I think (my opinion) that some folks understand quite well that the property owner isn't telling guns to stay out but is telling them as an individual, as a person, to stay out as long as they carry a gun. And the problem arises when that individual thinks they are so special no one can tell them to stay out. How dare some mere property owner single them out as not being allowed to come into a store/business that everyone else is allowed to go into just because they are carrying a gun!!!!
You can come in, so long as you don't look too gay...or black...or Irish. Ugly stuff there bikenut.
If you want to defend private property rights to the point of repealing anti-discrimination laws, have a ball. But please don't do so while representing yourself as a gun owner. Just what we need, another excuse for the media to paint gun owners as mouth breathing, red-neck, white, bigots.
Now, to be clear, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the property rights claims. Especially when it comes to forcing bakers and florists not just to provide service to individuals, but to use their talents to support and promote events that violate their conscience.
But when it comes to denying service to someone over his skin color, his or her sex, national origin, or even sexual orientation? That is pretty tough to defend.
Do we respect the right of every grocery store in a small town to refuse service to whatever unpopular minority the town wishes to keep out? Shall motels be allowed to deny a room to sleepy travelers whose lack of a room becomes a personal and public safety issue? Are we going to force blacks to either stay home or risk wetting or soiling themselves because restrooms are off limits to them? Shall the handicapped be excluded from major segments of society because wider doors, ramps around stairs, or other modest means of access are "too costly" or someone's insurance agent would rather not assume the "risk" of accommodating those who might be more likely to fall down?
Do privately owned hospitals get to deny entrance to "undesirable" minorities? Or do owners of "essential" services have fewer rights than run-o'-the-mill grocery stores, restaurants, and movie theaters? If so, by what principle? And I might point out that some folks will go a lifetime and never need a doctor, but we all need food every couple of days at least.
I ask these questions knowing that the sanctimonious will dismiss them as mere excuses. The true believing libertarians and anarchists will wave the magic wand of "free market". But the thoughtful and open minded might consider on them and ask why gun carriers remain among the last to enjoy any legal protections when we are merely exercising a constitutionally enumerated right that just happens to be inextricably linked to the preservation of innocent life itself.
Do we really value property, mere property, over the right to effectively defend life and limb?
The presence of my gun--even OCd, but especially CCd--imposes what cost on a business owner? What damage does it do to his property?
But the lack of my gun in the moment it is needed--either in the store or while coming or going--results in very tangible risk to my very life and limb.
I just shop elsewhere you claim? Except maybe I can't. I certainly can't just work elsewhere as virtually every employer has adopted these anti-gun employment policies.
If
YOU are willing to sit at the back of the bus, or forego bus service entirely in a slavish devotion to "private property rights" be my guest.
I'm not really interested in that and will not only reserve my right to carry where legally permissible despite private business policies to the contrary, but will continue to actively work for laws to make rank discrimination against lawful gun owners and gun carriers as illegal as parallel discrimination against the disabled, racial minorities, and other protected groups.
Make your choices. I won't attack you even if I disagree.
But it is well past time to climb down off some high horses and stop attacking those who choose differently than you do. Yours is not the only valid opinion or course on how to most effectively respect and restore RKBA.
Charles
