ThinkProgress, a far left Internet site, is inadvertently pushing for Donald Trump to rid his commercial empire of "gun free zones". In an interesting bit of investigative journalism, unnamed workers for Thinkprogress called a number of Trump properties, to inquire if they allowed guns on the premises. The three that they list as gun free zones are all in Democrat controlled bastions with histories of extremely restrictive gun laws. One is in Chicago, one in Hawaii, and one in Los Angeles. From thinkprogress.com:
ThinkProgress spoke with a number of hotels and golf courses in the Trump empire and found that multiple locations were gun-free zones, even for guests with concealed-carry permits.Not so surprisingly, Trump's property in New York City does not ban guns for people with gun permits. Donald Trump has said that he has a permit to carry a gun.
“No, we don’t allow any firearms in the hotel,” a manager at Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago told ThinkProgress over the phone.
Guns are also banned at Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles. An employee at the course told ThinkProgress that “we don’t allow firearms on the property.” Asked whether that ban applies even to those with a concealed-carry permit, he said that “with a permit we still don’t allow firearms.”
The ThinkProgress article did not have any pictures of gun ban signs on the properties, so we only have the words of the people who they talked to over the phone about the polices. They may be correct, but lower level employees are often mistaken about corporate policies.
How would a guest at a Trump property know that they are not allowed to have a gun, if there are no signs or policy posted? Gun ownership is very high among the well off and wealthy.
I spoke to a source from the security department at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. He was helpful and gracious. He confirmed that the hotel had a gun with a slash through it sign on the main entrance, aimed at concealed carry permit holders. Concealed carry permits became available in Chicago less than two years ago. Illinois was the last state in the U.S. to pass legislation to allow the legal carry of concealed weapons.
My source corrected the notion that guns are not allowed in the Trump Towers. He said the hotel does not search guest luggage, and that while you are staying at the hotel, your room is considered your residence. He stressed that as long as you handled your firearms legally while in your room, the hotel policy did not apply, and that laws concerning the shipping and transportation of firearms were the responsibility of the individual guest.
The Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles did not have a knowledgeable person available for comment.
The staff person at the Trump International Hotel Waikiki Beach Walk told me that they could not definitively answer my question. They were certain, however, that there was no "gun free zone" or "no guns" sign on the hotel entrance.
The likely outcome of the ThinkProgress complaint about Trump is that he will remove any gun free zones on properties that he has control over. Properties and management contracts can be complex, so it is not certain that a property with "Trump" in its name is under the control of Donald Trump the presidential candidate.
Concealed carry permits are almost non-existent in Hawaii, very limited in Los Angeles, and have only been available in Chicago for a year and a half.
©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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1 comment:
"We have to get rid of that whole gun-free-zone nonsense and just stop it," Trump said in Charleston, S.C., after the church shooting there. "We gotta stick up for the Second Amendment."
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