Open Carry Kroger (courtesy fishgame.com)

With the coming legalization of licensed open carry in Texas companies are re-examining their firearms policies. They’re determining if permitting open carry is right for them. Concealed carry follows the “out of sight out of mind” mentality, which respects a person’s right to carry a gun for self defense while keeping those more skiddish about firearms blissfully ignorant about the presence of an evil disgusting firearm. Open carry forces the issue, and makes some people feel uncomfortable. As a result . . .

some businesses that are permissive of concealed carry are putting the kaibash on open carry. Texas’ beloved H-E-B supermarket chain is one of them. From Forbes:

Billionaire-owned H-E-B has issued no public statement on its decision to disallow open carry — one that is entirely legal for a private business, as long as compliant signage is displayed.

H-E-B competitors including Whole Foods and Safeway SWY +% subsidiary Randall’s have already posted notices prohibiting open carry in their Texas stores from the moment the law comes into effect.

In the state of Texas, open carry is only be legal if the carrier also carries a concealed carry license. Realistically, by adopting a policy of permitting concealed carry and banning open carry, H-E-B is simply saying is “when you come in here, just throw your shirt over your gun please.”

It’s a pretty sensible request from a chain of stores that wants to avoid the whole gun control debate. One that allows gun owners to practice their Constitutional rights while the inner city Democrats stroll along blissfully unaware of the “danger” around them. Fair enough?

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133 COMMENTS

    • Well let’s be honest only ignorant a-holes feel the need to brazenly carry around a firearm while grocery shopping.

      • Actually, let’s be honest. It is more comfortable to open carry than it is to carry concealed in your jeans.

        I only carry concealed, but your premise is flawed. Not to mention if you can only afford one firearm, carrying a full sized one with 15+ rounds makes more sense then a pocket pistol with only 6+ rounds.

        And, as Socrates once stated: “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”

      • Well let’s be honest only ignorant a-holes feel the need to use their First Amendment right to brazenly insult peaceable people who want to exercise their Second Amendment right while grocery shopping.

      • Turn your PhD in and request a refund. There’s no way someone with a PhD in a hard science could make such a woefully illogical comment.

        Signed,

        PhD Scientist that actually uses logic.

        • Don’t forget about all those libtards with Phds in communications and underwater basketweaving. When I was in college we (in the science building, natch) used to call them the ones that were educated beyond their intelligence. That specifically included anyone with any degree in education.

        • Hahaha oh yeah you’re right everyone needs to carry around a firearm in plain view while grocery shopping to deter potential attacks by the dangerous Native American tribes in this year 1650.

          Get an F’ing clue. One can protect themselves without flashing it around while shopping in a store. Idiotic.

        • Yeah because a uniform-wearing police officer with a gun is really the same thing as some hillbilly who needs to flash his sidearm while grocery shopping.

      • So you’re calling me an ignorant ass hole because I feel the need to protect myself AND OTHERS around me WITHOUT protection on them when no police are around and some whacko comes in out of the blue blasting away?? Boy you are the ignorant fool now huh buddy!!

        • Yes you are an ignorant a-hole. 1) the scenario you describe happens with a frequency that is orders of magnitude less than someone like you shooting yourself or a loved one in a domestic dispute and 2) you don’t need open carry laws for that – concealed carry would work just fine.

      • Your comment is very unscientific for a holder of a Phd in science. Any scientist who has to resort to calling persons like myself an asshole for open carrying is a semantically challenged jerk himself. Your concerns about open carry are an invention of your mind. Or you are a political class troll spreading their BS trying to sow dissent among those of us who are not members of the decadent class. We are the Sovereign People who are extorted by the political class.

        I’ve been open carrying for four years in Michigan, and Ohio. I have been asked to not open carry in one place, a chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America. I used to meet with my VA rep. No more. They must have sworn an oath to a different constitution than I did.

        I open carry in the state capitol building and all other government buildings there, Office Max, Barnes and Noble, K-Mart, Sears, Panera Bread, every gas station I refuel at, all convenience stores, liquor shops, Meijer’s, Kroger’s, McDonald’s, Arby’s, Burger King, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Gander Mountain, Shield’s Pizzeria, National Coney Island, all state, city, and county parks and freeway rest areas, Lowe’s, Menard’s, Home Depot, walking in my neighborhood, working in the yard, my barbershop, Harbor Freight, Target, Kohls, Cheap Charlies, Rams Horn, Friar’s, the Riviera Restaurant, and other places. I have never had a complaint from another customer or management. Your concerns are baseless.

        I am a member of Michigan Open Carry, Inc. We have found that people don’t even notice that we are open carrying or if they do they don’t care.

        I find your attitude to be juvenile at best. You sound like you just don’t have the balls to open carry. Please stop disparaging those that do. We who open carry are awakening the American People that open carry is a free person’s most explicit demonstration that they are free and intend to remain so, so stop bellyaching and stand up and show your defiance of the political class.

