Some send a polite letter explaining “I’d like to be a patron of your establishment, but the sign indicates you don’t want my kind around. Just thought you should know I’ll be taking my money elsewhere.” Many such signs have come down as a result.
If it is a place of business ..take your business elsewhere
If you HAD to use it what's there to weigh? Being out $500 and maybe a month in jail or possible DEAD?
Easy choice, really.
Does it say”weapons” or “guns”? If it says “weapons” how is that defined? It sounds like the law may be too vague to be enforceable. I taught martial arts for 15 years and I can make a deadly “weapon” out of a rolled up magazine.
Do NOT carry on such premises. You could lose your right to carry forever.
It’s sounds stupid, because you might be thinking, “But I could lose my life!” As other posters have suggested - just go somewhere else.
Personally, I think I would respect their private property rights and simply inform them, as others have stated, that I won’t patronize their business (if that is an option) due to this.
Unfortunately, going against their private property rights may result in lawsuits that could jeopardize the concealed carry laws. You just need one activist judge in the pipe. Don’t give the anti-gun folks any opportunity to attack rights.
Rule 0: Don’t tell them you are carrying.
Like so many other things if you don’t get caught it really isn’t against the law. And really with a weapon situation if something happens where you need to be armed a $500 fine is better than dead.
Use your head. If the property owner says Don’t Carry, then Don’t. Carry. It’s pretty simple....
Unless you want to spend many thousands of dollars defending your “rights”...or risk losing them, or worse.
Take your business elsewhere, or just don’t show off the weapon.
Let me also put it this way:
You may not only lose your right to carry, but every firearm in your possession. All that has to happen is for you to get arrested, someone decides you shouldn’t possess firearms while the case is adjudicated, and then the guns are NEVER given back.
Is that a $500 fine in your case, or a $5000 fine?
Case in point: I once had a knife confiscated by the cops after some guy attacked me with a baseball bat. *The knife was never on my person during the assault*, I never pulled the knife in defense, and there was a stack of witness testimony that just said I beat the guy back with my fists, but I never saw that knife again.
Get it?
Do they have a large sign on every entrance door? Most places I’ve seen only have one very small sticker on only one entrance door and its just a handgun in a circle with a diagonal line. I always figured I’d just say I never saw the little tiny sticker...I went in through a different door that didn’t have the sticker.
How much do you need to go there? I just stay out of those establishments. If you need to go and there is a chance of a patdown (e.g. sporting events, concerts, etc), you leave the gun in the car. If there is no chance of a patdown, I consider the neighborhood and decide appropriately.
Some posters here claim that 30 days in jail is easy and worth carrying their gun (which would be a weapon’s offense and probably cost them their CCW for life). Most of us would lose our jobs if we spent a single work day in jail.
My advice is just avoid the business. Tell them why.
I would either not carry or not go in.
I’m not worried about the fine, $500 in the grand scheme of things is nothing, I don’t want to lose my carry permit forever.
With my luck, I’d slip on a wet floor, the gun would show and I’d be talking to the cops.
If I saw a sign like that I would avoid the place because it’s an open invitation to maniacs like that guy that shot up the Luby’s in Texas or that Korean that opened fire on those college kids in Virginia.
They know that no one is armed to stop their rampage.
Does it say”weapons” or “guns”? If it says “weapons” how is that defined? It sounds like the law may be too vague to be enforceable. I taught martial arts for 15 years and I can make a deadly “weapon” out of a rolled up magazine.
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I agree with this statement. Your fists/hands can be a weapon. Your car keys can be a weapon. Your pocket knife, ink pen... etc...etc... Are you then required to amputate yourself in order to patronize this establishment? Screw em. Go elsewhere.
Honor their property rights, bypass their establishment and, if you must enter and something dreadful should happen, sue the ever-lovin’ carp out of them for failure to execute their implied duty to defend you when they denied your right to self-defense. One or two of those cases goes toward a win and we might see a rethink of the gun-free-victim-rich zone signs.
Respect property rights