Yesterday, Better Half and I went to Earth Fare here in Knoxville. No big deal… except that by the end of this week, if we do that again, I could be a criminal.
How does that figure? Well, a few visits back, we noticed that the glass adjoining the sliding doors proudly displayed a three-inch diameter gun-with-a-red-circle-and-slash-through-it picture. No verbiage. No words. Nothing more than a gun-with-a-slash.
But here is where it gets interesting – ever since I started openly carrying, I have done so at this particular store. In fact, the odds are quite good that I open carried while those stickers were in place. But up until this coming week, those stickers carried no legal weight, and could be ignored with impunity. Oh, sure, employees of the store could ask me to leave, and if I do not, I am tresspassing…
They never have asked. They did not ask me to leave tonight. They have not asked me to leave in the past. And considering the amount of time we have spent browsing their cheese displays, I am quite certain that the employees were more than aware that I was openly carrying a firearm on my hip.
Do they actually care about the gun? Is that easily-overlookable sticker there just to assuage pants-wetting hoplophobes?
Later this week, the questions become academic. When the house overrides Governor Bredesen’s idiotic veto of the “guns in establishments that serve alcohol” bill, that little circle-with-a-slash sticker suddenly becomes legally binding, with the full weight of a Class-A misdemeanor behind it.
Yeah, you can bloody well bet that I will be shooting off an email to the Earth Fare corporatoin and store very shortly after that veto gets passed. But, for the time being, a sticker that could easily be glanced over and ignored with the sheer volume of other stickers and signs affixed to stores’ fronts suddenly becomes legally binding to Tennesseean residents who seek to be able to defend themselves and their families, with the maximum punishment for understandably not noticing it and walking past it being 11 months and 29 days in jail and/or a $2,500 fine.
Does that seem right to you?
I was under the impression that the relaxed sign requirements only applied to restaurants that serve alcohol. Did they actually revise the legislation for all signage?
I get a kick out of those signs.
Is the fine in Tennessee sometimes actually an optional year less a day OR $2500? Who values their freedom that little (or makes that little money) that they would rather go to the state pen for a year than pay $2500?
Ohio has semi-binding signage–If you knowingly cross a sign while armed, it is criminal trespass, (except in a parking lot where it is simple trespass) but if you can plausibly claim that you didn’t see it there is no penalty.
One of the problems we have (and are working on fixing) is that there is no signage requirement for restaurants that serve alcohol, and possession is a felony there.
@Rich Hailey – If I am reading the bill right, and given all of the various additions, deletions, changes, and whatnot that the bill makes to the law, and the amendments make to the bill, I could very well be reading it wrong, the circle-and-slash symbol becomes binding for any private establishments. If I am wrong, though, I would very much like to be informed
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@Mike-ENDOtactical – It is my understanding that it is up to the judge’s discretion as to whether or not you get one, the other, both, or a fraction of any of it. Sadly, your vote, while noted, is probably ignored.
@sevesteen – TN was much the same way – restaurants that serve alcohol were off-limits, but were under no compunction to post locally. We were simply expected to know the laws, which is arguably a reasonable assumption, but still a pain in the ass given that some restaurants actually do not serve booze around here.
As for the signs, the law was amended to require that the signs/stickers be obvious to an average person, but a 20″x20″ sign could be buried amongst tens of other signs and stickers, and people could still miss it, so what does that mean?
I eagerly anticipate an analysis of the current law. In the meantime, I can still look forward to that cheery question from the girl at the pastry counter: “Is that a Kel-Tec in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
Well, I guess that would depend on the girl in question
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[...] on the first of this month, I sent an email to Earth Fare regarding the “gunbuster” stickers affixed to the doors of their Knoxville branch. I [...]