        I did have one other place than the VVA ask me to leave. It happened at a Shield’s Pizzeria. I was at a Campaign for Liberty meeting in the back room. I was standing and talking to a friend. The night manager came in and said that a customer had complained about my having a firearm and I would have to leave. I believed the customer was a Bloomberg robot, however I left. The Campaign for Liberty people were ready to move their meetings to another location. I asked them to wait until I talked to the owner.

        I called the next day and talked with the owner. We had a very pleasant conversation. He was ignorant of the specifics of open and concealed carry in Michigan. I explained. He advised the wait staff the next day that open carry was legal and OK in his restaurant and how to handle complaints if they should arise in the future. He also told me that if the night manager had called him he would have settled the issue immediately in my favor.

        If one person complains about the peaceful actions of another patron it leaves the owner/manager in a delicate position, that is, who does he/she tell to leave the premises, the complainant or the accused?

    • In MS the same thing happened at first. Several stores hurried up and said “Not in my store!!” Then once everyone realized it isn’t a big deal most the stores got rid of their no open carry policy.

      I respect the right of a privately owned business to not allow open carry. Any business wants the most happy customers. They don’t want to alienate people who do carry guns, and they don’t want to alienate people who do not. The happy medium is concealed. I have my gun and they are blissfully ignorant.

    • Let’s be honest, nobody is seeing the forest for the crumpled newspaper.

      I should have highlighted within the italicized quote. The word the author was looking for was skittish

      http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skittish

      “Skiddish” is not currently an English language word. But I ran with it as a created extension of “skid marks” and apparently a swing and a miss…

      (This was a failed joke, it was not intended as a serious discussion point.)

  4. Thanks HEB for taking a stand against the open carry BS. Open carry will do nothing but cause problems and confusion. I love Texas but hate the idea of open carry.

    • Darn right! That pesky 2nd amendment, giving people the right to keep and bear arms. Way to take a stand, HEB!!

      • Hate to break the news to you Nate, but constitutional carry efforts failed in the Texas Legislature last session, so there is no 2nd amendment right in Texas to carry open or concealed, just a privilege for those licensed to carry.

        • Yea, funny how Texas is always the state that people turn to for their “outrageous Americans and their guns” stereotype. Even the cops down there will tell you right to your face, “Texas has is its own Constitution.” Someone needs to grow some balls down yonder and take this sh*t to supreme.

          ETA: I just looked it up, and TX is a “shall issue” state. That’s how they get around the 2nd Amendment, right there. “Oh you can carry your gun, but you have to be ‘trained’, pay a fee, and wait x amount of time.” Bullsh*t.

        • In TX, you can legally OC your AR15, always could. 30-40 years ago, many did, back window of the pickup, and loaded at that. Eventually the quality of state residents went down far enough (due to CA refugees, etc) that you couldn’t do that without your rifle being stolen, and the practice faded. But it’s still legal. So unless you can pack your assault weapon down main street, don’t be too quick to condemn TX.

      • So I have the 1st amendment right to stand up in a movie theater and disrupt the movie you are watching. After all you would not want any restrictions on my 1st would you!!!!!!

        • You have just as much right to do that as I have to shoot you for it. Try understanding apples and oranges.

        • Since the BoR is limitation on government you absolutely do have the right to do that and not be prosecuted by government for it. However since the movie theater has property rights they can kick you out for doing it as well and if you don’t leave they can have you arrested for trespassing. Just like if an open carrier goes in the business owner can have them leave as well.

          However, LarryinTX is wrong he doesn’t have the right to shoot you for being a douchenozzle and would likely be convicted if he did.

        • That’s incredibly vague, how do you define act like an idiot and does that mean the same thing to you as everyone else?

          The second amendment does guarantee the right to keep and bear arms and it does not define the way in which you bear your arms. So one should be able to bear them however they please without government infringement.

          North Carolina constitution guarantees a right to keep and bear arms but specifies that concealed carry can be regulated therefore in NC you can carry openly without permit but to CC you must have a permit.

        • Actually the constitution gives the people the right to bear arms as part of a well REGULATED militia. That the NRA has worked to pervert what that means is inconsequential – it’s there for the reading.

        • Indeed, the evil NRA has their dirty little paws in everything it would seem. Without a doubt they are a fantastic boogeyman to scare the kiddies if nothing else.

          In regards to the Second Amendment, we certainly should focus on the prefatory clause over the operative clause, however, because you know “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” completely stands on it’s own; and “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” definitely does not…

          Besides that I’ll just leave this here:
          10 U.S. Code § 311 – Militia: composition and classes
          (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
          (b) The classes of the militia are—
          (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
          (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

          Oh, an unorganized militia; who’d have thunk that a newly formed country that used a significant number of personal arms to just achieve their freedom would ever think those that are not in the Military or National Guard would be able to help protect that country from tyranny.

