I agree. Enthusiastically.
I agree. Enthusiastically.
Whole Foods is definitely better than Hole Foods. Holistic Foods is food for prostitutes.
That's pretty funny! I agree the the OP handled the situation well... But, in four pages of posts no one has mentioned the throwback of what OC can potentially do to all of use because of whom we annoy by OCing. I don't care if you call it flaunting, following your rights or what ever. All of us have be honest, there's a bit of "in your face" we all would like to say to all the gun haters. But, once again, who are we annoying in the process. The more abvious we are with our OC the more we are noticed. Outa site outa mind is sometimes a better deal. I don't want to get the soccer moms trying to protect there childern from a perfectly legal OCer just because she thinks you're a threat. We could send all the folks that are riding the fence on gun control to the side of total restriction.
The flip side of that argument would be that the more people OC, the more the general public will get used to it. Pros and cons on both sides.
I haven't posted often around the forums, but I'd like to here in response to the couple of "why OC" replies.
You have to remember that it's not only men that have their carry licenses. Some of us are women, and just because we are women doesn't mean we like to carry small .380's
For me, especially in the warmer months carrying concealed can be somewhat of an issue especially since I carry a Sig 239 .40. It's not a huge gun, but on my body it's not all that easy to completely conceal either without a jacket or cover garment of some kind.
It's not that I want to always open carry and in fact before Open Carry went into effect I had only been carrying in my car and backpack for fear of printing. I no longer have to worry about that.
Personally I don't think that OC'ing is a "in your face" kind of thing, myself and my husband have OC'ed a few times, and so far everyone we have spoken to about it either hasn't noticed or could care less. Sure we got a couple "he's got a gun" whispers, but no one freaked out or has asked us to leave anywhere.
For the OP, I respect the way you handled the situation, you did it really well. My husband is careful not to OC anywhere he feels people might freak out as he doesn't want to deal with that yet, can't say I blame him too much. We don't make it up that way much, but it was nice of the employee to let you check out since you were pretty much done anyway.
I'd be interested to see what Whole Foods corporate says.
You have to remember that it's not only men that have their carry licenses. Some of us are women, and just because we are women doesn't mean we like to carry small .380's
For me, especially in the warmer months carrying concealed can be somewhat of an issue especially since I carry a Sig 239 .40. It's not a huge gun, but on my body it's not all that easy to completely conceal either without a jacket or cover garment of some kind.
It's not that I want to always open carry and in fact before Open Carry went into effect I had only been carrying in my car and backpack for fear of printing. I no longer have to worry about that.
Personally I don't think that OC'ing is a "in your face" kind of thing, myself and my husband have OC'ed a few times, and so far everyone we have spoken to about it either hasn't noticed or could care less. Sure we got a couple "he's got a gun" whispers, but no one freaked out or has asked us to leave anywhere.
For the OP, I respect the way you handled the situation, you did it really well. My husband is careful not to OC anywhere he feels people might freak out as he doesn't want to deal with that yet, can't say I blame him too much. We don't make it up that way much, but it was nice of the employee to let you check out since you were pretty much done anyway.
I'd be interested to see what Whole Foods corporate says.
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I've OC'd every weekend since it became legal. Never got any evil looks anywhere I've been which includes a city park, a number of grocery stores, walmart and a public lake. Once in a grocery store (Homeland) I helped two seperate old ladies reach stuff off of a top shelf they couldn't reach. They never blinked an eye. At a pharmacy I had a longer than necessary friendly chat about this that and the other thing (not gun related) with the female pharmacy assistant without issue. If she didn't notice I was carrying she would have had to have been blind.
OC is experiencing birthing pains that are no different from those experienced back in '95 when CCW became the law of the land.
In 6 months most of the signs that recently got put up will be down.
Much ado about nothing.
Were you carrying a slung M1 Garand?
Op handled this very well, courteous and professionally.
My issue with threads like this is that since OC passed, I've seen a ton of new signs (including small stores locally) and when asking the store-owners at some of the smaller places, they say that their insurance companies told them to put up a sign or that someone pushed the limits by OC'ing in a sort of "brazen" manner, or that they just didn't want to lose the customers that were against it.
Basically, there were a lot of fence-sitting semi-anti-gun people/places that weren't vocal about it or pushing the issue until open carry came out (and those places viewed OC as pushing the issue).
