Above the Law

Not a Steven Segal movie, but this guy:



The state of Florida recently passed a law permitting employees to keep firearms locked in their vehicles in the parking lot where they work. Not so fast, says Walt Disney World!

The giant resort has declared that much of its sprawling property is exempt from a new state law that allows Floridians with concealed-weapons permits to keep firearms locked in their cars at work.
Disney, which has 60,000 employees and a long-standing policy against allowing guns on its land, cites an arcane -- and late-added -- loophole in the new law, which took effect Tuesday.

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Wait 'til you hear the "loophole" they want to drive a Matterhorn ride through!

Disney cites language within Florida's newly enacted "Preservation and Protection of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Motor Vehicles Act of 2008" that creates an exception for companies whose primary business is to manufacture, use, store or transport explosives regulated under federal law.

What??? The primary business of an amusement park is to "manufacture, use, store or transport explosives regulated under federal law"? So, the fireworks in the park are their "primary" business? This doesn't pass the smell test!

"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."

But on the same day that the House took its final vote on the gun bill, the exemption for explosives companies was revised so that it also includes "property owned or leased by an employer who has obtained a permit" under federal law for such explosives.

Disney has such a permit, for the extensive fireworks used in its theme parks. 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.

So, thanks to a little slight of hand by Disney lawyers, the intent of the law is thwarted!
Let's hear it for the heirs of Disneyland disregarding the spirit of the Second Amendment!

Hat tip HuffPo
Cross posted at Say Anything