights … and you would have to explain why we have to allow certain heroic measures (ambulance pickup) to save lives while denying other heroic measures (armed self-defense) to save lives.

If we only have an unequivocal right to life on property that we own, then we have no right to life at all.

What say you?

The two situations are not parallel, Uncommon Sense, because one (the dying body being dumped on someone’s property) is an emergency, and the other (you wanting to walk around on someone’s property with a gun just in case there’s an emergency), isn’t. So one can, with perfect consistency, allow that the ambulance workers can come onto your property to save a life (or allow the police in to chase a fugitive), while denying another access to his property…to shop for groceries.

Furthermore, your deprivation is entirely avoidable by simply not coming onto that property, the dying man had no choice in the matter.

Honestly, you’re just looking sillier and sillier trying to justify yourself. “I wanna prance around on YOUR property under MY terms” is the stance of a two-year-old.

Long past my edit window, but I am realizing one sentence I wrote is abysmally poorly written.

Last sentence of first paragraph should read:

So one can, with perfect consistency, state that ambulance workers (or police chasing a fugitive) can come onto someone’s property to save a life in imminent danger, with or without the property owner’s consent, while also holding that the owner can deny another person access to his property for the purpose of buying groceries. Because the latter isn’t an emergency.

SteveInCo,

So, can a property owner stipulate that he/she will refuse access to ambulance crews for guests? Is that righteous because the guest doesn’t have to enter the property and knows the conditions before entering?

And how about public property? If a majority of the public — the people who own the public property — vote to outlaw personal protection firearms on that public property, is that righteous and binding?

What I am trying to point out here is that our right to life — which necessarily includes our right to defend our lives — is not dependent on external circumstances or “permission” or blessing from other people, period. Our right to life is inviolate. You have already conceded that a property owner must allow an ambulance to rescue a victim dumped on their property even if the property owner doesn’t want to allow the ambulance access. Why is a property owner empowered to pick-and-choose which life-saving measures are available? Why is a property owner empowered to define life versus death for guests?

My position is simple: a property owner has exclusive say and control over their land with only one limitation — they are not empowered to define and control life versus death for anyone on their land. Saying it another way, a property owner does not get to limit life-saving measures for people on their land. Whether that life saving measure is an ambulance, asthma rescue inhaler, or personal protection firearm doesn’t matter. The property owner’s perceived urgency doesn’t matter.

uncommon_sense is correct. My inherent right to protect my life trumps the artificial right to real estate. If a real estate owner is going to tell people they can’t bring their chosen means of self-protection with them onto his domain, then he is obligated to provide security for them and make payment should he fail to so provide.

So if you want to refuse my right to self-protection when I am on your domain, then if I am injured, it is your obligation to pay all my medical expenses, the expenses of any of my family and friends who come to visit me while I am in the hospital, the value of my time lost while recovering, and an indemnity for failing at your obligation to protect me.

Your position is wrong, and now you are putting words into my mouth. Did you actually read what I wrote?

I stated that for an emergency the ambulance crew should be allowed onto the property, contrary to what you wrote in your first paragraph (not counting the salutation).

The other case that you are trying to claim parallels that case, is not an emergency, it’s just you wanting to visit said property, and, since it’s not an emergency, the owner can bar you for whatever reason, and lay down conditions beforehand under which you are to consider yourself barred or welcome. Your desire to be armed on someone else’s property doesn’t constitute an emergency, and your concern that an emergency *could* happen while you’re there isn’t one either (a potential emergency isn’t an emergency, and a vanishingly unlikely one certainly doesn’t), and doesn’t justify forcing him to accept your presence on your terms rather than his. In fact, he might well retort that if you’re that worried about getting shot on his property, then you shouldn’t even want to be there.

For what it’s worth, said property owner would be a hoplophobic asshole, and I’d *want* to take my business elsewhere–but he has a right to be a hoplophobic asshole. I don’t understand why so many people here insist on advocating for the “right” to force a hoplophobic pukestain to let one spend his/her money in Mr. Pukestain’s establishment.

Public, by which I take it to mean, government property is quite different from private property (up til now I have been talking about privately owned property, if that wasn’t clear); the government is held to a much higher standard. In the case of government entities you often have no choice but to be there (it’s the only place to go to get your driver’s license, for example), and I’d question in many cases why government even owns that particular type of property (e.g. parks) as there’s no need for it to do so to protect rights (the only legitimate job of a government, and yes ours is doing a piss-poor job of it). Since its very job is (or should be) to uphold your rights, one should insist that the government not discriminate between gun carriers and non-gun carriers (or between races, genders, religions/nonrelitions, sexual orientation, etc…) while leaving private individuals free to do so…because private individuals cannot compel obedience (beyond “get off my property and take your business elsewhere”) while the government can.

My position is very simple as well. Under non-emergency conditions, a private property owner has the right to bar entrance to anyone, for any reason. That includes (but certainly isn’t limited to) your armed/disarmed status.