          Just in case my sarcasm was unable to be picked up and that you felt the need to capitalize regulated in your response. Why would the Bill of Rights, which are limitations on the government, allow in it’s second amendment the government to regulate a milita?

          Instead the second amendment is there as a check on a standing army just as the founding fathers tried to put in checks against all parts of the government. And well-regulated in an unorganized militia just means that they can regulate themselves, as in, to learn to shoot accurately and learn the basics of military tactics.

          • You’re completely foolish – even though you think you know everything about the second amendment. LOL

            So under your interpretation I should be able to have a tank, bazooka, and for that matter nuclear weapon! Hey if i’m going to protect myself from the government a little AR-15 won’t do it!

            (note my lack of sarcasm, just complete disgust with this idea that the second amendment gives free reign to do whatever the hell one wants)

            YES THAT IS THE IDEA THE NRA PUT IN YOUR HEAD. No they’re not a boogeyman, but a well funded political lobbying group that has perverted gun ownership and “rights” in america.

        • Might want to return that “PhD” and get your money back, as what ever sham school it’s from obviously didn’t teach you a damn thing.

          First, the U.S. Constitution does not grant rights. It affirms certain rights that are ours from birth, essentially saying to the federal government “hands off.”

          Second, at the time the Bill of Rights was penned, “well regulated” did not mean that there were a bunch of rules in place. It meant that something was functioning properly. A well regulated clock is one that keeps time accurately. A well regulated double barrel shotgun shoots to the same point of aim out of both barrels.

          Finally, anybody with a modest understanding of English grammar understands that the second amendment does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms to a well regulated militia. In modern English, that sentence would read “Because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

          http://www.mcsm.org/english.html

          • You might want to learn more about the constitution than how you can use it to support the insane belief that Americans have the right to any and every type of weapon with no regulations on their use.

            Clearly, your grasp of modern English is not so great since you’ve just twisted the meaning to support your cause, but that’s what the gun nuts have been doing for the last 40 years! And that’s why America stands out among the developed nations as the country with significantly more gun murder and death than any of the wealthy western nations.

        • Yes, that bastion of conservatism, the Oxford English Dictionary, the source of every single example used in the linked article, which was written by Constitutional scholar Brain T. Halonen.

          • Oh now you’re pretending to have cited Oxford English Dictionary?

            I only saw you cite these very skewed conservative websites:

            http://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm

            http://www.mcsm.org/english.html

            Hint anyone can write garbage and claim their version of English is correct – you must of learned that from the NO SPIN master Bill O’Reilly?

            And you must of missed US history in that only in very recent times (late 70s) has their been a political movement on the right to change what the 2nd amendment actually says…

        • Or were you referring to J. Neil Schulman’s article about “a conversation with Mr. A. C. Brocki, Editorial Coordinator for the Office of Instruction of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Mr. Brocki taught Advanced Placement English for several years at Van Nuys High School, as well as having been a senior editor for Houghton Mifflin. I was referred to Mr. Brocki by Sherryl Broyles of the office of Instuction of the L.A. Unified School District, who described Mr. Brocki as the foremost expert in grammar in the Los Angeles Unified School District–the person she and others go to when they need a definitive answer on English grammar.”

          • LOL a guy with some marginal credentials who the gun nut fringe movement cites up and down. It’s like they found one person with some english language skills (though not an actually researcher or PhD?) and they want to rest their whole case on him.

            Just google his name it’s hilarious!!

        • Reading comprehension isn’t one of your strengths, is it?

          I cited an article written by Constitutional scholar Brian T. Halonen. He used the Oxford English Dictionary as a source to establish the meaning of the phrase “well regulated” that was in common use both before and after the penning of the Bill of Rights.

          • I comprehend just fine – reread what I wrote to you.

            Furthermore the authors you cite have no actual credentials as “scholars”. Brian T Halohen has written like one book 25 years ago LOL.

            He’s not an authority, but another half wit your side holds up for faux scientific evidence.

        • Roy Copperud also agreed with Schulman’s interpretation of the 2nd amendment.

          “Roy Copperud was a newspaper writer on major dailies for over three decades before embarking on a a distinguished 17-year career teaching journalism at USC. Since 1952, Copperud has been writing a column dealing with the professional aspects of journalism for Editor and Publisher, a weekly magazine focusing on the journalism field.

          He’s on the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and Merriam Webster’s Usage Dictionary frequently cites him as an expert. Copperud’s fifth book on usage, American Usage and Style: The Consensus, has been in continuous print from Van Nostrand Reinhold since 1981, and is the winner of the Association of American Publisher’s Humanities Award.”

          http://www.constitution.org/2ll/schol/2amd_grammar.htm

    • I’m always on the fence with open carry. I lived in the PHX area about 10 years ago. In town, and especially out of the city, no big deal. Everyone was used to it, and there was a healthy gun culture. When I was a kid in the MW boonies, guns were in every car and every truck, and often on every belt.

