I'll leave the alcohol argument alone except to say that yes, illegal gun owners and criminals do indeed shoot up bars quite often. I have not seen a rash of law abiding citizens with legal guns doing the same. I'd rather be in a position to defend myself when 50 cent and his entourage come to town. He might be bulletproof; I'm not.

For the mall stuff, the sign doesn't have the force of law. The mall owner still needs to rely on hte law of trespass which requires that he demand the person leave and they refuse. That principle is alluded to in your articles as in the case where security personnel asked guys wearing expressive T shirts to leave and they refused (although there appears to be some dispute about whether they fought with security), and also your explanation about checking with local law enforcement, etc.

I don't think the police can directly arrest me if I violate a mall manager's sign. They can arrest me if I refuse to leave after he "orders" me to (defiant trespass). The sign does not fulfill the purpose of the "order" to leave under the law and the sign does not bar trespass. A sign like that isn't lawfully enforceable. The person you want to go has to be "ordered" to leave.

You can order a person to leave for any reason or no reason as long as it's not an illegal reason. That I agree with.

It's different than posting signs "posted -- no trespassing" for which there is a specific law governing that situation, with specific requirements for the posting and it bars all tresspass, not just certain people doing certain things you don't like.

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Not necessarily. If the sign is specific enough, e.g. "no skateboarding," in most states you can be arrested without first refusing to leave/stop the activity, although in most cases police officers won't make such an arrest. However, I suspect in the case of a gun -- for example if a store clerk or patron sees a gun on someone and reports it to mall management -- I believe the cops would very likely take the person into custody without first asking him/her to voluntarily leave. OTOH, I agree with you that the more ambiguous rules (e.g. "no loitering") could not give rise to an arrest unless you have refused a request to leave.

For more on this, see Schiller, S. Pruneyard and Trespass Laws: A Look At Enforcing Access Rules Through Arrest and Criminal Prosecution, Shopping Center Legal Update 12:1 (1992)

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---Shosh

Trespass without being ordered to leave is a summary in PA(except on school property or some such and of course if you have to break in to trespass, etc.). They can't take you into custody. The most they can do is write you a ticket which you can then fight arguing that the sign did not forbid "trespassing." If the cops arrest on a summary (never happen) sue them. The Pruneyard case was different in that California law has specific provisions about disrupting a business through first amendment activities and the state's ability to arrest for violation of that California law.

It never ceases to amaze me how people think a legal gun is some special thing. OMG, that guy has a GUN -- oops, it's legal. The only reason someone is allowed to carry it is because after having his background scrubbed down for two months with a fine toothed comb by PPD and the PSP, Commish Johnson decided even he couldn't stop the guy from carrying it. If it's an illegal gun, absolutely arrest and spend some time in jail. If it's legal, why should it be any different from carrying, I don't know, a toothbrush. Seriously, check on how many people with a license to carry ever commit a gun crime (or any crime for that matter -- if a law abiding citizen did commit crimes he'd lose all his guns -- now there's a crime deterrent ).

What you are also neglecting is the right to keep and bear arms (yeah, I know, everyone starts rolling their eyes) is a right still litigated under the federal constitution and is much clearer and broader in the PA constitution (so whatever people say about collective federal rights, the PA constitution is tough to argue against on this point). Looking at the Pruneyard case (I can't find the article you posted but quickly read a summary of the case and I think I have the gist of it) if the property is deemed a litmited public forum as opposed to purely private property, courts grants more protection to fundamental rights such as freedom of speech. I don't see it as a stretch to argue that other fundamental rights are entitled to similar protections. The right to defend oneself is fairly basic and universally recognized.

I'd be OK with if the mall ninjas, er, security, could spot my gun, they could be given the legal right to ask to see my license to carry (as it stands they can't -- they're not law enforcement -- if they have good reason to think it's an illegal gun they can call law enforcement who will sort it out). They won't spot it and I'd be happy to show them my license anyway. If they make a mistake and think a pager is a gun, they get fined say $50 so they don't go around harrassing everyone and anyone they feel like. Probably a stupid idea on my part as the cops would never want to let untrained security guards start performing law enforcement type functions, but maybe it illustrates a concept.

Bah, the whole thing is really academic anyway. Malls don't post such signs around here and I'd bet it's with good reason as I noted earlier. People carrying lawfully don't cause any of the problems. People carrying unlawfully obviously don't care about "victims only" signs at the mall.

Let's go back to Florida's "keep guns away from kids" law. Like I said I couldn't really find any fault with it.

I'd also like to further explore what you said about longer prison sentences not being a deterrent to criminals. While I disagree with you, it occurred to me that you have provided another argument as to why law abiding citizens should not have their rights infringed and should always be permitted to own and carry guns. If even long prison terms don't deter criminals from seriously harming or killing innocent people, how can the state then say that these same innocent people can't have the tools they need to defend themselves. Just a thought. Actually I'm more interested as to why you think longer prison sentences don't deter crime.

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Just for the record, the US Supremes held that malls are private property and the owners can prohibit access. The CA Pruneyard case, which requires mall owners to allow access for first amendment activities, deals with CA law only. NJ has also interpreted its constitution to allow first amendment activity in shopping malls. All of the rest of the states have either not addressed the issue or found no such right (3 or 4 states permit access for political activity only). In any event, Pennsylvania is a no access state -- a shopping mall owner can prohibit access to their malls on any non-discriminatory (sex, race, etc.) reason.

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---Shosh

Well I guess that's that. The only remaining questions would be how a particular prohibition could be enforced on a theoretical level and how it would be enforced as a practical matter. Then there would be questions if the mall had different enforcement policies for different groups or different activities. Maybe there are actually a few open questions remaining.

After what happened in Nebraska recently, I can pretty much guarantee there will not be more state legislators around the country rushing to give explicit force of law to "no gun zone" (as I keep saying "victim only zone") lunacy.

If you haven't seen this yet you might get a chuckle out of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pGt_O1uM8

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FYI - Dad was shot NINE times earlier this year. He was extrememly uncopperative. Needless to say, he never told us who shot him.
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My take is he bought the gun for revenge which he was about to or already carried out.

He threw out the gun afterwards instead of taking responsibility. That's disgusting but par for the course.

We had it temporarily before it became a homicide job. Let me just say that the family was a little uncooperative as well. A 4 year old is dead and all people want to do is stick up for a murderer. Sad.

I said that he looked like a nut, and thus he is one.

Hopefully this time around the DA sees fit to push for more than 11 to 23 months in the county jail.

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