Points of amplification: 1) Your worry that you might possibly be shot while on his property does not constitute an emergency. Therefore, he may order you to keep out, either personally or by posting a sign barring armed/unarmed/whatever people, and your violation of that order, even if he doesn’t know the sign applies to you because you are smugly reciting “concealed is concealed,” constitutes trespass. Go get your groceries elsewhere. Krogers and Walmart both allow guns if there’s no (unconstitutional) law barring them. 2) Someone bleeding out or having a heart attack, does constitute an emergency.

Cases 1 and 2 are utterly dissimilar no matter how much you might want to pretend they’re the same thing.

So if you want to refuse my right to self-protection when I am on your domain, then if I am injured, it is your obligation to pay all my medical expenses, the expenses of any of my family and friends who come to visit me while I am in the hospital, the value of my time lost while recovering, and an indemnity for failing at your obligation to protect me.

Never have I met a leftist with a more entitled attitude than this (presumably conservative) individual is showing here. Not only is he ignoring the fact that he has no right to be on the other individual’s property, he’s demanding medical and life insurance from the owner, should he choose to enter that person’s property.

“Leftist”?

It’s libertarian: if you insist I can’t protect myself, you have assumed the obligation to do so. If you fail at that obligation, your penalties should be severe.

You assert the (nonexistent) right to enter peoples’ property under your terms, not theirs. Either he lets you in with a gun, or he provides you extra security and insurance against a disaster happen, but he has to let you in, apparently.

Bullshit. Complete, utter bullshit. The simple fact of the matter is, you do NOT have any sort of right to be on someone else’s property. They grant you permission, either implicitly or explicitly, and can refuse to do so, or revoke it, for any reason, or no reason at all. He’s not taking your gun away. He’s not denying you your right to self defense. He’s denying permission to be on his property, as is his right.

If you expect people to respect your rights, you have to respect theirs, instead of coming up with some rationale for ignoring them based on a strawman argument as to what they’re trying to do.

Now you’ll note, I didn’t call you a leftist, I just said you were showing more of an “entitled” attitude than any leftist I had ever seen. Entitled to demand of people that they let you on their property on your terms, not theirs. So maybe you’re not a leftist (in fact, I guessed you were probably a conservative), but where the fuck do you get off calling yourself a libertarian after bossing people’s use of their own property like this?

I’m a libertarian, not a propertarian, which is what most so-called libertarians are.

Real estate as property is an artificial right, purely invented, not inherent. If you have a piece of real estate you open to the public, then it’s open to the public, and you have no basis for picking and choosing — since it’s that public whose agreement that there’s such a thing as real estate as property to begin with.

The propertarian position is inherently anti-liberty, as it leads inevitable to feudalism.

You’re a phony libertarian then.

If you can’t own property, you cannot keep (or dispose of) the product of your own labor, if you cannot keep (or dispose of) the product of your own labor, you’re a slave.

There’s another group out there that denies the validity of property, and see where it got them, and their victims. The only difference between you and the Marxists is presumably you wouldn’t step into people’s private lives. Gee, how fucking generous.

But honestly, if you don’t recognize the validity of property rights at all then this discussion…which I thought was about reconciling two rights, both of which I thought you acknowledged, is utterly pointless.

Real estate is not the product of anyone’s labor. That’s why it’s an artificial right.

Equating something I built, such as a bicycle, to that which cannot be built, i.e. real estate, is a fallacy.

I figure you must mean land, specifically, when you mention real estate, as shops and houses are built.

If you can’t define the ownership of real estate, you cannot decide who is entitled to put their house or business there.

But more significantly, if you define a properly ownable thing as something that is built, you’ve just lost this argument, as a business premises is a building, I.e., something someone built, and he therefore, even by your definition, owns it, and has rights to it. He can therefore bar you, just as he can bar you from using his bicycle. Your argument only works on unimproved pastureland, since even a lawn or parking lot is something someone built. Hell, even a fenced pastureland could be considered “built” since the fence took work to create and adds value to it.

Me carrying a tool on my person affects in no way whatsoever the manner in which your property is used.

Regarding private property used for private purposes, we are 100% in agreement regarding your right to trespass any person for any reason. Unfortunately, regarding private property opened to the general public for commercial business purposes, the courts have discovered heretofore unknown “rights”, such as the “right of public accommodation”, whereby the right to trespass any person for any reason has been infringed. Business owners, under the court-made-up “right of public accommodation”, cannot discriminate against their customers. “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” is no longer applicable in this country.

I do not agree with the courts, and I believe that property owners are being wrongfully denied their rights. But so long as some classes of people are given extra-legal “rights” to patronize businesses, I will claim those same extra-legal “rights”, because I am guaranteed equal protection under the law.

If Kroger cannot refuse service to someone because of their skin color, then neither can Kroger refuse service to me, because of the tool I choose to carry in order to exercise my right to self-defense. (And that Kroger explicitly refuses to infringe upon that right is the primary reason that I shop at Kroger.)

Because it’s not about the gun, it’s about the you wanting me there/not there.

It might SOUND like a semantic game, but it really isn’t.

You can ask me to leave your private property for ANY reason…and you don’t even really have to specify a reason. Trespass is trespass, and does not require possession of a gun or any other object on the part of the trespasser.