      That said, since we let people spend 40+ years becoming uncomfortable with guns in public around most of the country, I really think we should get them a bit more acclimated, with another decade or so of mass concealed-carry. Then they’ll (mostly) be so used to it that it will be a non-event.

      My concern is the shrill whining of the perpetually-terrified-of-the-wrong-thing class, and that sadly, it is often listened to. I hope that I’m wrong, and it just makes a little noise for a few minutes, then fades away. But I can smell Bloomie filling up his Depends as a write, and The HuffyPo types have their panties set to maximum twist.

      • I understand where you’re coming from, but how does concealed carry acclimate anyone? The ignorant will simply assume that, since they can’t see the guns, they must not be there. We could have a century of peaceful, safe concealed carry, and there would still be wailing and gnashing of teeth when open carry is introduced.

        • I don’t any good direct studies to link, but I would offer that even the antis, know the guns are there. The longer they know the guns are there, the longer without an incident, the less the hysteria.

          Like when we got CCW back in MO. Early on, much whining and fear. Now? Acceptance. They’re pretty much over it.

      • I believe the last two decades have show definitively that any social group discriminated against for their activities will make no ground towards acceptance so long as they remain in the shadows and go about their business surreptitiously as though it were illegal or they were ashamed.

        We have a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms – it’s time we came out of the closet and proclaimed our liberty. Those that do not feel comfortable with that can go hide in a corner and piss themselves.

        • Like I said, I’m always on the fence. I don’t disagree with you in the ideal. I would merely offer that there is a time to take a seat at the front of the bus, and a time to sit in at a lunch counter.

          Do it at the wrong time, and it can be counter-productive to your cause. Regardless of holding the moral high ground.

        • I can’t agree with that “make no ground” business. Not only in TX but in many other states, beginning with FL in 1987, gun rights have been moving in a positive direction for decades.

      • Yeah because everyone knows more guns makes everyone safer. That is if you ignore all data and science. But then we do know the average Texas resident thinks the earth is 6000 years old and man was whooshed into existence immediately preceding an altercation with an apple and talking snake. Thus, it’s really not hard to see why they would believe that kind of erroneous garbage.

    • Speak for yourself. I carry both open or concealed all the time. I have never had any issues or caused any disturbances. I like to carry open because it allows me to carry more comfortably and carry a larger gun with spare magazines without feeling like I have a bunch of 2×4’s shoved down my pants all day.

      • I also mix CC and OC, and have never had a single issue while OC-ing. And, I see others OC-ing with fair regularity and no one is giving them grief, either.

        It is amazing how NOT a big deal it is, even though so many people seem to have their underwear tied in knots over the mere possibility of visible firearms.

        The anti-OC “movement” is more emotional sheep bleating to create a cause where none exists.

    • Funny how PA is more free than Texas on this issue. PA has non-permitted open carry. With that said, I believe it serves a positive purpose except for those idiots that carry a rifle at low ready or leave them stacked in a booth at a restaurant. Familiarity can breed acceptance and while it may also breed contempt, I don’t think those folks were on our side to begin with.

      Open carry is one option. It should be accepted by gun owners as opposed to a point of division. If it’s not for you, don’t do it.

      • Funny how Texas haters shade and shave the truth about their own states to shoehorn in some bragging rights.

        For example, Pennsylvania has a law requiring a license to carry concealed (as does Texas). Pennsylvania has a law requiring a license to carry in a vehicle, which, oh no!, Texas does not require. Hmm. How about that?

        Anyway, on the topic of open carry, yes, Texas by law does require license. However, Pennsylvania law is merely silent on the issue. It does not actually explicitly allow the practice. That’s a huge difference, especially when you’re dealing with a cop on the scene. (A number of other states’ laws are silent on the issue of carrying in a bar, but try doing so and seeing what the reaction would be.)

        Moreover, Pennsylvania requires a license to carry at all in a “city of the first class”, which only Philadelphia qualifies as. Philadelphia itself, however, comprises some 12% of the population of the state. So that’s a huge carve out right there where so-called unlicensed OC isn’t allowed. Beyond that, you have to look at the greater Philadelphia area, since as a practical matter, living/working close tends to mean interacting with or traveling through Philadelphia, too. That’s defined as the Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in this case includes Philadelphia, Camden, NJ and Wilmington, DE, and covers some 5.75 million people.

