Imagine that one day you walk into a random store. It might be a Walmart or a bookshop or a MacDonalds or a coffee shop or an estate agent (realtor), but not a gun store. At first, everything seems normal, but after a bit, you notice that all the staff are discreetly armed. Not just some, but all those legally allowed. There are other customers, conducting business as normal.
What are your feelings? What are your actions?
If you inquire:
The staff get a small bonus for being armed and paid-for range time.
I’d find it a bit unnerving (though not overwhelmingly so). I’d consider taking my business elsewhere.
But it would just be a mark against the store – like if it had a dirty bathroom, or a rude cashier. I still might go if it was particularly convenient, or I had some other significant reason to go to this store.
Either way, I would probably not patronize that store again. I trust myself and my friends with handguns, but a retail store is not an appropriate venue to be carrying. To much risk of some member of the public doing something stupid.
I’d think it a little strange but it would not bother me.
The owner/operator of the auto repair shop I go to open carries. I’m not exactly sure why, but the shop is competent and reasonably priced. They also have a resident daschund that makes me smile every time I go there.
I’d be glad that I had to ask. It means that they weren’t so gun obsessed that they were constantly talking about them, looking at them, pulling them out and showing each other etc.
I don’t think it would bother me that much. Based on your question (and location), I assume you’re not from the states. Just to be clear, it’s not that we’re all over here waving guns around. I think I see someone with a non-concealed gun, maybe, once a year (I’m in non-hunting and more or less safe area of Wisconsin BTW).
Also, as far as that goes, if you’re just wearing it, I really don’t care, it’s the people that wear it to show it off or wear it ‘because I can’ that get on my nerves. I had a guy in my store a few weeks ago that was wearing a side piece but also had on a shirt that directed people to a website that presumably explained his rights. He also looked like a 50 year old dweeb.
I see what DrF said and it should probably be noted that the OP said the owner is also paying for the employees to get in range time so I working under the assumption that the employees can safely handle a shoot the weapon.
Of course, it’s really just all about a potential robber seeing the guns when he scouts out the place. Hopefully he’ll just go somewhere else and hopefully none of the employees has an itch trigger finger and shoots at something that isn’t a threat.
I’d avoid the place, nor would I do business with it online either. I wouldn’t trust the judgement or morals of such people on any subject, not just guns.
Anyone who open-carries a gun in an establishment that has nothing to do with guns, whether they work there or not, but especially if they work there, is trying to make a statement, whether they unholster it or not.
I would question their mental states, not audibly of course; I wouldn’t want to get shot, and I would never visit the place again. I would also tell everyone I know and care about to avoid the place.
A friend of mine was shot to death in his transmission shop during a robbery. They estimated he had about $80 in the till. I wish he had been carrying; maybe he’d have stood a chance.
The shop I go to (where the owner open carries) does all the work on the township police cars so I don’t know if he has an LEO or perhaps military background.
I’d find myself curious as to who they were expecting to need to shoot during the normal course of business. I would be less than comfortable shopping there, and after I left I would attempt to find a similar store to shop at in the future where people didn’t open carry.
I would note it mentally. Maybe ask about it if it’s a new policy at a store I frequent. But, depending on the location, it might make me feel safer. On the occasion I see someone in a store that’s carrying I usually think “I wonder why they feel they need to carry a gun? They must feel unsafe for some reason.” And I generally feel sympathetic.