If you can ask me to leave your business because I spit on the floor, the law applies at the point of you asking me to leave, and does not require you to prove that I spit on the floor. Let’s say we are in court for my Trespass trial…want do you need to prove? Only that it is your property and you asked me to leave.

If we could get a handle on this as just yet another attempt of the anti’s to give the gun agency, it would really help. Once again, they manage to ‘divide and conquer’ because they get gun owners bickering over “property rights” vs “2A rights,” when that’s not an argument at all.

I’m sorry, JR, my reply was directed at Chip. Just to make it clear, to me privately-owned property is just that, whether it’s residential or business or some combination of the two. And I’m not depriving anybody of any of their rights by excluding them from my property, there’s nothing forcing them to seek access to my property in the first place and they are free not to go there if they choose. EDIT: Reading it all again, sounds like we are on the same side on this one.

Another Robert and JR, I think that under a *proper* legal system (unlike what we have now), the only difference between private property (like your house or land) and certain other types of private property (like a shop that’s “open to the public”) should be what is presumed about whether you have permission to enter and be there. Your house: I should assume I don’t have permission until you tell me otherwise. (People are generally allowed to come up the walk to knock on the door to ask for permission.) Your shop: While it’s open, I can assume I *do* have permission until you tell me otherwise (by sign or verbally). In either case, no permission to begin with: It’s trespass. Permission given but then revoked: I get just enough time to leave, then it’s trespass.

Steve makes a very good distinction. If the premises are otherwise open to the public, then I have permission to enter as I please with no pre-emption from the owner or manager. If the premises are not open to the public, I have no business there anyway.

But I would also argue that the concept behind service animals and the ADA apply to the carrying of a weapon. You can’t deny me entry to your premises just because I have a service animal; the animal is effectively treated as a medical device I need for some medical condition — and you can’t deny me entry because I carry any sort of medical device, whether it is in use at the moment or not; if I carry one in case I may need it, there is no difference between that and actually needing it at the time I enter your premises.

A gun is also, effectively, a medical device, in that it is meant to aid in securing my safety and health. So denying someone access because they have a gun is no different than denying someone access because they have a service dog, a wheelchair, crutches, or any other device brought along for their health and safety.

Steve makes a very good distinction. If the premises are otherwise open to the public, then I have permission to enter as I please with no pre-emption from the owner or manager. If the premises are not open to the public, I have no business there anyway.

I’m not sure you understood me. I’m not sure that you misunderstood me either. “enter as I please with no pre-emption” could mean “enter as I please provided there is no pre-emption” or it could mean “enter as I please, and the owner cannot pre-empt me” The former is much closer to my intended meaning, in that the owner can open his store to the public, but also post caveats, “no shirt, no shoes, no service,” “no pets allowed” or “no guns allowed.” At which point he’s placed conditions on entry, but otherwise lets people in without them specifically being invited. It falls under being allowed in unless specifically told otherwise.

Which brings us to your point where you attempt to compare a gun to medical oxygen or a service dog (which is usually an exception to a “no pets allowed” sign). I don’t believe it’s a valid comparison, because without medical oxygen an bad (emergency) medical situation will be created within minutes, and without a service dog, it’s generally impossible for the dog’s owner to function at all. This is not true of you and your gun. You might not WANT to function without it (and I wouldn’t be unsympathetic to that attitude), but that’s a different story. You won’t find yourself in an emergency without it, except in the VERY unlikely case that you are attacked. And you can, before you set foot in that store, decide that you will, or will not, accept that risk. People do accept that risk all the time 24/7 by not being armed even where allowed by (stupid) laws, so it’s not a ridiculous trade off even if you and I would choose otherwise.

Though the more I think about it, the more I’d be willing to say, that yes, under proper law, the owner could deny entry in both of these cases, as there’s no emergency created until/unless the person steps onto his property. (And suffer the consequences of a boycott I’d join in.)

Again, no right of yours is being denied if a private property owner says, “don’t come onto my property.” You don’t have a RIGHT to be there. And your carrying a gun, which you do have a right to do, doesn’t create such a right to be on his property.

Do you favor a two-tiered system of private property rights then?

No, actually. It’s quite simple: on your private property, you have the right to allow or disallow the presence of any given person, at any time and for any reason. But while you allow a person on your property, you may not impose upon that person’s natural and civil rights. In other words: you can trespass me, but you cannot disarm me.

And so long as the courts have discovered a “right of public accommodation”, whereby places open to the general public for commercial business cannot discriminate against the public, I maintain that those who choose to exercise their second amendment-protected rights have every bit as much of an expectation of not being discriminated against as every other person, who has constitutional protection of equal protection under law.

Well, as far as I’m aware Kroger doesn’t have a gun policy, so no problem, I’ll shop there all I want. But HEB is closer and cheaper and also doesn’t have a gun policy as far as I know, so I’ll go to HEB more often than Kroger.

You have the right to not shop at Kroger.

And gay couples have the right not to shop at certain florists and bakeries.