        Granted, Camden and Wilmington’s populations are included (a whopping 150K +/- combined), but the majority of that is Philly’s suburbs. In a state of 12 million, over 5 million living within or inescapably nearby a “first class city” means that nearly half the state is excluded from this vaunted, de facto, kinda sorta unlicensed open carry situation. Color me unimpressed……

    • Thanks, Q, for imposing your hatreds on the rest of us. What or whom else do you hate that you would appreciate businesses banning from the premises? Blacks? Gays? Catholics? The handicapped? Gypsies?

        • No argument there, but they should also have the foresight to avoid mistakes like this which will (hopefully) cost them money. As long as I have a choice of where to buy groceries they HAVE to make concessions to me as a customer or I will just go somewhere that does. That’s the beauty of competition.

    • Actually, as with “fashion” that people stare at initially but eventually ignore, the same would happen for open carry. I’d personally much rather see a pistol in a holster on someone’s hip than some of the “fashion” you see late night at WalMart (see: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com for examples.)

      Sure at first it would seem strange, but like any phobia, repeated exposure can be a cure.

      Not to mention that pesky “shall not be infringed” bit…only place it occurs in the Constitution/Amendments is in the Second, after all.

  5. I have exactly two choices of grocery stores within a reasonable distance from home: H-E-B and Randall’s. I was hoping to start seeing people carrying openly in my area, but a minefield of 30.07 signs will have the same effect as a law against open carry.

  6. Hope she has time to hit the sweet spot on that holster, and rack the slide before the BG can do his thing.

    • I have no problems with those holsters and they work just fine. But, yeah, she should be carrying with one in the chamber.

    • Agreed on your points, but perhaps her point is that she CAN kill you, given the chance, not that she could out-draw you. How many criminally minded punks do you thin would want to give her the opportunity to try? The greatest deterrent provided by open carry is that the bad guys will see armed victims and quietly move on to another location.

  7. Fair enough for me, and most others I would suppose.
    I did cross keyboards with one guy so adamant on open carry as the only way, he resented the Whataburger hamburger chain allowing concealed carry, and not allowing him to open carry. I suggested that if he wanted to “make a statement” he leave his open carry holster in plain sight and perhaps keep a concealed gun somewhere else while on the premises. That resulted in all sorts of excuses why that was just impossible, unsafe, and I guess plain old unsatisfactory to him.
    That kind of “no compromise” can be matched very easily by storeowners shifting their position from “concealed only” to “NO GUNS”.

  8. All they are asking is that you keep it concealed. There are some businesses that don’t want you to carry openly or concealed in their establishments. For people to use this as a good reason to not shop at HEB anymore is silly. Please people chose your battles wisely because there are bigger more eminent threats on our rights than a company asking us to conceal our weapons.

    • If the requirement were that while in the store all women must wear skirts all the way to their ankles, sleeves to their wrists, and burkas over their faces, to conceal all outward sign of their gender, your viewpoint would change. Or not.

      If the requirement were that all homosexual couples refrain from holding hands or exhibiting any other common public display of affection, to conceal all outward sign of their sexual orientation, your viewpoint would change. Or not.

      If the requirement were that all Catholic individuals must tuck their rosary beads or crucifix necklace under their collars, to conceal all outward sign of their religious faith, your viewpoint would change. Or not.

      Bigotry is bigotry, separate but equal or concealment mandates not withstanding. I suppose firearms carriers should consider themselves lucky. Under the regime of people like you, they’d be forced to wear their license on their lapels or have their license numbers tattooed on their arms, if they could carry at all.

    • Have plenty of long tail shot sleeve shirts to cover hip holstered handgun from car to store
      Would be more offended if big box sporting goods stores that also sell guns & ammo ban any kind of carry, open or otherwise.

      Last year was walking downtown Main street in Fredericksburg, wearing a suede jacket, wind kept blowing it open displaying holstered revolver, I’m sure a number of folks were
      flashed, but no excited “gun!” was heard, no 911 calls. Small Texas towns are different than
      Texas big cities.
      And hope to be moving back to Fredericksburg in 2016

    • -1

      That attitude enables businesses to think it’s perfectly fine to compromise the rights of their customers and treat good, law-abiding people as undesirables simply for exercising certain rights they don’t like. HEB can sit on it, Potsey.

      • If you are married with kids you should understand why anyone would feel the need to compromise in an attempt to satisfy both sides in order to keep peace for the good of the entire family. Sometimes there is a mate that is so selfish that they refuses to compromise and sometimes at the expense of dividing his or her family.

        That is what HEB is trying to do as an attempt to satisfy its customer. In my opinion, it was the best business decision that they could make in order to appease all its customers.

        You sir (and everyone that feels like HEB should conform to only your individual wishes), are a very selfish individual.

  10. Um……it’s more like:

    “Realistically, by adopting a policy of permitting concealed carry and banning open carry, H-E-B is simply saying is ‘We just want to sell the maximum amount of groceries to the maximum number of customers. When you come in here, just throw your money on the counter and your dignity out the window, so as not to disturb our business model or our other customers’ hysterical hoplophobia.'” Well.

