First negative experience
So it finally happened...had a negative experience while open carry last night. Went to Lowes to look for some small carabiners. As I'm walking past the the cash registers, an employee waiting to ring people out says, in a loud voice, "Is that a gun, sir?". I smiled and said, "Yes it is." as I kept walking. Now as I am walking away from him, he says louder, "We don't allow guns in our store sir.". Since I know that the Lowes policy is to follow state law, I just kept walking to try and find what I was looking for while expecting someone to come chase me down. No one did.
While looking for the carabiners I thought about just leaving and assuming the guy was just being an ass, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided against it. So before I left, I went to the customer service desk and asked to speak to a manager. Over the phone the manager asks the customer service person what it involves, so I tell them an employee yelled at me and told me I couldn't carry a firearm in the store.
Manager comes out and I introduced myself. I told him that I was aware of Lowes policy to follow state law and that I had carried a firearm in that store previously. I then told him what happened, and said I should have addressed it then, but I wanted to find what I was looking for. He assured me that the employee in question was "a nice guy". I said that he probably was, but he was wrong about the policy and he was, in my opinion, rather loud about it. I told the manager I didn't carry a firearm to draw attention to myself and that most people didn't even notice. Being a Wednesday night, there weren't many people in the store, but if it had happened on a Saturday, the front of the store could have been full of people and that would have brought attention to me that I didn't want. The manager mentioned that it could have created a situation that no one would have wanted, to which I had to agree. In the end, the manager said he would talk to the employee about his actions.
