Reply #21: and the questions remain [View All]

I mean, I asked them several times in that other thread, and never did get an answer.

... Why should a law that gives individuals permission to carry concealed firearms in public places give them permission to carry concealed firearms onto other people's property?

Why should the onus be on any property owner to post signs on his/her property prohibiting the carrying of concealed firearms onto that property?

Why should there not be a presumption that owners/occupants of private property to which others have access (and that includes any occupant of any residential property in these jurisdictions, to which itinerant vendors and canvassers have completely legal access for the purpose of soliciting) do NOT permit the carrying of concealed firearms on their property *unless* otherwise posted?

Why should the onus NOT be on the carrier of the concealed firearm to obtain the permission of an owner/occupant of private property before carrying a concealed firearm onto the property?

What social purpose is served by giving anyone with a permit to carry a concealed firearm the legal authority to carry it into hospitals, churches and apartment complexes, and to any front door at any private residential property where they do not live, or onto anyone's business premises? What social purpose is served by making property owners and occupants responsible for whether or not someone carries a concealed firearm onto their property?

The people affected by this new "right" are NOT only business owners, as far as I can tell. My front porch is the place of business of all the local JoHos and chocolate-bar sellers and electrical company solicitors and advertising flyer distributors. And if I were in a "CCW" jurisdiction, they would ALL be entitled, if they qualified, to obtain a licence to carry a concealed firearm and to carry it right up to my front door and up and down the front porches and to the front doors of all my neighbours. Hey, if I've got this wrong, let me know, eh?


There was previously a long-standing, generalized prohibition against carrying concealed firearms except in exceptional circumstances. Owners and occupants of places open to the public, and of private properties to which strangers have access for business or other purposes, were entitled to rely on that prohibition. If someone illegally carried a concealed firearm onto their property and caused damage there, they were not liable.

Now, if they fail to post a warning that firearms are not permitted on their property, and if someone with lawful authority to carry a firearm wherever s/he bloody well wants uses that firearm to cause damage on the property, I anticipate that anyone harmed would have a cause of action against the property owner for failing to post the prohibition. (Will posting be sufficient? Will some active effort to prevent firearms being carried onto the property be needed?)

This is a huge reversal of the rights of property owners and occupants. For whose benefit? Not theirs, that's for sure. (If they want concealed firearms on their property, they would be perfectly free to post signs welcoming them if the law did not give automatic permission to those carrying them.) Nobody's but the self-absorbed, self-centred toters of firearms, and of course their bought and paid for legislators. Obviously.

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