    SCREW YOU, HEB! Split the baby with your own freedoms, jackwagons. I’ve already sent them (and Whataburger) a polite email the other day advising that my family and I are ending our decades long run of doing business with them.

    • This is exactly why HEB is so successful. It was a business decision not a personal attack. They didn’t ask you to leave it in your car, just pull your shirt over it or wear a cover garment. Whats the big deal? What’s so important about you putting your rights on display? We have the 1st amendment but its always the quiet ones that you should be worried about. I chose to be the gun that the bad guy doesn’t see coming.

  13. “They’re determining if permitting open carry is right for them. Concealed carry follows the “out of sight out of mind” mentality…”

    So do they allow homosexual couples into the store as long as they don’t hold hands? (I have no issue with the Gay community, simply using it to point out the lack of consistency.)

    Descrimination by any other name…

  14. I find it interesting that safeway and whataburger are so adamant against open carry in Texas since I regularly open carry in those same stores in Arizona with no problems at all.

    • Yeah, I don’t get that. It may be racism. I know AZ is very racially diverse, but TX is majority minority.

    • I see the same parallel. I read HEB’s policy as “No open carry now! No open carry tomorrow! No open carry forever!”

  16. The only value I see in Open Carry is it protects a concealed carry person from possibly breaking the law if they unintentionally expose their concealed firearm (e.g. their shirttail lifts too high reaching for a can of soup on the top shelf at the grocery store), if they are protecting their homestead during a natural disaster or in the “back country hiking.
    Open carry in an urban setting just doesn’t make sense as is in who does the criminal shoot first during a robbery or providing an opportunity for someone nefarious to grab the firearm.

    • …if my memory of history is correct:
      Didn’t Wyatt Earp and Bill Hickock require the checking of guns at the city limit!
      Have CL almost 6 years, doesn’t bother me at all to conceal carry. My concern are open carry characters who are just too – hot tempered and strongly opinionated.
      Keep it in your pants, sport. This isn’t worth getting riled up for.
      …just sayin’ …

      • Blacks who want to ride in the back of the bus don’t concern me. The ones who wanna ride in the front are just too hot tempered and strongly opinionated. Sit in the back, sport. This ain’t worth getting riled up for. And I have several black friends!

      • Didn’t Wyatt Earp and Bill Hickock require the checking of guns at the city limit!

        I see that you are quite the movie fan.

        Do you think that people who lived in town were required to check their guns?

      • This used to concern me until I did a little research and learned that Kansas at that time was still a territory, not a state, and so the Second Amendment did not apply.

    • First of all, criminals generally don’t carry the highest quality firearms available, to say the least. Most are committing crimes to support drug, alcohol or gambling addictions. Expensive habits all. If they stumble across (steal) a quality firearm, they’re far more apt to sell it for the cash than use it to rob. Even armed with a decent gun, they may not be able to afford the ammunition. This is backed up by the research, too.

      Some 30% of armed robberies are committed with unloaded guns. Another 10-15% are committed with replica, toy or BB guns. So right off the bat, nearly half of “armed” robbers are wielding fake or unloaded guns. The victim doesn’t know that, to be sure, but the robber does. He will not “shoot first” the open carrier, because he cannot.

      Beyond that, many other guns used in armed robberies are broken or otherwise not functional. Some 13% of guns seized have broken firing mechanisms, or the wrong caliber ammunition, or the wrong magazine jammed into the mag well, or they’re clogged beyond use with gunk, grease or debris. Add these to the above, and you’re looking at over half, maybe nearly 3/5, of seized guns that aren’t likely/able to harm anyone. That just speaks to capacity, but what about desire to shoot? It’s generally lacking.

      Gunshots attract attention. Homicides carry stiffer penalties. Shootings receive more investigative resources. They also leave behind more evidence. Most criminals, whose relevant weapon is intimidation, aren’t interested in killing anyone, but just getting the cash quickly. All of these elements combine to dissuade most violent criminals from shooting anyone, which is also born out by the stats. Less than 1% of violent crime results in a gunshot injury. Less than 5% of violent crimes committed by a firearm-wielding attacker results in a victim actually being shot. (Now, knife or club wielding criminals? Watch out! The stats are much higher on their injuring someone. Might want to open carry to minimize your firearm presentation time!)

      Many open carriers report that the vast majority of people they encounter don’t even notice their sidearm. It seems extremely unlikely that an armed robber, hopped up on drugs, booze and/or adrenaline, would mysteriously overcome his stress-induced tunnel vision and take down the nearest open carrier with SEAL-like precision? Please.

      “Open carriers essentially wear a ‘shoot me first sign’” is THE lamest anti-gun claims since the “blood will run in the streets” foolishness.

