Posted on 06/18/2010 5:29:12 AM PDT by marktwain
This month, Schnucks grocery stores in Missouri ended their ill-advised policy of prohibiting defensive firearm carry on the premises. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:
The signs barring the carrying of concealed weapons inside Schnucks quietly came down earlier this month — more than six years after they first went up in the grocery chain's Missouri stores following the passage of a state law allowing individuals to carry concealed weapons.
Why the change, I wonder?
"As the discussion continued, we decided to make the change in policy based on the idea that any customer who has a valid license to carry a concealed weapon should be allowed to do so," [Schnucks spokeswoman Lori] Willis said. "It really seemed to us as if it were a nonissue."
"Nonissue" is a good way to describe it. In four other states in which Schnucks has stores, and which have provisions for defensive handgun carry by private citizens (Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, and Tennessee), Schnucks has had no such policy in place, and has not had a single cause to regret that lack.
On the other hand, we can find a reason, as recently as last October, to regret there having been such a policy in Missouri. From FOX News St. Louis:
St. Louis police are looking for a suspect in a string of attacks in south St. Louis. Police say the four attacks happened last week and all of the victims were female. Police say the suspect robbed his victims at gunpoint. One woman and her friend were leaving the Schnucks grocery store on South Grand when they were forced into a vehicle and told to drive off the parking lot. The suspect took the women's purses.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Schnucks gets my business quite often, and will continue to get it.
WE have “schmucks” here who actually believe those No Firearms signs make their building safer!
Just stopped in at the one across from work this morning. I was glad to see this in the news!
When I moved here three years ago, I went to Schnucks and saw the No Firearms sign on the door. That was the last time I set foot in one. I may reconsider and let them know why.
Prior to the passage of the Missouri law, there was a lot of hyperbolic fretting by the hoplophobes who felt that a large sign would protect them from people with guns. Part of the anti-gun hysteria was expressed in terms of the “wild west”.
There are still a few establishments with these signs, but people who have studied the Missouri law know their rights.
Welcome to FR
Their stores and customers are much safer now. Banning guns is like chaining a fire exit closed.
I do not shop in Gun Free Zones.
##
Nor do I. My kids don’t let their kids go to Chuck E Cheese because they ban guns. The grandchildren all know those stores are unsafe and don’t even ask to go. The older ones will tell you that not only are the stores unsafe but the company’s management is against civil rights and freedom so it isn’t good to spend money in their stores.
Attention!
This store is a disarmed victim zone!
Chuck E Cheese MUST be a gun-free zone, to the extent that criminals will abide by the sign.
CEC is the place of the most domestic fights at children’s birthday parties,
mostly because “the ex” shows up with his/her new squeeze and everyone gets all “wee wee’d up”.
My daughter’s 5 year-old was invited to a birthday party at one and told his friend that it wasn’t safe to go there because they have a sign in the window that tells bad people that if they want to hurt children it’s safe to do it there.
The other kid’s mother called my daughter and my daughter explained about them banning guns. The other mother said she never noticed. She called back the next day and said after talking to her husband he drove by the Chuck E Cheese and saw the sign and told her to move the party to somewhere else. The husband is not a CCW holder but is a hunter and an NRA member.
The other mother thanked my daughter for telling her about CEC.
I despise those signs,
but the reason CEC is unsafe isn’t that it’s “gun-free”,
it’s the clientele’s demographics.
I’ve never been in one. Years ago I was taking my oldest granddaughter to lunch and she wanted to go to one. When I got to the door and saw the sign we never went in.
It was in a good neighborhood so I assumed the clientele would be OK just uninformed.
So, it took four women being robbed and even abducted for the policy to change?
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