I've got absolutely no beef with the right to open-carry and I want the option to do so, but when we're dealing with a population of known gun-fearing folks, it would seem to me that education under the proper circumstances seems like a better plan than OC'ing just to prove a point.
And I'm not saying that everyone is OC'ing "just to prove a point", but I hear a lot of comments about how folks can't wait to go OC at some place that they know isn't necessarily gun-friendly but doesn't yet have a sign up, or how they can't wait to see the look on so-and-so's face, or how they're switching their carry to the biggest gun possible just to OC...
Those are the attention-whores (ust like the folks who are attention-whoring against guns) and now I've got a bunch of places I have to avoid because of signage that didn't used to be there. The consequences aren't "blood in the streets" like the common strawman argument that's tossed around, but there are still folks lashing out against guns (and a lot of them just need education from someone with a level-head and knowledge of the gun-world).
There are plenty of idiots out there just trying to prove a point - and most of those idiots aren't taking the time to write businesses who posted signage in an intelligent manner or using reason and logic when talking to local store-owners, or trying to properly educate gun-fearing folks who just need some knowledge on the matter.
So why we all feel like OC is a win, I'd suggest getting ahead of the backlash by talking to folks (using a level-head) or being as courteous to others as you can before trying to use the gun as an extension of one's ego and getting a little attention. If you happen to be responsibly OC'ing and not just after the attention then great. I applaud you (but you should be just as angry about the idiots screwing it up for all of us).
For the record, I haven't OC'd yet, but I've sloppily concealed a few times (thin shirt over an IWB holster that was fairly obvious just because I was lazy) and I think the OP handled the situation correctly (though going to a place like Whole Foods was probably not the best use of judgment - I try and verify that a private-property owner is cool with my bringing a firearm onto their property prior to doing it - no there wasn't a sign but Whole Foods and a lot of their clientèle are notoriously left-leaning on a lot of political issues including guns). If the employee was just the messenger, then there's no reason to punish them by making them put all your stuff back on the shelf by walking out without completing the purchase.
Basically, there were a lot of fence-sitting semi-anti-gun people/places that weren't vocal about it or pushing the issue until open carry came out (and those places viewed OC as pushing the issue).
I've got absolutely no beef with the right to open-carry and I want the option to do so, but when we're dealing with a population of known gun-fearing folks, it would seem to me that education under the proper circumstances seems like a better plan than OC'ing just to prove a point.
And I'm not saying that everyone is OC'ing "just to prove a point", but I hear a lot of comments about how folks can't wait to go OC at some place that they know isn't necessarily gun-friendly but doesn't yet have a sign up, or how they can't wait to see the look on so-and-so's face, or how they're switching their carry to the biggest gun possible just to OC...
Those are the attention-whores (ust like the folks who are attention-whoring against guns) and now I've got a bunch of places I have to avoid because of signage that didn't used to be there. The consequences aren't "blood in the streets" like the common strawman argument that's tossed around, but there are still folks lashing out against guns (and a lot of them just need education from someone with a level-head and knowledge of the gun-world).
There are plenty of idiots out there just trying to prove a point - and most of those idiots aren't taking the time to write businesses who posted signage in an intelligent manner or using reason and logic when talking to local store-owners, or trying to properly educate gun-fearing folks who just need some knowledge on the matter.
So why we all feel like OC is a win, I'd suggest getting ahead of the backlash by talking to folks (using a level-head) or being as courteous to others as you can before trying to use the gun as an extension of one's ego and getting a little attention. If you happen to be responsibly OC'ing and not just after the attention then great. I applaud you (but you should be just as angry about the idiots screwing it up for all of us).
For the record, I haven't OC'd yet, but I've sloppily concealed a few times (thin shirt over an IWB holster that was fairly obvious just because I was lazy) and I think the OP handled the situation correctly (though going to a place like Whole Foods was probably not the best use of judgment - I try and verify that a private-property owner is cool with my bringing a firearm onto their property prior to doing it - no there wasn't a sign but Whole Foods and a lot of their clientèle are notoriously left-leaning on a lot of political issues including guns). If the employee was just the messenger, then there's no reason to punish them by making them put all your stuff back on the shelf by walking out without completing the purchase.
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