    • “Open carry in an urban setting just doesn’t make sense”

      Says who? Are you the arbiter of what “makes sense” everywhere?

      “as is in who does the criminal shoot first during a robbery or providing an opportunity for someone nefarious to grab the firearm.”

      Good grief. Do you realize how utterly and completely moronic this sounds?

      Name ONE TIME this “shoot the OC-er first” thing has actually happened.

      One.

      And, oh, here’s my counter-example for “OC can be a deterrent.”

      http://www.examiner.com/article/open-carry-deters-armed-robbery-kennesaw

      How come those OC-ers were not “shot first” when those guys wanted to rob the place?

      All you show with the “shoot the OC-er first” nonsense is that you are completely ignorant of violent crime victim selection psychology. I suggest you educate yourself, do some research on actual real-world situations and rethink your indefensible position.

      This trollish nonsense comes out of the woodwork every single time an OC related article here is posted. It gets refuted time and time again, and yet every time…here it comes.

      Don’t like OC? Fine. Don’t do it. But don’t hide behind BS you don’t even understand but are just repeated because someone else said it so it must be true.

  17. Fair enough.

    Businesses are private property and the owners should be able to decide who they will serve based on any criteria they choose.

    Here in South Dakota a permit is required for concealed carry but open carry is allowed everywhere by anyone. A few folks can be seen packing at Safeway once in awhile, but most are considerate enough of others’ feelings that we spring for the $15 permit.

  18. “It’s a pretty sensible request from a chain of stores that wants to avoid the whole gun control debate.”

    A more sensible move would be to just stay silent on the issue unless and until it’s a problem. I’ll bet the vast majority of HEB stores would only see a handful of OC customers a month, anyway. Less than 1 in 30 Texans has a carry permit in the first place, and nearly all of them, if they carry at all, will probably continue to carry concealed. I just don’t see mass waves of OC’ers flooding the streets and stores past the first week in January, once the novelty has worn off.

    By jumping in to “get ahead” of the issue, HEB will only draw the ire of gun owners (even some who never planned to OC anyway), and gain very little, if anything. They only reason they can do so more or less with impunity is HEB’s near-monopoly on grocery stores in many areas of the state.

    • HEB math – 29 out of 30 Texans do not have carry permits. Which group of customers do we want to risk antagonizing?

      • Sure, but 28.95 of those 29 don’t give two thirds of a half-eaten shit about open carry one way or the other. Heck, 20 of them probably don’t even know what the phrase “open carry” means. Ban OC, don’t ban OC, those people aren’t going to care (or even notice) either way. So you ban OC, and piss off most of the (very motivated, informed, and serious about the issue) gun folks, and you gain kudos from a tiny handful of anti-gun activists who probably shop at Whole Foods anyway. I just don’t see much upside for HEB.

  19. The single most important effort in the civil rights struggle for firearms equality, is the normalization of the sight of firearms on citizens, not just the police and military. If rights mean anything, they have to be expressed openly. For the Second Amendment that means open carry. What is the difference between telling black Americans they can not eat at store restaurant counters in the past, which is a blatant violation of civil rights, and telling all Americans, including black Americans, that they can not openly carry the means to their defense as guaranteed by the Constitution into those same stores? If stores intend to remain open, they have to be open to the expression of Constitutional rights. We live in a strange country, where a baker can be prosecuted for not making a gay marriage wedding cake because of their religious expression, but citizens are routinely denied Constitutional rights just because they chose to show the means of defending themselves openly.

  20. “H-E-B competitors including Whole Foods and Safeway SWY +% subsidiary Randall’s have already posted notices prohibiting open carry in their Texas stores from the moment the law comes into effect.”

    Whole Foods has 30.06 signs prohibiting concealed carry too, although last I looked, their signs weren’t legal, because they were too small. I wonder if their 30.07 signs are up to code. I don’t go there anymore because of their anti-concealed carry policy, even though the signs don’t have legal standing.

    I’m not thrilled with this decision by HEB, but I’ll keep going there.

    • “I’m not thrilled with this decision by HEB, but I’ll keep going there.”

      And that right there is the problem. “Keep shitting on my rights; I’ll still give you my money!” We live in a country where one has the right to do business wherever they choose, and yet when a business denies you the rights brave men and women have died for- Oh well! Too inconvenient to go anywhere else! Lah dee dah!

      • I’m thinking it would be a several-hundred mile drive to go elsewhere. Pardon me, but HEB it is, just as it was when any kind of carry was illegal everywhere in TX.

  21. Annnnnnnnd…I see folks open carrying in INdiana with nary a problem. Do you weenies freak out when you see a cop? I don’t remember seeing any criminals open carrying(maybe a baseball bat) LOL…

    • Do you weenies freak out when you see a cop?

      Actually, I do freak out when I see the cops in my town, but that’s only because I know most of them. 🙂

  22. Well, as usual with OC articles, the never-see-before vague userid trolls come out in force.

    I’m beginning to think Bloomberg is funding a bunch of folks to sit around and wait for these posts so they can ‘astroturf’ their way in with a bunch of flaming, trollish comments.

    For those anti-OC folks that think they are coming at this as pro 2A, I don’t care if you prefer OC or CC for your daily carry. Do it and STFU about it. Why the solipsist need to try to demand what is right for others?

  25. This is a bummer, especially in San Antonio where HEB has run all the competition out of town. (Walmart and Target don’t count)

  26. ………………………………………………………………………………….
    Most Demcrats are anti gun lovers, I’am making the proposal for everyone to change their political affiliation to Republican. I have been a Democrat for over 40 years and I’am embarrassed by their stupidty . Most Repubicans are pro gun and we need to get more of them in office. This is easy to do and will shock the Democrat party.
    Spread this to as many forums as you can ………

  27. “It’s a pretty sensible request from a chain of stores that wants to avoid the whole gun control debate.”

    What a bizarre conclusion. When you post at 30.07 sign (or any sign regarding firearms), you have jumped head-first into the whole gun control debate. Especially if you’re doing it preemptively, before the law takes effect. It’s a solution in search of a problem.

    The way for retailers to “avoid the whole gun control debate” is to concentrate on selling their wares to any and all willing buyers, and let state legislatures set standards for public behavior.

  28. Here in Pennsylvania I went grocery shopping today in both Walmart and Giant Eagle. No signs anywhere. OCed the whole time. If anybody even noticed, they didn’t care.

    The way people are carrying on down in the Lone Star State, you’d think it was the end of the world as we know it. Here in the Keystone State, it’s no big deal.

  31. Open carry doesn’t bother me because if I’m carrying concealed, I’m sure others are armed too, and that thought does not worry me. I wouldn’t open carry because it would draw too much attention to myself, and I’m a firm believer in deterrence and keeping the bad guys guessing. I only wish I didn’t have to keep my firearm perfectly concealed. I could wear a larger, better weapon more comfortably without worrying about printing and the odd occasional outline to my body.

    • How exactly does your concealed firearm serve as a deterrent?

      The probability of me becoming a victim of a violent crime is completely unchanged by the fact that I have a gun hidden under my shirt.

      I would rather not be a victim in the first place. If I can, I prefer to stop the threat before it turns into a physical reality. If you think that it’s better to stop a threat using your surprise tactics once you’re on your back getting your head smashed in, then that’s your decision.

  32. From what I read their excuse came from that they sell alcohol and don’t want to break state law. But unless they make 51 percent or more of their sales from alcohol then this excuse doesn’t hold up.

  33. I hadn’t heard HEB was going to post the no open carry signs until my wife told me. She is far happier about open carry than I am, given that it’s very hard for her to conceal a pistol on her person, especially toting the munchkin about. I find it interesting that since she has become a gun person, she gets quite offended when people tell her she can’t carry, especially as a college professor. I doubt we’ll stop completely shopping at HEB, but as now, it’ll mostly be to buy the gluten free pizza crusts they have. (Far better than Udi’s and cheaper. Wife isn’t celiac, but stab her with an epi pen allergic to wheat and barley.) Kroger is far closer and doesn’t care how we carry.

  34. I live in Michigan. I open carry everywhere I go except my doctor’s and dentist’s offices. In the three years I have open carried I had only had one incident where I was asked to not open carry and that was at a Vietnam Veteran’s post in Roseville. I haven’t been back.

    I open carry when driving, fishing, walking, shopping, or dining out. No one gives me a second look. 99.9% of the people around me don’t notice. A peaceful person carrying a holstered firearm is no more threatening to them than a peaceful person carrying a cell phone or pager on their belt. The only people who worry about the open carry of a firearm usually want to make a statement or share their opinion.

    The country has come a long way since the Gun Control Act of 1968 in realizing that an armed society is a safer society. The People have awakened and are defying the gun control paranoids all over the country. I’m not going to back pedal by giving into the anti-open carry crowd. The open carrying of a firearm is the most visible statement that I can make that I am a free man and that I intend to remain free.

    • Ronald, my experiences in PA are almost identical to yours. I also open carry everywhere I go. No one bats an eye, and I’m sure most people don’t even notice.

    • “An armed society is a safer society?” That’s pure mythological B.S. – NRA type fantasy.

      What all the data shows us is that the U.S. stands as an outlier amongst wealthy developed nations with the amount of gun murder and gun violence we have here.

      You can say you love your guns and you don’t want anyone to regulate them at all, but DO NOT pretend they make us safer. That argument is 100% false!

      • May you be faced with someone who intends you harm, and you have only your PhD to argue to them not to harm you. I’ll stand by the side with my gun and watch.

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